I will go down with this ship

In recent news, the RSS Garang cried foul after having its posterior chewed off by Dutch ship ANL Milk Maid. Four hapless maidens lost their innocent lives in the fatal disaster. (which took their lives)

Apparently, in a frantic bid to avert a collision, the RSS Garang courageously steered where no man has ever steered before, into the path of oncoming ANL Milk Maid not once, but four times to ensure as large a passing distance as possible.

In her defence, officer on the deck Lt. Spotty van Dyke steadfastedly stated that she saw a small white proton saga trailing the ship on its starboard side, which forced her into the various evasive manoeuvres which she employed. These manoeuvres took her into oncoming traffic and directly across the path of the ANL Milkmaid.

Despite intense cross examination by the prosecution Lt. Spotty remained calm and composed, without once going fifty-fifty, or phoning a friend. Only the tremulous twitching of her ceremonial baby-rattle grasped firmly in her heroic right hand betrayed the inner turmoil that raged beneath our heroine's breast. (s)

She steadfastedly maintained that the RSS Garang "was able to cross the path of" the ANL Milkmaid, and even though she had changed the course of the patrol boat three times, she said she was certain that there would be no risk of collision.

She had no reason to expect the ANL Milkmaid to turn since it had been maintaining its course and speed all along during her previous turns.

The vile, heinous and deplorable ANL Milkmaid was thus clearly in the wrong, and solely responsible for the accident because it swung right and obeyed conventional maritime rules of head-on engagement, instead of mindlessly adhering to its computerised and lemming-like arrow-straight course. It is also in the wrong for not turning right sharply enough or sounding out a warning to the haplessly vulnerable military anti-submarine cruiser, and preventing the disaster, although it must be noted that all manouevres being undertaken to potentially avert the disaster were exclusively being made by the courageous officers of the RSS Garang.

It is at least heartening that we can conclude that the entire fatal incident was a result of direct human error, and not the fault of the system, and clearly does not reflect poorly either on the quality of our comprehensive military training or our impeccable, eagle-eyed and steelheaded naval officers.
    # Re-minisce denies liability.1/18/2004 05:45:00 pm