# $$HMCS Whitehorse Hits Bottom??$$



## Bruce Monkhouse (21 Oct 2006)

reproduced under the fair dealings act
 http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/10/21/2087598-cp.html

HMCS Whitehorse's underwater collisions prove costly to navy

By DEAN BEEBY
    
OTTAWA (CP) - A West Coast navy ship that helps Canada scan for enemy mines on the sea floor has twice wrecked its high-tech underwater gear in embarassing accidents, racking up big repair bills, newly released documents show. 

The incidents involving HMCS Whitehorse have prompted reprimands and tighter controls over how the sophisticated technology is used. 
For more than a year, Whitehorse's crew has been mapping the seafloor around Vancouver Island using side-scan sonar, a technology that involves towing a torpedo-shaped sensor behind the vessel. 

But on Oct. 14 last year, the five-metre-long sensor - known as a towfish - smashed into an unexpected pinnacle of rock rising sharply from the sea floor. The navy could not provide the exact cost of repairs to date, but said it was between $50,000 and $100,000. 
And on June 15 this year, the crew smashed a second towfish into a ridge of rock near the entrance to the Nanoose experimental test range, on the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The impact damaged a tail fin, a shaft and internal electronics, including a gyroscope. MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. is still repairing the device for the navy, but the bill is expected to be between $100,000 and $200,000. 
With only four towfish available for work on the West Coast, the ship's crew now has smashed half the naval inventory. 
Records released under the Access to Information Act show that investigators blamed carelessness on the part of the operators for the second incident, though absolved them for the first. 

"This is by nature a fairly high-risk exercise," navy spokesman Lt.-Cmdr. Mark MacIntyre said in an interview from Victoria. 
"We're finding things that frankly we didn't expect in terms of these seamounts or pinnacles. . . . On two occasions, the towfish struck bottom." 
The navy requires detailed baseline maps of the sea floor to be able to detect changes that might indicate the deposit of an enemy mine or other hostile device. 

Current hydrographic charts are inadequate from a military perspective because they map in detail only potential hazards to shipping, that is, only to the depth of the largest hulls. 
Deeper sea-floor features are often missed or only roughly charted, and the Whitehorse crew - currently on another mapping mission - has to be constantly alert for sudden changes in deep-water topography. 

MacIntyre said there have been no formal disciplinary measures taken against sailors, but in the second incident "the individual was spoken to and counselled on what happened." 
The navy has also tightened its procedures to prevent additional underwater demolitions of expensive gear. 

"We've adjusted our standard operating procedures for route survey operations," MacIntyre said. 
"We're being much more careful when our computer software indicates we have a steep slope."


----------



## Journeyman (21 Oct 2006)

I thought one of our army.ca members was part of that crew. What was her name again......?   >
 ;D


----------



## beach_bum (22 Oct 2006)

Funny...as I read it that was the first thing I thought of as well......


----------



## aesop081 (22 Oct 2006)

They sent her on ILQ..........smash expensive gear........get a career course  ;D


----------



## Koenigsegg (22 Oct 2006)

> "We're being much more careful when our computer software indicates we have a steep slope."


Is that not similar to saying "I have decided to slow down _before_ I run into the brightly coloured brick wall"?

This is the type of person they let in the Navy?:nana:
(I kid... don't hurt me)


----------



## navymich (22 Oct 2006)

Koenigsegg said:
			
		

> Is that not similar to saying "I have decided to slow down _before_ I run into the brightly coloured brick wall"?



Maybe if you said that your eyes were closed while you were running towards the wall, it might be a better comparison, oh and maybe the fact too that you weren't just running, but in a car with a trailer behind it.

In otherwords, the towfish can't stop on a dime, so you need a heads up that you need to stop, and the fact that if the pinnacle isn't charted, you're not going to see it and not going to be able to plan for it.  

Before anybody says anything, I'm not trying to excuse what happened, and in fact I'm not even going to comment on the story itself.  But I will say this, before ANYONE else comments on it, know the system and how it operates before you go shooting your mouth off about it.


----------



## aesop081 (22 Oct 2006)

navymich said:
			
		

> .  But I will say this, before ANYONE else comments on it, know the system and how it operates before you go shooting your mouth off about it.



+1


----------



## rmacqueen (22 Oct 2006)

navymich said:
			
		

> Before anybody says anything, I'm not trying to excuse what happened, and in fact I'm not even going to comment on the story itself.  But I will say this, before ANYONE else comments on it, know the system and how it operates before you go shooting your mouth off about it.



Sounding a little touchy there Mich ;D

Have to agree though, it's not like you can just hit the brakes and the towfish will stop.  And, to add to the analogy, the trailer would be being pulled by a rope or chain.


----------



## career_radio-checker (22 Oct 2006)

navymich said:
			
		

> Before anybody says anything, I'm not trying to excuse what happened, and in fact I'm not even going to comment on the story itself.  But I will say this, before ANYONE else comments on it, know the system and how it operates before you go shooting your mouth off about it.



True. But I just can't stop picturing what the soundman's facial expression might be after he hears the faint CLANNGGG! in his ear-phones.  ;D


----------



## rmacqueen (22 Oct 2006)

career_radio-checker said:
			
		

> True. But I just can't stop picturing what the soundman's facial expression might be after he hears the faint CLANNGGG! in his ear-phones.  ;D


Hmmm, the "there goes my career" look


----------



## navymich (22 Oct 2006)

Here are a couple of articles that might give you a bit more of an idea of what goes on:

http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/Community/MapleLeaf/vol_8/vol8_13/813_11.pdf



> HMCS WHITEHORSE searches for missing crew
> 
> On March 7, HMCS WHITEHORSE and a team from the Esquimalt-based Fleet Diving Unit (FDU) headed to Quadra Island to aid in the search efforts of a DeHavilland Beaver that went missing February 28. RCMP had been directing the search efforts since late the week before, but was unable to locate the aircraft.
> 
> ...


----------



## navymich (22 Oct 2006)

http://www.lookoutnewspaper.com/archive/20051011/4.shtml



> Whitehorse maps sea bed
> 
> It’s not unusual these days to see HMCS Whitehorse in local waters slowly cruising back and forth.
> 
> ...


----------



## rmacqueen (22 Oct 2006)

The original story talks about the navy only have 4 towfish and now 2 are damaged.  Are they taking that long to repair or is it just part of the "spin" to make things look worse than they really are?

It is nice to see the MCDV's getting lots of use rather than languishing in Dockyard.


----------



## Cronicbny (22 Oct 2006)

The kit itself is much more complicated to operate than the article lets on. I won't comment as to how many "operational" 511 sonars there are on the coast or in inventory.

I'm not sure what the source for the article was - or who for that matter - suffice to say that there are serious inaccuracies within it, and I won't delve into further comment about what specifically those are.

The issue of the fish bottoming out has been looked at, and yes, procedures have changed to ensure it doesn't happen again. 

In the interest of OPSEC and all the other stuff - let's wait and see what DND's (and MDA for that matter) official response is.


----------



## Navy_Blue (23 Oct 2006)

You know the public wants us to be out doing useful things.  Charting the uncharted kinda implies we might find things were not expecting.  So 50,000$$ too 200,000$$ could almost be considered a cost of doing business.  It should be expected we would loose or damage a percentage of our gear any time we do an operation or exercise.

On a side note can the CANTAS on the CPF do mapping and charting operations or is it just for finding our undersea friends??


----------



## Go Navy (23 Oct 2006)

Navy gear!  All wet all the time.  If it survives the environment, then it has to survive the operation.

As for CANTASS, it would if it could, but no.  The Side Scan rig is a different application of SONAR.  CANTASS is a listener, while Side Scan is a transmit and then listen arrangement.  Lots of other info on Google wrt Side Scan technologies.  If you catch an episode of the Sea Hunters, you'll see it in action.

CANTASS listens for noises and tracks their source.  Side Scan is short range bottom surface imager.  Think of a really advanced depth finder.  When the sound waves encounter an object they come back, when they don't, they leave a shadow.  Using that info, and plotting a course around a suspect object, one can get an idea of what it is.  Or more importantly for today, just identify that it is there, so that future surveys realize it is supposed to be there, and we can concentrate on new objects (in the case of hostilities).

Of course, I've always advocated buying the maps from the Russians or the Americans and just using the MCDVs to confirm their validity.  But I digress.

Cheers


----------



## Cayuga (24 Oct 2006)

It was interesting visiting the Canadian Hydrographic Services ( the civilian agency that makes the charts among other things) they had map overlays of the different levels surveying that have been done up and down the coast. In someplaces they have very accurate surveys that they are working on at the moment with the Coast Guard survey vessels often in areas where resources exploration is to take place, and areas where they have lots of traffic, especially cruise ships and deep seas. In other remote areas, they have lead line measurements from the 1920s. Surveying is important work that is essential for the safe passage of vessels on the high seas...


----------



## Ex-Dragoon (24 Oct 2006)

navymich said:
			
		

> Maybe if you said that your eyes were closed while you were running towards the wall, it might be a better comparison, oh and maybe the fact too that you weren't just running, but in a car with a trailer behind it.
> 
> In otherwords, the towfish can't stop on a dime, so you need a heads up that you need to stop, and the fact that if the pinnacle isn't charted, you're not going to see it and not going to be able to plan for it.
> 
> Before anybody says anything, I'm not trying to excuse what happened, and in fact I'm not even going to comment on the story itself.  But I will say this, before ANYONE else comments on it, know the system and how it operates before you go shooting your mouth off about it.



Agreed as well Mich, interesting how the comments fly when the air force or navy damages or destroys gear in the course of operations but our brethern on the ground are quick to be defensive when the situation happens to them....


----------



## Good2Golf (25 Oct 2006)

Folks aren't deliberately trying to waste taxpayers' money...I write this up to the cost of doing business.  There are only so many precautions you can take...somethings are inherently risky, but worth the risk for the operational gain.  Heck, the USN had an SSN hit an uncharted seamount, so a crack the whip side-scanning sonar is well within "bound to happen at some point" territory...

G2G


----------



## Journeyman (25 Oct 2006)

Ex-Dragoon said:
			
		

> Agreed as well Mich, interesting how the comments fly when the air force or navy damages or destroys gear in the course of operations but our brethren on the ground are quick to be defensive when the situation happens to them....


Well, as a soldier, it's my _right_ to slag airforce and navy people. It's been that way ever since the military expanded from one natural element to three services (humans don't have wings or gills - - we live on the ground....hello). 

Of course, I also understand that I am equally fair-game for the requisite slagging from either of the two army-supporting elements. Man, I haven't seen you zoomies & swabbies this sensitive since......well, since you thought you might end up with muddy boots in A'stan  >

 ;D  <<---- this means it's not serious. Last time I was _really_ serious, it required divorce lawyers to sort it out


----------

