Yet Another Unscheduled COC

Bull Sir,

I was standing on my apartment balcony in Alameda many years past and watched in disbelief as the Kitty ( or was it the newly commished Karl?) having just returned from a WESPAC got herself parked in the bay mud long of the turn-in for the berth. It was 10:30 in the morning and the fog had burned of hours ago.
Needless to say, the pier was packed with family and friends awaiting. It would be 7 or 8 hours before the tide came up enough to push her off with major tug assist.

Don't know what happened to her skipper, the bay pilot was calling the shots I'm sure but
ultimate authority rests.....

Richard

There is a story about a fast boat returning from a deployment to Pearl Harbor in the late '60s. It was Christmas Eve and they very much wanted to get home for Christmas. They mistook the channel buoys for the range heading into Pearl Harbor and ended up hard aground.
The boat spent Christmas day stuck in plain sight of everyone...

My own mud story:

I was in Morro Bay for the week-end to visit my then girlfriend and was talking on the porch with the father of the family she was living with while she attended San Luis Obispo State.

He, a retired L.A. City fireman turned Commercial Salmon fisherman, suggested I take a tour of the bay since dinner was an hour or so in the makin and asked if I could handle an 18 ft. whaler to which I replyed in the affirmitive. He took me down to the dock and saw me off with just a passing comment about staying inside the channel markers.
I was probably 20 mins into my curise and about a half mile into the bay and thankfully
just barely had the throttle open when I was rudely thrown into the standing console by the abrupt stoppage of said whaler punctuated by the killing of the motor. After I picked myself off the deck, I glanced over the side and my eyes were drawn to a bright orange starfish which I could have easily picked up
since it was resting in only about a foot of bay water! "What the hell?"

But it gets even better, the fog is rolling in, and if the E.R had not just called me in for a shift I could tell you the rest of this sad tale which includes a lost oar, mocking harbor seals and my introduction to "SPATIAL DISORIENTATION" which was, in and of itself,
a very scary aspect heaped on top of an already deteriorating situation.

I'll get back later,

RJB

I recall from the Biggs lectures that Chester Nimitz ran his first 3 ships/boats aground, which is why the Navy put him as the solo blue-suiter in America's submarine program. A career-ending position until WWI comes along.

Still - the Army's General Officer corps would be an altogether different group if the Army had the same ethic of command.

I remember a certain CO with all his jackassery thought he could park a ship between a turkish frigate on a pier and some other ship better than the port pilot in Italy. So after consistently yelling at the port pilot in an Italian accent(he wasn't of italian descent nor could speak italian...at least the junior officers weren't tortured by the pathetic accent while getting yelled at 24/7), the port pilot pretty much gave him a big one fingered salute, left the pilot house, and the CO took control. So then we see some turkish sailors hangin' off the port side of their ship with shirts off, cigarettes in mouth, getting closer and closer. They were there chatting it up and having a good time. Closer and closer the ship came when the Turks noticed that the bow of our ship was 10 or so meters away and approaching. Cigarettes fell out of their mouths and they started running. Fortunately the Italian tugs were able to prevent our ship from t-boning the turkish frigate and we moored the ship safely. The port pilot after wiping the 10 tons of sweat off of his head, shook his head, smiled, and left the ship.

missouri went aground in cheasepeak bay. during harry trumans administration.

right out where all the brass of army, navy, marines, coastguard, air force and both houses of congress could see.

c

c - hence the three yellow "battleship" buoys that mark the north side of the channel as you are turning onto the range (045T) leg before you get to Ft. Monroe.

I meant 225T leg (outbound is 045T).

I'm very suprised they fired a woman. Usually they just promote them. THAT is real progress when women get treate exactly the same as men.

I ask this because I sincerely don't know...

Is there a reason that would produce the COCs that you're documenting? Is it just a series of random failures in leadership, or is there something connecting these replacements?

While I trust that the Navy would not make unscheduled changes of commanders for no reason, can you point to where the Navy is failing in it's mission(s) because of poor leadership?

Az - no, there does not appear to be any connecting thread for these reliefs. A couple appear to have been for fraternization, while this one, in particular was hazarding a ship. These point to potential character flaws in the individual. Is is a "zero defect" mentality? I don't think so. I think it is a far cry from ENS Nimitz running an old (even then) 4-stack destroyer aground when compared to an experienced CDR running a multi-billion dollar DDG aground. Still, it is all about accountability. I am aware of at least one case that occurred during my career when a CO ran acround and was relieved, and this was a rare case of a bad thing happening to a good person. And a good crew.
Sometimes it seems you have a string of these together (like we have seen in the last month) and some people want to point out that the Navy is falling down and "OhmyGodtheNavyisinbigtrouble!!!!" and the sky is falling. To the contrary, I tend to agree with Skippy that this is proof the system is working.
I only hope that the leaders of the Navy look for trends to see what we can do to better select/train those selected for command.
A lot of time, effort, and capital go into preparing an individual for command of a ship or squadron. It should not be wasted.

these groundings are black eyes for navigators etc. but i think a certain component is putting the ships schedule in jeapordy. the skippers are under tremendous pressure to "make our dates" because the admirals staffs schedule every thing very tightly in order to do the work of ten ships with the 8 that congress gave them.

c

Richard,

I think it was Enterprise that grounded on the sandbar. I was Navigator on an amphib entering Alameda with the same pilot (before the Bit E event). While it was disconcerting to crab about 15 degrees to port to stay in the channel because of the currents in San Francisco Bay, I was surprised (and my CO was disgusted) that the pilot didn't seem to understand you had to point the bow well to the left of where you were headed.

We had no doubt why Enterprise ended up in the mud.

Tim,

Thanks for the memory jag. I think you are correct, man, can you even imagine crabbin
a bird farm of all things? What the hell would that even look like. Not to mention the untold stresses that would put on a hull of that size.
Maybe that was Alameda's undoing in the long run, just too much shifty mud from the delta.
Hell I sailed that water for years in J-boats and let me tell you, that S.F bay could be a real unforgiving bitch if you weren't paying attention almost all of the time.

Thanks

Recall one BALTOPS in the 90's - Swedish pilot onboard and tug pulling our CG backwards. New NAV still calling out fixes in a narrow channel. Timeline:

0900 - BMOW: "Admiral's on the bridge"

0901 - NAV: "Hold us 30 seconds from running aground"

0901 + 10 seconds - BMOW: "Admiral's off the bridge".

We didn't run aground.