Oops ... Unscheduled Downtime

"To be very upfront and candid, something went dramatically wrong, and that's a bit of an understatement.
"The ships were conducting a towing exercise, which was a normal part of our routine operations and normal business at sea.... There is an inherent risk of ships operating together at sea in close proximity, but this sort of incident, I've not come across in my career."
Commander Bob Auchterlonie, The Royal Canadian Navy

Royal Canadian Navy warship HMCS Algonquin sits in port with significant damage to her port side hangar at CFB Esquimalt in Esquimalt,B.C. Sunday September 1, 2013 following a collision with the HMCS Protecteur during a close-quarters training exercise. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

There are those ordinary, everyday reassuring words: "exercise", "normal", "routine", "operations", and "normal business". And two more innocent enough words: "risk", and "proximity" - oh, sorry, a third: "incident". And then there is career. One could logically assume twenty years, thirty years, and no occasion previously on which two ships, a destroyer and an auxiliary oil replenishment vessel came kind of too close for comfort during a routine towing exercise.

HMCS Protecteur sustained damage to her bow in a collision with another Canadian warship, HMCS Algonquin. The two Canadian warships are returning to port in Esquimalt, B.C. (Photo courtesy MARPAC)

Incompetence? Oversight failed? Lack of diligence? A training exercise gone awry because the hands involved were not sufficiently exposed to adequate and allied training opportunities? Who knows, because the Commodore hasn't explored publicly the possibility of any of those options. He wouldn't, of course, undiplomatically rant in a public manner about stupid stunts and village idiots costing the Navy a whole lot of its reserve funding.

Two warships on the Pacific failed to cooperate in an routine towing exercise when the event went "dramatically wrong", as in having caused some pretty damning damage. HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Protecteur collided on Friday en route to Hawaii. Algonquin came out of the impromptu melee somewhat the worse for wear. Of course Algonquin and Protecteur are to be excused, they're just great lumbering beasts awaiting instruction.

A large gash along the port (left) side of the ship. While Protecteur, given its name, came off a bit better, but was unable, it would seem, to evade its own front-end damage. Each ship had over 300 crew members on board. That should represent quite a bit of brain power, a good dose of experience, and more than a slight amount of helping hands and cerebral matter. You think?

Both were scheduled to attend an Australia-bound International Fleet Review in early October. Before that event they were to have conducted a series of diplomatic stops aligned with the Department of Foreign Affairs. But, as matters now stand, scratch all of that. They've left the Asia-Pacific theatre and slumped back to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, close by Victoria.

The Navy is set to convene a board of enquiry. A technical assessment procedure will also be launched for each vessel to determine the extent of the damage, and required repairs. "The full impact of the sailing schedule has not yet been determined, but clearly by the extent of the damage on Algonquin, she's not deploying. We're looking at options for Protecteur, as well", said the genial Commodore.

In plain old English, they're out of commission for awhile. Joining Canada's superb bargain-basement British-origined submarines.

An oops moment at great cost in self-assurance, in professional technique and public treasury. Ach!