Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2023 September 18

= September 18 =

Gray lady down
In Gray Lady Down, which vessel was the stand-on vessel and which was the give-way vessel -- the submarine or the freighter? In other words, which of them was to blame for the collision? (Not to be construed as legal advice, since this is a fictional scenario.) 2601:646:9882:46E0:241C:9D9C:5521:C142 (talk) 21:43, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen the movie or read the book, but the poster and the flooding of the engine room suggest that the sub was struck from behind. The freighter was overtaking the sub and the overtaking ship is responsible for keeping separation. The poster suggests that the sub may have been coming slightly from the right, but on a very sharp angle, so it counts as overtaking. Even if the angle had been courser, the sub was coming from the right, so the sub had right of way. There are special rules for sailing vessels, ships engaged in fishing, cable-laying, diving operations, ships with mechanical trouble, ships constrained by their draught etc., but those don't apply here.
 * This is all assuming that they showed all lights and sound signals that are required for ordinary ships operating in fog. Subs are designed to be hard to spot, even when surfaced. If not well visible on radar, it should raise a radar reflector. If not operating a radar, a ship shall operate a fog horn, and when hearing some other ship's fog horn, a ship shall respond with its own fog horn. If the sub didn't follow those rules, the freighter can't be blamed. On the poster, neither ship shows any lights. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:20, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The regulations for preventing collisions at sea have no specific provisions for surfacing submarines. The standard navigational equipment of a surface vessel does not allow its crew to keep track of nearby subsurface vessels, so they cannot be expected to give way to a surfacing submarine. Obviously, it is the responsibility of the crew of the submarine to ensure that there are no vessels near the spot where the submarine is to surface. See also Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision. If, in the film, the submarine was hit after surfacing at a sufficient distance of the freighter so that the collision could have been avoided, the regulations do come into play. Without watching the film, I cannot know whether the film makes clear whether this condition of safe surfacing was met. If it leaves it open, the question who was at fault in the fictional accident has no answer. Otherwise, as another devout and intrepid contributor has already made clear, there are still many other issues that need clarification before an unambiguous resolution can be made. --Lambiam 09:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen the film, but the film poster shows the submarine being struck from behind. The film trailer shows that the submarine was running on the surface at the time.
 * Submarines are very hard to see in the dark, the so-called Battle of May Island in 1918 saw six submarines being sunk or damaged in a single fleet night exercise. Alansplodge (talk) 13:29, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * On a side note, "Gray Lady" is an old nickname for the New York Times, less common now that the newspaper is printed in color. Cullen328 (talk) 22:53, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! So I guess I'll just have to watch the opening scene again with these points in mind to find out the answer! 2601:646:9882:46E0:7137:977A:132E:9612 (talk) 02:31, 22 September 2023 (UTC)