Navy Vessels Stage Drag-Race. A common practice?, page 1

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Topic started on 5-3-2010 @ 04:42 PM by FortAnthem

This sounds cool. I wanna watch.

Navy Vessels Stage Drag-Race, Probe Shows

A Navy captain was demoted because she berated and assaulted her crew, not because she led her guided missile cruiser on a drag-race with another U.S. warship in the Pacific, an investigation shows.

Among allegations not substantiated was one that she endangered the ship while allowing a drag-race between the Cowpens and the destroyer USS John S. McCain in February 2009.

Four witnesses described the 2009 race off of Okinawa, but they differed on how close the two vessels came to each other before the race was halted.

One sailor said that during the race, aimed at boosting morale, the McCain got ahead of the Cowpens and began drifting to the left into the path of the Cowpens. Though the report did not question that the race took place, it said the allegation of "hazarding a vessel" was unsubstantiated.

"In order to show that (she) improperly hazarded the USS Cowpens, the evidence must show that an actual event occurred in which the ship was lost or damaged, or that there was a situation in which the ship was placed in imminent danger of loss or serious damage" and that she did it willfully, the inspector general said.

One of the officials, who has many years of sea duty, said races on the open seas are not uncommon and are done to bolster morale or as a kind of maneuver drill.

Read more: Newsmax

They should broadcast these races on TV, it could be bigger than Nascar!

I served in the Army so I don't know if the allegations that this is "not uncommon" are true. Any Navy guys out there who can confirm this?

YouTube Link

Edit to add vid.

[edit on 5/3/10 by FortAnthem]

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 05:23 PM by abrown5200a

reply to post by FortAnthem

Back in the 80's when I was stationed on the USS America CV-66, we were being relieved from our station in the Indian Ocean by the USS Enterprise CVN-65. And yes we had a race. It wasn't announced over the 1MC as it is in this video. Just word of mouth.

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 05:34 PM by Oneolddude

Well,yes they are common.The crews have to have something to brag about especially the "snipes" down in the engine room.

Being able to outrace a ship in the same class is a very big deal and worthy bar talk.Every ship crew is proud of their ship.

Her problem was this.She did not have the "testosterone"the other skipper had.He "punked"her by cutting across her bow.

He must be a sailing yachts man.It is a typical move in sailing competition.

Wouldn't doubt that there was sailors on the other ship "mooning" them as they went by!!!!

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 05:48 PM by ANNED

no likely to happen very often.

"all ahead emergency" is the order that would be used only in a very few cases like when a torpedo was homing in on the ship or for some other life treathing cases. To likely for a skipper or crew to use this to win the race.

The problem with going this fast is safeties are bypassed in emergency override.
This may damage equipment and endanger the ship or crew.

And any captain that did it better hope higher command never found out.

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 05:54 PM by Montana

Obviously a 'Tiger Cruise' with family members and invited dignitaries on board. They went from ahead standard to ahead flank. Once they reached flank speed they went to a crash stop. After reaching a dead stop, they started moving in reverse, which is why the water came over the fantail. Pretty standard ship handling drill, certainly nothing unusual. As far as the racing goes, of course everyone would want to show of their ship with mom and dad watching.

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 06:02 PM by Montana

Originally posted by ANNED

The problem with going this fast is safeties are bypassed in emergency override.
This may damage equipment and endanger the ship or crew.

And any captain that did it better hope higher command never found out.

These are both gas turbine ships.

Full power runs with crash stops are something a ship is required to be proficient at. If it wasn't able to do this at any time that is when higher command will have the captain's rear!

reply posted on 5-3-2010 @ 06:50 PM by ANNED

reply posted on 6-3-2010 @ 09:23 PM by COOL HAND

reply to post by ANNED

Navy ships today do not have all ahead emergency.

Flank is the fastest that a ship can go, and it has nothing to do with overriding any safety features. Those features can be overridden or bypassed, but not for something as mundane as a race.

Ships racing happens all the time. This is often to test the ships ability to make its fastest rated speed. But, it is also cool to show that you can go faster than everyone else.

reply posted on 12-3-2010 @ 01:18 AM by saabster5

I can't confirm racing, but when I was stationed on a fast attack sub in HI we did alot of maneuvers to test proficiency of the "drivers" of the sub and to test ship components. My fave was going from "all stop" to "all ahead flank cavitate" to "all reverse flank cavitate" (0 knots to max knots forward to max knots backwards and cavitate meant make as much noise as possible). Would get a phenomenon called "plane reversal". Trying to maintain depth and course while yanking controls into your chest and quickly slamming to the floor was great.

The only things we ever did as a competitive type "sport" was during our little weapons exercises, where we would converse with other subs while shooting practice torpedo's at each other. But it wasn't like we got to the surface and shouted boo-ya...we shot u!, lol.

But the surface world is full of weird shenanigans. So I wouldn't be surprised if racing wasn't a part of it.

reply posted on 12-3-2010 @ 01:28 AM by UberL33t

reply to post by abrown5200a

I was on the Big "E" as well, we raced a destroyer in 1995 during a shake down cruise after we left the yards.

Smoked them as I recall, the reactors were fresh from a 3 yr overhaul and we were minus an airwing.

So 8 fresh engines with no miles on them with a huge weight reduction with no airwing. We were Super Fast!

reply posted on 29-3-2010 @ 07:05 PM by pteridine

reply to post by UberL33t

In the 60's, the Big E would hang out and drag race destroyers as they first deployed after sea trials. Many a destroyer CO would discover that the Enterprise was really big and really fast. I believe that none of the cans ever beat her.

Drag racing is not uncommon and is a way of exercising the ship.

reply posted on 30-3-2010 @ 05:11 AM by mutly

I was told one of the times that our gyro compass said we were doing our "official top speed" that we were racing someone. Was no announcement or anything. I remember a few times when we would pick up speed and the compass said we were doing 31 or 32 knots. no idea if we were racing then either. I would love to see an Arleigh Burke truly open it up to as fast as they can go. the one time I was topside for a quick burst of speed we had an awesome rooster-tail.

So i don't know how common it is but it wouldn't surprise me to find out it was common.

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