Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 164 posts

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#81

Post by MrMorden »

sudoaza wrote: post #14

Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with their borders and would not diacard it being a setup.

What does a Portuguese ship have to do with the US? And what are you smoking to think that a fifth-rate piratical force that managed to start a fight with an unarmed, civilian ship and lose spectacularly would do any better against an actual military? You can tell that the Venezuelan navy is not currently deterring a contemplated invasion by observing that their ships (bar one) are still floating.

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#82

Post by battery_cowboy »

bpodgursky wrote: post #51
ansible wrote: post #23

This is insane. I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this. It's one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself. But even if this stunt had worked, you're looking at many months of downtime while your ship is being repaired in drydock. Millions of dollars, and bigtime loss of capability for a small navy. Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don't intentio…

Venezuela has a habit (recently) of putting loyalty ahead of meritocracy in government positions. I would not be at all surprised if the captain had minimal actual nautical experience, but a lot of party loyalty.

Even with the merit, it's hard to train a professional Navy. Being a ship captain (or any other position, even the lowly deck seaman) is a mentally challenging task. There's a lot going on and it's expensive to get as much underway time as the well-financed Navies do. Most Navy ships in small countries sit in port a lot, not sure about Venezuela, but they can't have a ton of cash to waste on underway time.

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#83

Post by 93po »

sixQuarks wrote: post #34
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've felt like I'm stuck in some alternate history timeline since 2001.

It feels like Elon Musk is correct about our universe being a simulation.

Don't mention Elon on this website unless you want a horde of incels bringing up their misdirected anger

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#84

Post by clort »

sudoaza wrote: post #52
duxup wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in your examples nobody needed to stage something like a cruise ship stuffed with drugs, they just made their case and did whatever. There is no need for staging anything, nobody would need a cruise ship full of drugs to think that drugs are coming out of Venezuela... Staging an event with a cruise ship as an excuse when they could just do the thing anyway seems like an overly complicated conspiracy theory.

There were staged news, like newspaper articles showing in astonishing detail Saddam's biological and chemical weapons, which oops didn't exist. Also check where the La Tortuga island is located, It's right next to the coast, surrounded by other island, pretty dangerous location to just be drifting without paying attention to where you are. I'm not saying, that's definitely the reason they are there, I'm saying it's…

I didn't read anything about 'drifting without paying attention to where you are' in the article

Drifting is a common tactic for vessels which don't need to be anywhere specific, and 13 miles offshore is not an unsafe place to be drifting. In this location the wind and current will be mostly from the east, so the vessel will be moving to the west at a low speed. You can see what is in the way and 'oh we will hit an island in 12 hours unless we do something' is not an emergency.

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#85

Post by rdtsc »

firekvz wrote: post #71
fbonetti wrote: post #2

Well that's embarrassing. Could you imagine being the crew of the cruise ship and having to rescue the clowns that just tried to ram you?

They ran away, they didn't rescue them. Kinda shows that they might be on blame Ps: Venezuelan here and I hate my gov but this looks really shaddy

> They ran away, they didn't rescue them.

They were rammed by this military boat, headed by what looks like a crazy captain. Would you have brought them on-board?

They could have dropped an extra life-boat and called for help for them probably. But I can't entirely fault them for wanting to run away.

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#86

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

z2210558 wrote: post #47

I only ever seem to see stories that look a whole lot like propaganda from thedrive.com. Who's behind this site?

It's a major automotive blog with TV shows and a large online presence. They also just post stuff that's entertaining to people who like cars/bikes/vehicles in general.

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#87

Post by antpls »

fbonetti wrote: post #2

Well that's embarrassing. Could you imagine being the crew of the cruise ship and having to rescue the clowns that just tried to ram you?

From the article :

"Columbia Cruise Services says Resolute remained in the area until it was clear its services were not required to help in the rescue of the 44 crew members. It then continued on, as planned, to the Port of Willemstad in Curaçao."

Then

"Even if the cruise liner had deliberately sailed within 12 miles of Isla La Tortuga, it very likely would have been legally entitled to do so under the right of innocent passage, unless Venezuelan officials believe the ship of conducting some other prohibited activity."

Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull

#90

Post by boomboomsubban »

analognoise wrote: post #28
sudoaza wrote: post #14

Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with their borders and would not diacard it being a setup.

If the US wanted to invade, apparently we could do it with a handful of cruise ships. Why send carriers when Carnival will do?

The US could not want to invade, instead opting to arm and assist an insurgency in Venezuela. A cruise liner that is supposed to be arrested in Buenos Aires would make for an excellent way to smuggle in supplies and mercenaries. Or they want a civil war that they can then assist with.

We have done similar things in the past, in Syria and a host of Latin American countries. Even in Venezuela, the US aid Maduro forbid was very likely being used for some kind of smuggling. There is a standard international practice for providing aid that the US completely ignored, earning condemnation from international agencies.

Post reply on HN