Ships passing in the night

I'm looking at a point in the ocean where, because of the topography and currents, two ships would be in close proximity without it being alarming. One of the two ships will be a US carrier. The ships can either be going in the same direction or opposite directions.

Now to come up with the challenge part of this. It has to be out of sight of land or the land has to be so deserted that any collision of the ships would not be reported immediately. I started with the Strait of Gibraltar, but realized very quickly the press would be on an accident way too quickly. The Strait of Malacca seems a possibility, but I don't know enough about the area.

Further I don't know if US carries are Malaccamax. Based upon what I'm seeing, they fit, but I want some confirmation of that fact.

Thanks for any help and rep points supplied.

Jim Clark-Dawe

I'm sorry that I was a bit confusing.

I've seen US Naval ships going into and out of port. They like a large safety zone around them, and I don't blame them. I'm assuming the US Navy is at some level a bit gun-shy. A carrier is going to be nervous of another ship getting close, not because of collision (although that exists), but also because of attack risks.

WriteKnight said:

Tough parameters. "Close proximity without it being alarming" - meaning they are aware of each other's presence. Radar of course would indicate this - and yet they are forced into this distance - but NOT because of land restrictions IE Canal, Straight, Harbor Approach. By alarming here I meant that the carrier would not be using its escorts to send the other ship away. I'm assuming that on the open ocean you probably can't get within fifty miles of a carrier without the carrier being aware of it or being very lucky. So the fact that the carrier knows of the other ship isn't a problem.

But I'm guessing on the open ocean, military ships insist on a significant distance (five miles plus?) from other ships. And I'm thinking that carriers, because of flight operations, also want space around them because of the constraints imposed by flight operations. What I'm hoping is that there are some places where carriers have to ignore all this and let other ships closer to them than they would like.

So open ocean - poor visibility - but close approach. Deep enough for a carrier. Visibility isn't an issue. And I'm not sure, but carriers seem to actually be fairly shallow draft, compared to say a tanker.

Only thing that comes to mind would be an ICE passage perhaps? Two tankers working through the ice pack? But that leaves out the carrier scenario. Carries won't fit through the Panama Canal - so you're looking at going around the Horn or Cape of Good Hope - both heavily traveled - both have poor weather conditions - could be out of sight of land... Cape of Good Hope is too populated as a smoke plume would attract immediate attention and would be within sight of land. The Horn is definitely a possibility, but I have some weather issues there.

That's about all that comes to my mind.

A collision not reported immediately? That's also tough considering sattelite communications these days. Certainly the carrier would be capable of reporting a collision immediately. The collision can be reported immediately, but I want a 48 hour hold on the news being released to the general public. The guys at the Pentagon can know about it as it happens, CNN has to have to wait.

I'm thinking about period wrecks, like the Andrea Doria - out in the open sea, but on approach to a major city - crowded shipping lines, major fog conditions? I hadn't thought about fog, although that's not terribly predictable.

Click to expand...

Vaguely Piratical said:

Larger ships tend to stay in the shipping lanes, which are a relatively small section of ocean and ships can be relatively close. But the only places I can think of where a "they might reasonably collide with us" level of closeness would be unremarkable would be

1) in a narrow, high traffic waterway like the Straits of Hormuz Definitely a possibility.
2) in some parts of the Indian ocean or pacific ocean where ships navigating through the safe channels of deep water between archipelagos have few option That's one area I'm thinking of, but I don't know what they are.
3) sailing through a clear channel in an ice flow.

The thing is, in all those situation the ships would be hyper alert because of the possibility of a collision. They would maintain frequent radio contact with any other large ships (any ships they, personally would be in danger if the two ship collide. Small pleasure craft they would assume were clever enough to get out of the way) and inform the other large ship of intended course changes to avoid accidents. If one ship stopped responding, the other would probably fall back to avoid possible collision until contact was reestablished. If it took a great deal to long they would either contact the authorities or send a small, more agile boat over to investigate. Communication would be maintained. The problem is that after the USS Cole, and probably even before, the Navy is nervous about other ships getting anywhere close to one of theirs, especially a carrier.

In the open sea you can sea another ship coming from far, far, off and there'd be plenty of room to maneuver away. Which is why this isn't easy.

Is there any reason the ships might be sailing in convoy? That's the only reason I can think of two ships being that close to each other out of sight of land. No, one ship is US Navy and the other is a commercial carrier.

Click to expand...

Buffysquirrel said:

Am trying to think of any reason your carrier would be in the English Channel. Ships collide there with moderate frequency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=ship collide english channel

Then again, you're rarely out of sight of land in the Channel. Yeah, a collision in the English Channel would be on BBC before the Pentagon would know about it.

Click to expand...

To clarify this a bit further, and this is not going to be military adventure, where I'd need a lot more than I'm going to get here, but the commercial ship is going to be used as a launch platform for a mortar attack against a US carrier. I'm well aware that actually being able to pull something like this off is extremely unlikely, but I've got to kill off someone on the carrier and that's the main focus of what's going in the book.

I need a delay in it hitting the press so that the victim's father is notified before it's all over the news.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Where I'm going with this is daughter is going to die a very big hero. I want dad completely unprepared for the arrival of the two Navy officers in the four-door sedan. And if the carrier your kid is on has problems, you know your kid is one of about 5500 people at risk. So at some level you're expecting that car.

The Pentagon can know all about it. Other ships can suspect it all they want. But I don't want CNN and FOX able to run a story until dad knows about it. Because his daughter is in a noncombat position on the carrier (If your kid is on the flight deck of a carrier, you've got to have some level of concern every day. However, if your kid is in administration on a carrier, your concern level can drop quite a bit.), he figures she's safe, and I want the initial news to be overwhelming bad.

Other than she's a hero. And how can you be mad at a hero for allowing herself to die? Or at least talk to people about that feeling.

Thanks for all the thoughts. The reason I posted here is that I know how close to impossible my scenario is. But that impossibility is what increases the shock to dad.

Best,

Jim Clark-Dawe

By Jove, with Snick's post, I think I've got it. Let's see if this makes sense:

Carrier stops in Japan, where girl's replacement comes on board. On cruise to Singapore, hand over takes place, with girl leaving at Singapore. Girl stays on board carrier during stay until the very end, when she goes ashore to fly to US. While waiting at airport, she calls dad.

Before plane takes off, she receives call that one of the people in her department has become sick and needs to leave the carrier. She's asked if she's willing to stay on the carrier until a replacement can be delivered to the carrier (department only has three - four officers, of which she is one). She says yes, and gets back on carrier before it leaves port.

Ship leaves Singapore around midnight and proceeds northwesterly up the Strait of Malacca. At dawn, it is off Kelang, which is where the Strait narrows from about 100 kilometers across to about 50 or less kilometers across. Pirate boats start out from Indonesia to attack a container ship. (Seems really dumb of the pirates, but the Somilians ones have already attacked a Navy ship, so I'm assuming the ones in Indonesia are just as dumb.)

Container boat hustles to get near the carrier group for safety (Hustles is probably an overstatement, but ...) But because it's dark, the Navy can't confirm that the pirates are pirates and spend some time trying to divert the pirates without sinking them, enabling the container ship to get within range of the carrier. Carrier is limited to how far it can get because of Malaysia.

Dad expects daughter to call when she gets back to the States, but not terribly soon since she's flying out of Singapore. Initial news reports wouldn't worry dad, because his daughter is on a plane.

Now I realize the chances of this actually working are somewhere north of my chances of winning the lottery. But does this sound plausible, especially in a book that is not going to be a thriller?

Thanks for all your help. One man alone never can come up with all the answers.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe