Gotta know what you are ramming…
https://globalnews.ca/news/6774974/cruise-ship-venezuela-ramming/
Don’t bring a cruise ship to a navy battle — unless you’re fighting Venezuela.
A Venezuelan navy patrol boat is now sitting on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea after losing a bizarre encounter with an unarmed cruise ship, in what has turned into a high-seas game of finger-pointing.
The Venezuelan warship, called the Naiguata, intercepted the RCGS Resolute off the coast of Venezuela shortly after midnight on March 30, according to statements from both parties.
The Naiguata ordered the Resolute to change its course, leading to a tense stand-off between the two ships’ crews over whether they were in international or Venezuelan waters.
According to Columbia Cruise Services, staff on the Resolute were trying to inform their head office of the encounter when the Venezuelans opened fire with guns.
“Shortly thereafter, the navy vessel approached the starboard side … and purposely collided with the RCGS Resolute,” the Germany-based company said in a statement.
“The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters,” Columbia Cruise Services said.
Vladimir Padrino López, Venezuela’s minister of defence, disputed that claim in a statement, saying that the cruise ship actually rammed the patrol boat and “caused its sinking”
[…]The 122 metre-long ship was built and armoured for cruising through icy waters, and it suffered only minor damage in the collision, according to the cruise line company.
It’s a very bad idea to ram the bow of an ice breaker with your WannaBe Navy boat…
Musings from the Chiefio 
Now that sounds like a strange adventure. It would appear the the Resolute crew was on vacation before heading heading north for their charters, that may have been canceled due to the WuHuFlu and a Venezuela boat Captain wanted a bigger better ride. The Venezuela boat likely split a seam in their attempt to “muscle” the much heavier and better built German ship. Sometimes the good guys win one. 8-) ..pg
Only goes to show just how dopey the Venezuelan government has become. I assume that the cruise ship was in international waters and this was an attempted armed hijacking by the Venezuelan navy.
I saw somewhere that Venezuela paid A$380 million years ago for that sunk boat….Some folks can only learn the hard way… !
Nothing as interesting as that happened to me today :o)
How strange! I can imagine a country’s naval vessel ramming a ship that was suspected of carrying some kind of pandemic pathogens, to turn it away from its territorial waters, but toward its territorial waters!?
It reminds me of the modern pirates trying to capture oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; is there compelling information that they’re Iranian privateers?.
Compu Gator [recently wrote] 5 April 2020 at 3:00 am [GMT]:
It reminds me of the modern pirates trying to capture oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; is there compelling information that they’re Iranian privateers?
Most readers herein likely already know that some captures attempted in the Persian Gulf succeeded (blamed, I suppose, on Bush-the-Elder’s “Desert Storm” or “Enduring Freedom”, or whatever his Persian-Gulf war was called).
So more precisely, I was wondering whether “compelling information” has yet been found or compiled in intervening years that the pirates in the Persian Gulf were operating under the protection of letters of marque [*] issued by the Islamic “Republic” of Iran. Perhaps the gov’t of Venezuela is now issuing such letters?
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Note *: Don’t letters of marque have some degree of exculpatory legal standing under (international) Admiralty Law?
Thank you for a very amusing story! I guess we will have to update the Italian Admiral joke.
@philjourdan — Please would you post the Italian Admiral joke (updated or not) for benefit of us hicks in the sticks wot ain’t heard it. Thanks.
How does an Italian Admiral view his fleet?
Through a glass bottom boat.
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Thank you! And wasn’t it the Italian main battle tank that had 4 reverse gears? (H/t Helmut Schmidt)
Yep! Although that is sometimes attributed to the French as well.