Unlike tanks and guns of the army and aircraft of the air force which are fuelled and equipped with explosives only when the occasion demands and then also with only limited quantities, warships, when operational - which is for periods of a year or more continuously - always carry several tons of explosives including armed missiles on board, in peace as much as in war. The safety regulations are, naturally, very stringent as the ships' crew have to live in close proximity, almost cheek by jowl, with dangerous ordnance. Additionally, these ships are always fully loaded with hundreds, in some cases with several thousands, of tons of fuel, ready to sail on operational missions. There are risks associated with continuously sitting on this combination of lethal substances but that is the way it is. Many precautions have to be taken which is a 24/7 affair but if one wants to operate navies this must be accepted as a way of life. There are hundreds of miles of electrical cable running through the ship and that has its own risk considering that in any ship, in harbour and at sea, a great deal of machinery, pumps, compressors, generators et al, have to be running all the time. Finally, on board the ship itself, not in some kitchen located at some distance, food is constantly being prepared and fires burning. Add to this mix the fact that ships have to operate through fair and foul weather, rolling and pitching, with fuel moving from one side to the other. All of these create a situation in which risk of fire is ever present and, therefore, measures, both in terms of suitable equipment and training of people to cope with it, acquire great importance. What is surprising is not that fires do, occasionally, take place but that they do not occur with greater frequency. It is the state of training which prevents the fires from starting and when they do, enables the required fire fighting measures to cope with them.
At another level, warships at sea must often sail close to the coast to replicate operational scenarios. Here they will find hundreds of fishing boats of all sizes ranging from a 12-foot one-man craft to larger trawlers of varying sizes; one such was captured by terrorists off the coast of Saurashtra as they approached Mumbai to launch their raids on November 26, 2008. A great majority of these craft are unlit even though they are required to display appropriate lights. Great care has to be taken by seafarers to avoid them, and the nets they spread out which can damage propellers if entangled. In short, there is an ever present risk, especially during hours of darkness. Instances when, despite all precautions, accidents occur are many and the recent one in which a warship hit a fishing boat which sank and then rescued all its crew are just one of the hazards of a seagoing vocation. The fact that the Navy relieved the Captain of the ship pending enquiry was a correct step to ensure impartial investigation.
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Another facet of seafaring, especially in warships which must train to enter into harm's way, is to operate in relatively shallow waters which will often be encountered off the enemy's coast. Navigating in shallow waters is also routine while entering or leaving any port and every once in a while, a ship might touch bottom. Dozens of ships have done this in the past and dozens more will do so in the future in navies round the world, not just in India. There are many factors that come into play including the state of tide and wind and while a great many navigate these hazards safely, some unlucky ones run aground. One such was the landing ship whose propeller grazed bottom at Visakhapatnam. Once again, and correctly, the captain has been transferred out pending enquiry.
Two or three other instances have been reported in the media but anyone familiar with the business of naval seafaring knows that these are routine events which attend everyday life at sea. Just to get some perspective, as many as 19 commanding officers of US naval ships have faced such unhappy ordeals in the last year and been removed from command. Naturally, such accidents will be less visible in navies which spend more time in harbour than at sea and there are a few of these 'fair weather' forces. The Indian Navy, happily, is not one of them. Yes, the case of Sindhurakshak, which suffered an explosion in August last year and sank at her berth in Mumbai, falls in a different and more serious category. The submarine was in the process of loading fully armed torpedoes prior to proceeding to sea on operational patrol. There are many risks attending this evolution but there are ways in which the risk is minimised and over decades nothing untoward has occurred with such loading having been carried out hundreds of times in dozens of submarines. The exact cause can be established only once the vessel is salvaged and that process has reportedly now begun. Navies which operate such ships, the US and Russian being two, have lost one or more submarines in years gone by with great loss of life. The Indian navy has joined that list but thankfully with lesser penalty. Serious effort must be made to establish what caused the accident as the safety measures to be taken during such activities are many and at least some might have been overlooked or even violated by the crew to expedite the operation.
So, yes, some accidents have taken place. And, yes, many such have come our way earlier and will recur again, in our navy as much as in navies elsewhere. This is not because training is deficient or the crew not proficient. The vocation of seagoing, especially in navies where risk-taking is a norm not an exception, is a challenging one in which the medium can be as much a tough opponent as any man-made adversary. Those who come out relatively unscathed, such as this writer and many others who have held command, have done nothing special or been better trained; it is just that they had luck on their side and when things could have easily gone wrong, they did not. The business is attendant with great risk and threat, in peace as much as in war, and the dividing line between an accident and a narrow miss is a very thin one. It is not a profession for those who are averse to going into harm's way. As wise old grandmothers say, "do not go into the kitchen if you cannot stand the heat".
The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command