[daepp]

My daughter is an OOD of a sister ship to the two that were damaged.

I have zero Navy experience.

A few things I think I know:
- she has received a great deal of training. It began in school, but also many months on the bridge,much demanding training and many boards to pass. Also many many hours in state of the art simulators.
- They have been doing it this way for some. How long, I don't know.
- Merchant ships quite often are without being steered by autopilot alone
- While not only navigating with respect to the rules of the road etc, there are treacherous currents, and amazing amounts of wind loads that both act upon each ship. Very tough to predict
- These things happen in shipping lanes, which are quite crowded
- Her DDG lost steering as well. - when two of their generators went south. She told me that the manual over-ride takes two men to turn a crank, and it takes 30 rotations of the manual crank to get 1 deg of rudder turn
- This is a very very difficult thing to arm-chair quarterback by civilians like me
- And most Americans are unaware of the HUGE amount of work our ships do to escort merchants and to protect against pirates and our enemies

There might be some systemic problems here with the Navy and their training - I don't really know. But I sure want to know.

And one more thing - those merchants who are now oft quote as "IF it's grey - stay away" I seriously wonder how they'd like it if the US taxpayers - and their brave loved ones - quit all their protection and freedom of navigation duties?