Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

[ansible]

This is insane. I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this.

It's one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself. But even if this stunt had worked, you're looking at many months of downtime while your ship is being repaired in drydock. Millions of dollars, and bigtime loss of capability for a small navy.

Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don't intentionally hit anything (tugboats nudge after gently making contact, they do not ram).

If this cruise liner was not following instructions (seems more like an act of piracy than legit, but that is another discussion), then you fire a shot or two off the bow of the offending ship. That usually gets people's attention.

Ramming? WTF?

[js2]

I mean, less crazy than trying to ram a ship with a locomotive I suppose:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

https://in.reuters.com/video/watch/idOVC7T0OCH

Strange days.

[i_am_proteus]

Ramming (or "shouldering") is not that uncommon. The Chinese Coast Guard has built large, lightly-armed ships[1] partly because the size helps them ram/shoulder other ships out of the way in the course of attempting to build artificial islands and claim sovereignty in the South China Sea.

Of course, ramming an 8500-ton icebreaker with a 1500-ton corvette is a different story, and in the Venezuelan case, the stupid have been punished.

[1] https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/beijing-builds-monster-ship-...

(edited for grammar)

[willvarfar]

Old timers here may recall The Cod Wars?

Iceland and Britain duked it out in three major confrontations, the navies ramming each other but not firing a shot.

There are some truly spectacular videos on YouTube etc.

[bpodgursky]

Venezuela has a habit (recently) of putting loyalty ahead of meritocracy in government positions. I would not be at all surprised if the captain had minimal actual nautical experience, but a lot of party loyalty.

[m4rtink]

Well, ramming used to be BIG:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lissa_(1866)

One can't possibly blame the captain wanting to be as cool as admiral Tegetthoff back then:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anton_Romako_001.jpg

[goatinaboat]

I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this.

These regimes see threats behind every curtain and under every plant pot. It’s possible he really believed, or had convinced himself at least, that as the article says it was full of mercenaries planning to overthrow the regime.

[eatbitseveryday]

> I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this.

Well, the article does quote this, which sort of makes sense. Doesn’t seem like a totally insane idea, just really poorly implemented.

> The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters.

[Scarbutt]

I wondered if the Captain let himself sink with the ship.

[hirundo]

The Venezuelan ship had a 76mm gun, maybe one like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm

Why would you ram when you could shoot up the other ship with 85 to 120 fourteen pound shells per minute, with no risk to your own ship?

Maybe they didn't actually have the ammo. Or maybe they decided to play chicken with the cruise ship and lost.

[battery_cowboy]

Those shells will do nothing to stop the ship but will just kill a lot of people for no gains. If they wanted to seize the ship, they should have brought a boarding party with them, I'm sure they have trained sailors for that.

Source: I'm a former naval officer and I served as an ordnance officer on a ship with that exact 76mm gun. I also acted as the officer of the deck for quite a few boardings.

[detaro]

Because pushing/ramming a bigger ship (especially if you do little damage) is more in the realm of the kind of bullying that gets tolerated by other countries than firing on a civilian ship with a heavy gun. It appears they misjudged the "little damage" part.

[jandrese]

They weren't trying to sink the cruise ship, they were trying to turn their tiny destroyer into a tugboat and push the cruise ship into a port where it could be seized.

[jvanderbot]

TFA claims the navy vessel was attempting to steer the larger ship. It at least answers your question, but raises more questions ...

[Scarbutt]

They were trying to steer the cruise not destroy it , but didn't expect a reinforced hull.

[fbonetti]

Well that's embarrassing. Could you imagine being the crew of the cruise ship and having to rescue the clowns that just tried to ram you?

[lonelappde]

As I understand it, sailors have strong ethics because the sea is the common enemy of all. Even sailors on ships at war will rescue the enemy after incapacitating their boat.

[antpls]

From the article :

"Columbia Cruise Services says Resolute remained in the area until it was clear its services were not required to help in the rescue of the 44 crew members. It then continued on, as planned, to the Port of Willemstad in Curaçao."

Then

"Even if the cruise liner had deliberately sailed within 12 miles of Isla La Tortuga, it very likely would have been legally entitled to do so under the right of innocent passage, unless Venezuelan officials believe the ship of conducting some other prohibited activity."

[toomuchtodo]

Rescue would likely be an upgrade from conditions in Venezuela for the Venezuelan Navy crew.

[a3n]

And then, full chutzpah, the rescued crew commandeer the cruise ship, having "boarded" it.

[firekvz]

They ran away, they didn't rescue them.

Kinda shows that they might be on blame

Ps: Venezuelan here and I hate my gov but this looks really shaddy

[fouc]

> Of course, this would not be the first time a country has seized, or attempted to seize, a commercial ship to exert its own pressure on its international opponents.

Seems like many HN readers are failing to make it to this line, and are assuming "crazy captain" as the motivation.

[tuukkah]

More info on the cruise liner: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCGS_Resolute

Seems buying one made in Finland can be a lucky charm as ice breaking is obligatory here.

[boomboomsubban]

Why was the cruise ship in those waters? The ship was in the news last November about how they had no money and canceled a planned cruise, and I can't figure out what it's been doing since then.

[djmips]

Maybe it really was doing something fishy.

[mixmastamyk]

Article says they were drifting during engine maintenance. Likely why they couldn't respond quickly.

[hazeii]

More details here (from ship's owners, I presume):-

https://www.columbia-cs.com/statement-on-rcgs-resolute-incid...

[knbknb]

Required reading for the Venezolan captain : "How to Avoid Huge Ships" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Avoid_Huge_Ships

[Ballas]

I misread the url as "thedive.com" - seemed like a better fit.

[dzaragozar]

This new seem to be an April fools joke. There's no mention of the incident in Venezuelan press,nor Reuters nor AP.

[LatteLazy]

I don't k ow about the Venezuelan press, but the Times of London, Popular Mechanics and Deutsche Welle are all reporting it. Plus its April 3rd now...

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

Sounds like the cruise company is on the joke then: https://www.columbia-cs.com/statement-on-rcgs-resolute- incident/

[adonovan]

An act of piracy off the island of Tortuga? Cue Michael Bolton!

[z2210558]

I only ever seem to see stories that look a whole lot like propaganda from thedrive.com. Who's behind this site?

[smoyer]

Does anyone else feel like we've been living in a comic strip lately?

[WalterBright]

[deleted]

[geoffmunn]

This was taken from another angle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTAx8r_090o

[malcolmwhite]

Trump recently announced we are doubling the size of southern command and dramatically increasing our activity off the coast of Venezuela, where this occurred. Could the cruise ship have been doing something sneaky?

[duxup]

Would they need a cruise ship to do a thing?

[t0mas88]

Highly unlikely. It looks way better for Trump to have a big grey US Navy ship with large guns off the coast of Venezuela. Why hide on an old cruise ship?

[sjg007]

Trump announced it to distract from covid-19. Saber rattling in both South America and Iran.

[ck2]

World is going to become even more scary.

Imagine what is happening inside North Korea we will never hear about. The population will be quietly cut in half.

Putin has been doing some (more) scary things in Russia while no-one outside is paying attention.

I'm still not completely convinced we are going to be allowed to have elections in November.

[starpilot]

This, is Jackass.

[birdyrooster]

I’m Kenny Rogers

[sudoaza]

Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with their borders and would not diacard it being a setup.

[MrMorden]

What does a Portuguese ship have to do with the US? And what are you smoking to think that a fifth-rate piratical force that managed to start a fight with an unarmed, civilian ship and lose spectacularly would do any better against an actual military? You can tell that the Venezuelan navy is not currently deterring a contemplated invasion by observing that their ships (bar one) are still floating.

[analognoise]

If the US wanted to invade, apparently we could do it with a handful of cruise ships. Why send carriers when Carnival will do?

[totalZero]

The US ought to invade Venezuela. It makes a whole lot more sense than invading Iraq or Syria. Venezuelans are hungry and destitute due to the regime, and the country's domestic turmoil has been spilling over into other nations where Venezuelan emigrants endure so much hardship in their travels that many of them turn to crime and panhandling just to be able to eat and have a place to sleep. It's truly disgusting the kind of inhumanity that Russia and Cuba have propped up in Venezuela.