Have you ever wondered how the unpredictable forces of nature have shaped the fate of naval
operations, even in the modern era?
The weather has always been of decisive importance in military campaigns.
At sea, the danger of bad weather is even more pronounced for military personnel than
on land.
Many naval operations have met a disastrous end at the hands of storms, and these incidents
are not all in the ancient past.
We’ve seen such disasters as recently as 2022, when the Thai ship HTMS Sukhothai, which
was originally built in the United States, capsized and sank during a storm that hit
it during an operation off the Gulf of Thailand.
106 sailors were onboard the ship at the time.
The Sukhothai was buffeted by ten-foot waves as it sank.
While most of the crew was fortunately rescued, 29 of the sailors died.
In the history of the United States Navy, 39 ships have been lost in weather-related
episodes.
However, no losses have occurred since 1949, when the USS Cochino foundered off the Norwegian
coast during a polar gale that caused an electrical fire and two battery explosions.
How has the US Navy protected its ships and sailors from the elements since then?
Let’s take a look at some of the ways the Navy has guarded its ships against the wrath
of Mother Nature and what it may do to improve that process in the future.
On the open ocean, weather conditions are much rougher than those seen in shallower
waters.
Hurricanes or typhoons on the high seas can create waves up to 300 feet high.
These waves can not only swallow a ship but also impart tremendous kinetic energy that
can disrupt a vessel’s movement and potentially capsize it.
Even if the ship simply rocks under the force of the wave, that disruption can move heavy
machinery around and injure sailors.
Prior to the advent of steam power, ships were often at the complete mercy of such storms.
With the steam engine, ships had better defenses by being able to head into the wind.
By the turn of the 20th century, as weather predictions got more accurate and radio communications
technology began to take off, ships were better-protected, although there were still catastrophic accidents.
For example, the USS Cyclops was lost along with its entire crew on March 4th 1918, and
we still do not know exactly how it happened.
By World War II, ships had better defenses through improved communications and weather
monitoring methods.
Ground observers, aircraft patrols, and weather warnings gave sailors more prior knowledge
of storms, but disaster could still be sudden.
In December 1944, a typhoon struck the Pacific Fleet.
It capsized three destroyers that were assisting operations in the Philippines.
Nine other ships were seriously damaged.
790 sailors were lost, as were 196 planes.
Today, ships are much better protected against severe weather thanks first and foremost to
satellite imagery, radar mapping, and even better communications.
The US Navy gets timely information on weather patterns from eight Meteorology and Oceanography
Centers in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans to provide up-to-date information on
storm patterns.
The crew of a US Navy ship can also link up with weather satellites that monitor clouds,
currents, water temperature, air temperature, ice, dust, and more.
US Navy and allied ships therefore have much more advanced warning of incoming severe weather
events and know how to avoid them.
Weather buoys are a ship’s second line of defense against adverse natural phenomena.
The Navy currently forward deploys over 1,000 of these instruments in the world’s oceans.
These buoys act as beacons, measuring things like local atmospheric pressure, air temperature,
and water temperature.
The buoys then relay this information back to the US Navy’s ships.
Since tropical cyclones form in areas of low pressure with high water temperature, knowing
these locations beforehand allows a ship to avoid a potential encounter with a hurricane
or typhoon.
The US Navy also links with NOAA’s latest National Weather Service prediction models,
such as Wave Watch III, which was released in March 2019.
Tracking severe weather is so important to both the United States Navy and Air Force
that they have a specialized command for it, too, called the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
This command was founded in 1959 and was originally in Guam but is today based at Pearl Harbor,
having moved there in January 1999.
The command monitors and forecasts tropical cyclone development and movement across the
Pacific and Indian Oceans, which account for 90% of the world’s tropical cyclonic activity.
With the elevated importance of the Indo-Pacific region in today’s geopolitics, the JTWC
is even more important for the US Navy than it was at the start of the 21st century.
The ships of the US Navy have their own instruments for tracking and predicting weather, too.
These include anemometers to track wind speed and direction, barometers to measure atmospheric
pressure, and localized weather radars to detect storms and rainfall.
With all of these tools and data, US Navy navigators are well-prepared to plot optimal
routes, moving to areas of higher pressure, clearer skies, and calmer seas.
These tools also allow naval navigators the ability to optimize the speed and direction
of their vessels to keep them level in the waves.
Such procedures not only prevent the ship from capsizing, but they also help to keep
the crew healthy by preventing seasickness.
However, severe weather events are often unpredictable even with advanced warning and predictive
models.
Hurricanes and typhoons frequently move in ways that prior tracking did not predict.
Often, only the general location and path of a storm can be predicted with certainty
far out in advance.
It is often only within 24 hours or less that you can truly know if a hurricane is about
to hit you directly.
One such example of this danger occurred in October 2015, when a merchant ship called
the SS El Faro was lost along with all of its 33 crew members after getting hit by the
eye wall of Hurricane Joaquin, a powerful category four hurricane that formed in the
Caribbean.
The El Faro would have had its own way of getting advanced warning about the hurricane
and yet it did not prevent the disaster.
Early warning systems only go so far, so there are specific engineering techniques on the
US Navy’s vessels that are designed to withstand extreme weather events.
On the engineering side, the US Navy’s first order of business in keeping its ships afloat
is to maintain a low center of gravity.
Things with a lower center of gravity have less of a chance of losing their balance or
capsizing than things that have a higher center of gravity.
To keep the center of gravity on its ships low, the US Navy stores its fuel and heaviest
equipment in the lowest parts of the vessel.
In other words, equipment on a US Navy ship is not distributed randomly.
The ship’s engineers carefully calculate where to store the equipment in a bid to provide
for maximum buoyancy, where the mass of the vessel is equal to the upward pressure that
the water exerts.
Cruise ships use the same principle, with the heaviest equipment being stored below
deck to ensure greater ship stability.
The next step in the fight for buoyancy comes with the design of the ship’s hull.
This proved an item of controversy in recent years with the new Zumwalt-class destroyer.
Many people feared that the USS Zumwalt’s unusual “tumblehome hull” design would
make it less capable of handling rough waters.
However, the opposite appears to be the case.
Veteran crew members have said that the Zumwalt actually handles rough seas better than the
traditional ships they had also served on.
In March 2019, the Zumwalt was traveling to Alaska in treacherous seas, with winds between
22 and 27 knots (25-31 miles per hour) and waves between nine and 13 feet.
Although these were not the extreme hurricane conditions that have led to the worst disasters
at sea, such weather provides for an unpleasant traveling experience even on ships much larger
than the Zumwalt.
Though the ship was traveling in such conditions, which sailors call Sea State Six, the ship’s
commanding officer at the time, Captain Andrew Carlson, mentioned that it felt like Sea State
Three onboard, which corresponds to waves of only two to three feet.
The Zumwalt’s tumblehome hull widens while nearing the water, with the edge of the water
being longer at the ship’s bow than on its main deck.
The Zumwalt’s design was mainly executed with stealth in mind, but some architects
worried that it would come at the cost of making the ship less stable.
In 2015, Ken Brower, a well-regarded civilian naval architect, warned that the Zumwalt would
capsize in a following sea if it was moving at the wrong speed and hit by the right type
of wave at the right angle.
Nine years later, this does not appear to be the case.
Most US Navy ships have a more traditional U-shaped hull designed to resist drag or tilting
in rough waters.
The United States’ Nimitz and Ford-class carriers have V-shaped hulls that can cut
through big waves.
The US Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers in particular have a tendency to list to starboard while
under Combat Load Conditions.
To compensate for this, they have a fresh water ballast system in several of the inner
bottom voids and damage control voids.
Ballast systems have been in use since ancient times.
Early ships would use solid materials like sandbags, rocks, or even roof tiles.
However, from the 1880s, ships began to use liquid ballast systems.
All ships have a ballast system, and their importance can be deduced by knowing what
would happen if a ship does not have such a tool.
Without ballast tanks, modern ships may see their propellers not fully immerse themselves
in water, list or trim if they are carrying less than full cargo, suffer stress on the
ship’s structure, and have transversal and longitudinal instability.
The Nimitz-class carriers have freshwater ballast tanks in several inner bottom and
damage control voids.
By controlling the balance of water in these tanks, the carrier’s crew members can raise
or lower their vessel’s center of gravity and ensure buoyancy.
The USS Gerald R. Ford takes a different approach from the typical ship, including its Nimitz-class
predecessors.
The Ford uses a ballast system known as Perma Ballast, which is produced by a company called
Ballast Technologies Inc.
This product is a solid fixed ballast that is pumpable and has seen use since the 1980s.
The material is made of inert composite solids of a proprietary primary material mixed with
water.
The company claims that the product does not contain chemical binders, making it environmentally
safe and easily removable.
Perma Ballast is installed as a thick slurry or paste.
This system has not only seen use on the Ford, either.
It is also seen on the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers.
The US Navy uses it on military sealift vessels, too.
Some frigates in New Zealand’s navy and assault ships in the Australian Navy also
use the Perma Ballast material.
But hull design and ballast systems are far from the only methods the US Navy (and many
other ships besides) have in place to ensure that vessels can stay at sea during storms
and huge waves.
Other technologies are put into play.
One of them involves specialized fin stabilizers.
Fin stabilizers help modern ships maintain balance in the constantly churning oceans.
These pieces of equipment, located at the bottom of a ship’s hull, provide resistance
to the forces pushing on the ship at sea and prevent it from rolling too heavily to the
left or right, thus preventing it from capsizing.
Because fin stabilizers are built near the bottom of a ship’s hull, most people don’t
see them.
They are often only visible when a ship goes into dry dock.
For ships of the US and other navies, fin stabilizers are even more important, as they
provide the platform stability which is critical in carrying out missions.
Imagine an aircraft carrier rolling too heavily to the left or the right on encountering rough
seas, for example.
In such circumstances, it would be impossible for the carrier to launch its planes.
Similarly, ship stability is critical for other ships to launch their missiles or fire
their guns.
Without fin stabilizers, the US or other navies would be hard-pressed to carry out their missions
unless the seas are calm.
However, since calmer seas are closer to land, this would limit one of a modern navy’s
strongest attributes – the ability to strike a target on land from hundreds or thousands
of miles away.
Thanks to fin stabilizers, carriers can launch their planes and other ships can launch their
missiles in almost any type of weather condition.
There are two fin stabilizers on a modern ship, one to port and one to starboard.
Each of the fin stabilizers has its special designated room from which it is controlled
and operated.
There is a fin box in each of these rooms which contains the fin and the machinery needed
to control it.
Standard ships come with stabilizing fins that can be raised or lowered by 25 degrees.
The stabilizing fins can be remotely operated from the ship’s bridge.
Additionally, ships of the US Navy and most other modern ships come with gyroscopic stabilizers.
These consist of spinning, vacuum-enclosed spheres mounted in a gimbal frame.
These frames are then attached to special locations on a ship, usually in the engine
room.
These spheres, which maintain rotational motion, create angular momentum which combines with
the ship’s rolling motion.
The combination of these two forces produce a leveling torque that keeps the ship stabilized
and requires no further human intervention to work properly.
Computer systems on a ship’s bridge can adjust the tilt of the gyroscopic stabilizers
as weather conditions require.
Smaller ships can also to an extent self-correct if they capsize.
They have angled hulls, weighted keels, or specialized ballasts that provide corrective
movements should the vessel roll past a certain angle.
These ship’s computers are smart enough to understand when to make corrections and
activate ballast pumps to ship water between the tanks.
This will provide a stabilizing force to correct the ship’s tilt and keep it upright.
The Navy’s aircraft carriers are far too large for this kind of technology, but smaller
coastal vessels and inflatable craft have these features.
Coast Guard ships often have them as well.
Naval engineers continue to develop technology to improve their craft and reduce risk to
the ship.
They are increasingly choosing to use composite materials to reduce the ship’s weight and
better prevent corrosion.
It is also certain that artificial intelligence will be developed to better monitor and predict
weather patterns and prioritize important information for presentation to a ship’s
crew.
In a scenario that might make some science fiction fans worry, it is also possible that
AI will make certain decisions on navigation and ship stabilization automatically so that
human crew members can direct their attention on the most urgent tasks.
Through machine learning, these AI programs will get better at recognizing potentially
adverse conditions and responding to them more quickly.
Technology might get the most attention, but having the proper personnel to operate and
maintain it is just as critical.
Because the US Navy has a global mission, it is critical to keep a significant number
of ships at sea at any given time.
These ships must travel thousands of miles and stay at sea for months on end, with the
necessity to carry out tasks and missions at any time.
This is why US Navy sailors are carefully trained to maintain their vessels.
There are three main categories for maintenance tasks in the US Navy – preventative, corrective,
and overhaul.
As the name implies, sailors assigned to preventative maintenance are tasked with upkeep on the
ship’s structure and equipment so that problems do not show up in the first place.
Preventative tasks include routine inspections, lubrication of a ship’s machinery, and routine
tests of equipment.
Corrective maintenance tasks, also as the name implies, are for when problems show up
in a ship’s operation.
Damaged or malfunctioning equipment must be repaired with speed to keep the ship at sea,
since each vessel depends on its gear working properly.
As we have seen, the failure of even one critical piece of equipment can mean danger for the
entire ship and crew, especially in rough weather conditions.
For example, fixing the frequent problems on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships, such
as engine troubles, fall under corrective maintenance.
While being able to perform corrective maintenance is an essential part of a sailor’s duty,
this work can sometimes be filthy, especially on a ship that is not well-designed.
For example, in July 2016, the USS Freedom LCS suffered a leak in its main machinery
room.
Water mixed with oil to create a sludge that went through one of the four engines on board.
Sailors had to clean this mess up in corrective maintenance.
Finally, there is overhaul maintenance, a much more comprehensive category than either
of the other two.
Overhaul maintenance involves putting a ship into dry dock so that the hull is fully exposed
and out of the water.
In dry dock, sailors and civilian contractors can perform upkeep on equipment that is not
typically visible, such as the ship’s rudders and propellers.
Those tasked to do overhaul maintenance on a ship can take entire systems apart, repair
them, and put them back together.
The troubles on board the USS Freedom can be taken as an example.
An inspection of the ship after its participation in the 2016 Rim of Pacific (RIMPAC) revealed
that saltwater had leaked into the engines and corroded them.
The USS Freedom needed to be put into dry dock and repaired for two years’ worth of
overhaul maintenance.
Navy sailors and civilian navigators are not only trained to do maintenance, however.
They are trained and retrained to respond to emergencies.
Drills would include engine room fire and flood exercises, oil spill drills, and blackout
training drills which include response procedures should a ship lose power.
In the latter scenario, a ship is at the mercy of the weather since it has no force to counter
the wind and current.
Sailors must restore power to the ship to prevent a disaster.
The US Navy also has abandon ship drills and survivability training should the worst case
scenario happen.
In the latter drill, crews will train on how to jump into the ocean from the deck of a
ship, prepare lifeboats, life jackets, and the necessary survival equipment should they
need to resort to such measures.
Less dramatically, sailors also participate in frequent drills designed to rescue crew
members who have fallen into the sea by accident.
Virtual reality training is also taking off in the US Navy and among its allies.
For example, the Royal Navy is using virtual reality simulators to recreate a variety of
its vessels.
These simulators allow crew members to familiarize themselves with a ship’s structure and tasks
so that decision-making in the real world can happen more easily and rapidly.
The world of navigation has come a long way from the age of sail, where unpredictable
weather and wind or muscle-based propulsion meant frequent shipwrecks.
Such things may seem like a thing of the past.
However, the incidents with the El Faro and HTMS Sukhothai revealed that Mother Nature
will always find ways to wreck the best-laid human plans and engineering.
What potential flaws do you think might still be present in the Navy’s ships, past or
future?
What other advances do you suspect might be on the horizon in humanity’s constant race
for mastery over Mother Nature?
Don’t forget to let us know in the comments.
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