Oops, too late Lou.

This is one of my personal favorite comments, excellent observation of the situation.

Thanks,
John

John Konrad
gCaptain.com

Sent from my iPhone

Mariner!

Sounds like you have the facts down. Thanks!

Capt. Bryan,

You're probably right on the capacity... I might have given two much value to MMA's statement but I do know that Capt. Phillips took extra gear with him including a UHF radio... no reason he didn't grab the SART. I have also never sailed on a ship that didn't have a VHF (fixed, hand-held or SCT) aboard... one ship even had handheld & fixed plus PLB's & SART's for each of the boats! -John

JKB is correct on both accounts. With the range of these units they could easily be launched from Djibouti (for GofA runs) and the Seychelles (for Inida Ocean runs).

dotcommonsense, I have not heard of any MSC ships using LRAD's. When carrying military cargo they have guns aboard BUT this ship was unarmed.

Looks like she was scrapped in Livepool in Feb of 1994:
http://www.miramarshipindex.org.nz/ship/show/5965...

More here:
http://bit.ly/fwNBA

They are using convoys extensively in the Gulf Of Aden. The problem now is that ship owners found safety in distance from land by avoiding the GOA and rounding the Cape Of Good Hope.

This plus the fact that convoys have not been 100% successful in the GOA. One problem is that slower vessels (the ones most prone to attack) need to maintain max speed to keep up with the convoy... one engineering hickup and they get left behind.... a problem that would be magnified, due to the distance involved, on a meridional voyage.

The answer to your first question is yes. It happened in early '94 I believe. I know it was the first use of a troop ship since the Vietnam War but I can only assume it was the last time.

Sent by a Bay Area lawyer (and friend of gCaptain) via email:

Only because lawyers are trained to focus on language in written instruments or documents, I read your recent posting with interest. If Pilot Cota pleads guilty to 2 misdemeanors, he does not risk "prison" time, only "jail" time. Typically the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor is whether the incarceration is more than a year. If so, a felony, prison time. If less than a year, a misdemeanor and jail time. In Sacramento County first time drunk driver convictions, the2 days are usually done on work details without any jail time on account of the crowded conditions of the main jail and the correctional center in the south county. Sometimes a felony charge results in one year in county jail and an extended period of probation. If the terms of the probation are violated then the man does the three years, thus it is a felony. On the other hand sometimes in his sentence of a criminal felon the Judge can make it a misdemeanor in his sentence, ordering a fine and jail time only. All somewhat confusing, but the main thought is that I do not think Cota will do prison time. Hope all is going well with the gCaptain enterprise

Posted by "Reader" via email...

From the referenced San Francisco Chronicle newspaper account:
"(Judge) Illston allowed Cota to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of violating the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Act. She scheduled sentencing for June 19."
.
"Prosecutors agreed to dismiss felony charges that Cota lied in annual physical exams about the medications he was taking"

From the referenced DOJ press release:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/March/09-enrd-201.html

The plea agreement contains factual admissions by Cota including: “I acknowledge that my negligence was a proximate cause of the discharge of approximately 53,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into San Francisco Bay.”

During the voyage in less than a half mile of visibility, Cota gave the helm commands that crashed the Cosco Busan into the fendering system at the base of the Delta tower of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

In the plea agreement, Cota admitted that he:
Failed to use the ship’s radar in the final approach to San Francisco Bay Bridge;
Failed to recognize two red triangles on the ship’s electronic chart system that actually are the buoys marking the Delta bridge tower;
Failed to verify the meaning of the red triangles by using the ship’s paper chart or radar.
Failed to inform the crew of his method of navigation that he relied on using a particular radar setting;
and Failed to advise the crew of a radar beacon that marked the center of the Delta-Echo span.
.
.
As part of the plea agreement with Cota, the government agreed to dismiss pending (added: felony) false statement charges relating to allegations that Cota failed to disclose his medications on required Coast Guard forms in 2006 and 2007 necessary to maintain his license, and which the court ruled would be tried separately from the case involving the Cosco Busan incident.
.
Cota admits in the plea papers filed today that his 2006 physical exam form failed to disclose some of the medications he was prescribed including: Provigil (a medication prescribed to treat sleep apnea),
Lorazepam (an anti-anxiety medication that had been prescribed as a sleeping aid),
Vicodin(a pain medication),
Tylenol 4 (a pain medication),
Darvon 65 (a pain medication),
Zoloft (an anti-depressant prescribed for an off-brand purpose)
and Ambien (a sleeping aid).

Regarding the form he signed in 2007, Cota admits that three medications, Vicodin, Zoloft and Tylenol 4 were not disclosed to the Coast Guard. According to the plea papers, while Cota reported taking various other drugs “occasionally” on the 2007 form, he now admits that he “refilled many of these prescriptions regularly.”