‘Nathan told me [the turn] didn’t seem any different to any other occasion,’’ Mr Outteridge said.
‘‘The bow dug in a little bit but he said that’s not unusual.
‘‘The next thing he heard a cracking noise and the boat went on its side.
‘‘Before it capsized it snapped in half, Nathan described it as folding like a taco shell.’’
And:
“A quick head count revealed one member of the crew was missing – Andrew Simpson – triggering a desperate search.
The British two-time Olympic gold medallist was trapped underwater, wedged underneath ‘‘a few tonnes’’ of carbon fibre, frantically trying to free himself.
His crew members could see him, fighting for his life and dived beneath the water to try to set him free.
They handed the man they called ‘‘Bart’’ emergency oxygen bottles – which hold about 10 breaths each – in a bid to keep him alive in the hope rescue crews would arrive in time.
“She was decommissioned in 1995 and as of 2004, she was on loan to the Army, but remained laid up at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. In December 2006, the ship was towed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it now has a high-tech role as a launch platform with the nation’s developing ballistic missile defense program. Three times the ship was towed some 100 miles off shore and used to launch small ballistic missiles, which are then intercepted by Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Missiles, test-fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. The last test in the series was performed 26 October, when the ship fired a “Scud-like” missile, which was successfully intercepted. The ship will be towed back to the San Francisco Bay Area for the winter. Kaua’i lacks a suitable land-based launch site, and the costs of building one would far exceed the approximately $600,000 per year it costs to use the old warship, so the vessel returned to Pearl Harbor for a second series of tests in late spring 2008.[1] As of 16 June 2012 she berthed at Pier 80 in San Francisco, CA.”
From 2008:
Well, look what just got towed in from Hawaii. Fresh from testing of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, San Francisco’s favorite former helicopter carrier, the former U.S.S. Tripoli (LPH-10), had its ups and downs in the Aloha State.
[UPDATE: Upon further review, these aren't Chinese naval uniforms after all:
At first I thought they could have been from the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy.
And oh, look what's on the PLAN's to-do list:
See that? In addition to taking over Japanese islands (the Senkakus and others), the neo-Imperial Chinese Navy wants to take over Vietnamese, Malaysian, Filipino, and Bruneian islands as well. And don't forget about Taiwan.
But we're being visited by a South Korean ship so it's all good.]
