Interesting Story Today...

oops. yet again a professional crew runs aground on a well know and market reef.???? Now if they lost power and drifted into the reef , well that's one thing but other wise???

That is a nasty spot too with a large current swing with a full moon last night. Lots of water on both sides of the tide change and rip's all the way around. it will be hard to get divers in the water if repairs have to be made on the spot.
 
9,000lbs of what? munitions? I was a ammo tech in the marinas. I worked in the ammo depots storing munitions for 8years. So is this 5.56mm rounds? 80mm mortars? 155 mm artillery? c4? Powder? grenades? bombs? what size and type? I doubt that there is any danger.
 
About 45 8 inch rounds.
 
It sure seems odd that the Tug didn't know about the conditions. I think there is more to this story than has been written.

H :wink:
 
Also odd since Belle rock is marked with a flashing light. Perhaps that wasn't functioning?
 
starcrafttom":2vdjwzli said:
9,000lbs of what? munitions? I was a ammo tech in the marinas. I worked in the ammo depots storing munitions for 8years. So is this 5.56mm rounds? 80mm mortars? 155 mm artillery? c4? Powder? grenades? bombs? what size and type? I doubt that there is any danger.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine the military would not want ANYONE to know the specifics of what, when & where etc. I mean, there ARE people out there that would love to get their hands on some HE...drive it downtown somewhere and make it go "boom".
 
Ok 8inch rounds will make a hole but are almost impossible to fire off with out either a fuse, which are not shipped with them or a lot of heat. No real danger here.
 
If there had been REAL danger, would have been more than a mile exclusion area... Just sayin! :roll:

Would have made a big hole otherwise... :shock:

Will wait for "the rest of the story". I agree there's more, but we'll probably never hear about it. If I do, I'll pass it on.

Charlie
 
From that USCG video, it would appear that the barge was towed directly onto the marker that marked the position of the rock. You can see it and the lights attached to it just below the "bow" of the barge towards the end of the video.
 
Maybe Light Squared was testing a new filter to make things better for everyone :P
D.D.
 
never use a marker for a way point :wink: and don't laugh because I caught a friend doing just that one day.
 
starcrafttom":2cfavp2t said:
Ok 8inch rounds will make a hole but are almost impossible to fire off with out either a fuse, which are not shipped with them or a lot of heat. No real danger here.
Click to expand...


Tom

My point exactly. We used to haul duce & a half and 5 ton trucks loaded with 155 & 8 inch rounds. Without the fuse, they aren't much more dangerous than a rock.
 
I believe that is the St. Elias barge owned/leased by Samson Tug and Barge out of Sitka. As I recall it's about twenty years old and was build down in the Portland area. Great family owns Samson, real salt of the earth type that has donated a lot of their profit to the community. Shame that it happened to their barge.
 
Nice thing about steel barges, is that you can weld them back up like new, and not too expensive...for that part. Now the salvage, that might be expensive.

I suspect that the tug skipper was not watching the set from the current, and it took the barge right over the rock, at towing speed. This suspicion is based on the hole in the rake--rather than in the bottom of the barge.
 
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