Video shows a collision between two Royal Navy vessels in the Gulf.
The information that came to me earlier today, roughly outlined, was that HMS Chiddingfold has collided with HMS Bangor.
I reached out to the Ministry of Defence for comment and confirmation, however, video has now surfaced of the incident, confirming it happened.
As of now, there are no reports of any injuries resulting from the collision. The Royal Navy is expected to provide details on the incident and the condition of the ships and personnel involved in due course. I spoke to someone earlier today, before the videos surfced, that informed me that teams are being sent to assess the damage and establish a plan of action for rectification works.
Imagery of the damage was published by fillyourboots on Twitter.
— fill your boots (@MilitaryBanter) January 19, 2024
Minehunters like HMS Chiddingfold are designed to excel in mine hunting and coastal patrols, safeguarding the seas and ensuring maritime security. These small, but extremely effective Mine Counter Measure Vessels (MCMVs) boast glass-reinforced plastic hulls to conceal their presence from the threat of sea mines. Their sonars are capable of detecting and classifying an object the size of a football up to 1,000 metres away, allowing them to clear the way of mines and allow safe passage for larger forces to pass through.
The Ministry of Defence will likely conduct a comprehensive investigation to understand the cause of the collision and the extent of the damage sustained by the vessels.
A Royal Navy Spokesperson said:
βWe are aware of an incident concerning two Minehunters alongside in Bahrain. There are no casualties as a result of this incident and it would be inappropriate to comment further whilst investigations are ongoing.β
Hmmmmm ….Hats on no coffee moment.
There’s a chap locally in Pembroke Dock who could patch them up no problem π
That’s one captain on his way home!
It will be a promotion for cost-cutting.
Fail Upwards you mean
speaking of cost cutting the USNI site is reporting the u.s navy aims to retire 48 ships up to 2026
Retiring ships when we are at war, and whether this is admitted or not we are at war, is unbelievably stupid
Bu we’re used to stupid stuff aren’t we?
yup, sadly…. I have no idea when we will have a single politician in the house of commons or a single civil servant anywhere whose brain can think beyond how much money they can shove in their back pocket
I didn’t realise that there was two tugs on the operate side to the camera.
His ? *SEXIST !!!!!*
I’ll get my coat…
π
Yeah you should see my wife parallel park
Indeed, he identifies as a captain but I guess these days that could be something allowed for a misguided goat
cash in hand?
Thatβs not going to buff out with a bit of Tcutβ¦..
someoneβs career is firmly up the spout.
Believe that one vessel had some sort of mechanical/engine failure – tbc?
someone had nicked the wing mirrors!
Scuttlebutt is that the engines were wired up back to front-apparently!!
Its been leaked that the controls for the motor were wired up so forward and reverse were mixed up !
And we have sod all mine-hunters left so swapping them out with sister vessels will be difficult-impossible!
We could borrow a couple from the Ukranians I guess.
Luckily, the Turks refused to let us deliver them to Ukraine π
Yeah, we are at war and the civil servants that want Russia to win (all of them) are happy to continue to run our armed forces down to the point we will be fighting with catapults and no clothes
Checking online for info about this incident I found plenty of news reports from 2021 about the same ship colliding with another vessel while trying to park. Then commanded by a Lt Cdr Reeves while attempting his first parallel park in the dark. I wonder who’s in charge this time?
Anyone would think it was my Mrs driving (piloting)
Prince Andrew?
Nah Ed Balls
wasn’t he dodging exocets at the time?
Actually Prince Epstein as the Co pilot was charged with holding the pilots thermos flask
not me, i was at school that day.
Aha, a likely story. Next time remember to check you rear view mirrors!
Lovely excuse for Messrs Hunt, Shapps and Sunak to get their red pens out…
keep risky sunak away from red pens
If these manoeuvres are difficult why wouldn’t one or more tugs be used to get it done safely?
I’m not suggesting an Admiral K style tug your unserviceable carrier about rather typical tug use for harbour manoeuvres..
Surely a modest expense compared to flying repair specialists on scene and the unpredictable cost of repair..
You answered it in the first sentence…….. This is not a difficult manoeuvre…. I’m guessing something went wrong.
really?
Even less difficult to make in a minehunter that have very precise controls because of its missions.
Unless this is a mechanical failure which is another kind of bad i wonder what the hell was going at bridge of that minehunter at time.
We used too raft up in the Gulf 3 Hunts one at anchor and one eithercside never did we have full speed astern like that and I served on the Chid
somebody leaned on the throttle reaching for their coffee cup
That was the problem when they designed the Hunts bridge layout lots of places too lay your Bino’s but forgot Cup holders they’d be left on the Vhf radio , chart table , and yes between the Bow thruster and rev counter
Really ?
i believe the captain was captain know-it-all,
Bumps a daisy. Not sure how that hole is going to be repaired. Not even sure if the repair could be done in that part of the world. As for the skipper, unless there was a mechanical fault he or she will never command again.
Enough to make you weep….
ASRY just around the corner might be able to do it… amazing what you can do with enough slaves.
Ohhh….I am a slave!
I will consider that when I receive my Tax-free wage packet in a couple of days time.
Perhaps you are referring to the other Ship Repair company who is not far from UKNSF
They all used to work as painters in Jebal Ali and go through the slops bin
The lads still do. The stuff some of the ships ditch is unbelievable. Recent visitor emptied there dry provisions store. Unopened 1/2 litre pots of spices, sauces, bags of rice. The lads had the lot
Where there’s muck there’s Dinna or Dinner
Estimate Β£25m to repair? HMS Chiddingfold relatively undamaged, & a wiring issue. HMS Bangor most of that sum then, understandably. But if that’s mostly the cost of repairing a hole in a glass fibre hull, plus some etc. I’m beginning to think Β£100m ‘not too bad’ for a Type 23! We sure these estimates are no exaggeration?
Bangor…Hmmm…wont be 25mil…She is due to go soon if its up in that level of cost they would scrap it and spend the money elsewhere on Harrier for MCMV
Interesting, thanks – we’ll see what transpires.
“With Penzance just gone, we can’t decommission another minehunter without getting the new Castles in the water. The press are starting to ask questions.”
“But there aren’t enough autonomous replacements and no RFA to crew the new motherships. We’ll just have to tell the press we can’t comment on our MCM capabilities for security reasons.”
“Even the opposition aren’t going to swallow that one for much longer. I suppose there’s no alternative.”
“Hold on, chaps. I have a cunning plan….”
Sounds a bit more of βleft hand down a bitβ to me or am I showing my age. Certainly sounds like a bit of a navy lark to me.
Just seen a photo of the Hunt Hms Berkeley sold to Greece hit by a ship and sliced in half everything aft of the funnel gone but still afloat !! Get the masking tape out for the Bangor it’s just a scratch
RFA Stirling Castle is very much “In the Water”, she is currently birthed at Portland and has been for many months now……. nothing really happening it seems.
No crew
Castle left Portland nearly a week ago, so she must have some crew!
I stand corrected then…. I was last there two weeks ago and she hadn’t moved for months….. Where is she now ?
Plymouth
Three more to come, or is it four?
are they hiding migrants on her?
Well the Migrants are free to roam around…. I see them in various places, they are accommodated not so far away from where Castle was moored, in the Barge a few hundred metres away.
Cheaper to re-commission Penzance and send her to Bahrain than to repair Bangor perhaps π€
Got sent some pictures of this earlier, it didn’t really matter when we had loads of them but now it might be a bit tricky to ‘one for one’ them.
Reminds me of the Christmas card we got at Commcen Pitreavie (as was) from HMS Brecon that made the headlines for running aground, something along the lines of ‘Make like the Brecon this Christmas… get smashed’. I think it made the papers. ο»Ώπο»Ώ
No, no! I said “Bangor”.
Or
Was this really necessary to get Grimsby through to the Odessa “scrapyard”?
Pity there wasn’t a football on the bow of the other vessel, they might have seen it π
There must have been a mechanical or something…I can’t believe a captain would not notice the ship there, and its travelling so quickly, I thought the video was sped up at the beginning. I think somethings stuck at full revs.
Thats what I thought. Even when they hit the water is still churning like itβs still going backwards.
As an ex Chid crew helmsman position starboard side bridge looking forward on his left hand side are the Bow thruster lever and engine rev counter the ship was going astern rather quickly and couldn’t see if the Bow thruster was in use too Swing the Bow round someone’s not going to be in the Kings birthday honours list
never quite grasped theres no reversing or wing mirrors on our ships.
Two more for the chop.ο»Ώπο»Ώ
I watched the video first and thought thatβs a big crunch. Someone order some sheets of fibre glass and phone gunbuster
nah, bit of gafa tape and some pussers grey paint and the admiral won’t even know it happened
There’s no justification for such poor shiphandling. Letting the Cadet ‘have a go?’
HMS βBangorβ oh dear how badly spelt apt! π
That’ll be an excuse to scrap at least one of them then…
Well that is at least one and probably 2 less ships available to the RN!!
more cuts to the fleet.
I blame this on the manpower crisis. Obviously got so desperate, Albert Trotter returns.
I watched the vid in disbelief. That vessel is going astern at some speed. What was he trying to do? Don’t they have lookouts these days?
Not since they removed the crows nests.
I think so as I thought I heard some shout look out just before the crash!
Or maybe something mechanical broke down ?…. I can’t see this happening due to human error personally.
the skippers
Fitted for but not with lookouts
There goes another one…
Incompetence and yet another news story the RN can ill afford. What on earth is going on? Lack of proper leadership??
Or maybe it was a breakdown ? Crikey Rob, at least wait and see what actually happened………
more incidents like this and we’ll definately have no ships
‘Lefth and down a bit …’
Moto we had on HMS FIFE in 1970 was “Look astern before you turn”
The Sun reports that “Sailors are battling to stop warship from sinking”…. I was expecting a different headline along the lines of… “Royal Navy Battleship rams State of the art Destroyer”……
lol, what a colossal cock up
I will make a prediction, no substantial repairs, fast tracked for decommissioningβ¦.
and thats just the captain.
roll of black and nasty mind it comes in grey now problem solved lol…
Unbelievable. Clearly enough crew on board for someone to notice.
But the bigger lesson is that we have no reserves. Any ship/ boat damaged cannot be replaced. A new build replacement would take years.
Who’s the Daddy !!!! for a 40 year old she can still rear end any competition looks like Bangor will be on this month’s disposal list change her pennant number and swap her with one sold to Ukraine
Think this must have been a mechanical failure, you can clearly hear someone call “full ahead” at the beginning of the video, but the ship continues with full astern even after the collision.
Sounds like that’s someone on the dock though. Potentially in comms with the bridge, but could just be talking to themselves.
do we keel haul captains?
Russians, Houthis and others all having a good giggle.
Doing the Tories work for them!
Oh dear some ones in big trouble , skull π and bones time π¬π§
Skull and crossbones hee hee we always wore what was named “Pirate rig” when away from port
Of all the flipping times for this to happen!!
What an embarrassment!! π€¦π»ββοΈ
Just reading HMS Penzance been retired hmm π maybe new lest of live ?
NavyLookout saying βsourcesβ claim it was a mechanical fault after contractor work.
Well, that’s two more decommissioned. That there are no “Castle” replacements ready won’t stop that…..
thats a career ending boo boo!!!
Will fail Upwards and given a draft to Dartmouth Navigation and seamanship teaching the future OOWs on how not to come alongside
Well thats one guy who USED to be a Captain that has a lot of explaining as to how he managed to hit the other ship lololol
Cold move.
Tug line parted.
Take the blind idiots in charge of these boats (they aren’t big enough to be ships), get them to do the repairs personally paying out of their own pockets then dismiss them with no pension or redundancy for total incompetence
External factors involved and not down to the crew
Apparently rewiring of Fwd and reverse control meant Fullahead was Full astern and vice versa oh what a wheeze why wasn’t work done not inspected ?
That story is bollox. Came from the Naffi queue.
Probably headline was from the Observer newspaper
Today’s daily telegraph stated the same explanation taken from of all papers The Guardian nough said on that story then .
I was over there yesterday and got something of a low down on it. There are a long, long list of issues that added up to the “Swiss Cheese, All the holes all align” moment.
The BOI will be an interesting read.
Flown out too conduct enquiry, rather than in house will show how much the issue of local contractors working on MOD property rather than if it still exists FMG mobile is value for money . Who ever signed off on completion of work has some explaining too do .
I honestly though that Fibreglass on ships hulls, was a thing of the past. And then Β£25million worth of damage done… by a fibreglass ship crushing another fibreglass ship… the mind truly boggles.
Non magnetic Hms Wilton ton class minesweeper was the first with such a low magnetic signature production was ramped up for the Hunt and then Sandowns I did feel safe clearing minefields which had all manner of minetypes during OP Granby not one Hunt was damaged throughout the Conflict
Monty python moment,”you lucky, lucky,bstd. Weird that Chid had to ram Banger’*and totally miss the jetty. Anyhoo, somebody’s for the bin.ππ³οΈ back to me holeπ
Bangor has a TV sized hole patch her up with masking tape We sold Hms Berkeley another hunt to the Greeks she got sliced completely in two and remained afloat the press are making such a big deal just super glue it back in place and repaint her or put a double glazed window in with curtains (for darken ship) job done
‘least all the loons are alright, small mercy πππ
I’ll light a candle for them all it’s the least a taxpayer can do π―
I see The Telegraph are reporting a recent rewiring was carried out wrongly., but Schapps is not blaming anyone.
Hate to rain on this but as an ex mariner it was NOT two vessels colliding. One of the vessels was securely alongside with a gangway out so it was the inept handling one ONE vessel colliding into another.