[djmcmath]

I wonder if some of the time confusion is due to time zone discrepancies. When you're out in the middle of nowhere, it's not always easy to know what local authority owns the water, and what time said authority thinks it is. Given my choice, I'd suspect the Navy ship of knowing what UTC was, given that there are literally dozens of clocks all over the ship logging that, and dozens of sailors simultaneously taking logs in whatever the appropriate time zone is. It'd be tough to screw that up. Meanwhile, on the civvie ship, there's probably one computer doing logs, and nobody watching it.

Re: nefarious foul play, and the confusion about the freighter maneuvering oddly ... my instinct is that it was on autopilot, and it took the crew a long time to come to the bridge. The ship made a bad choice in regards to avoiding a collision, hit the Navy ship, and the auto-pilot didn't know better than to keep on it's way. The 180* course change happened when the crew realized they'd hit something and came to the bridge.

By that theory, then, the collision could well have happened because the Fitz was attempting to communicate via radio with a ship that was entirely on autopilot, with nobody on the Conn, and got confused about how to get out of the way. The OOD thought he had things under control (for whatever reason), so he didn't call the Captain to the Conn. These things sometimes develop quite quickly, going from complete boredom to disaster in the span of a few instants.

That's obviously just one theory, and admittedly a theory based on little more than my own experience driving boats around in the great sea, rather than on available fact. I stand by to be immediately proven wrong.

Dan