Shallow waters, heavy swells and currents, pack ice in some areas.

and you were about 100nm off the coast of the kola penisular colliding with a Delta IV class submarine commanded by Captain 1st rank Sergi Bulgarkov.

This is true, although I didn't know the Captain's name...

We didn't exactly stop and exchange insurance info... if you know what I mean!:D

After we confirmed that the Delta was underway on her power, we left the area.

From which website did you get your info? I usually see it reported as a Delta III, but Delta IV is correct.

Good one Sailor Steve!

The XO onboard Grayling was despised by the enlisted and officers both.

He was fairly tall, especially for submarine duty. On the 637 class the weapons shipping hatch is just outside the XO's stateroom. When in port, the interior hatch would swing in and you cranked up into the overhead with a large handwheel.

In the confined space, if you're tall, you quickly get a feel for where all the low hanging objects are and you learn to duck in all the right places or else get a big knot on your head.

When the XO would come out of his stateroom, he would duck just enough to miss the weapons shipping hatch.

Only one day, after the XO had apparently ticked someone off just enough, someone caught the XO in his stateroom right before a casualty drill, and that someone turned the handwheel about a turn, just enough to lower the hatch about an inch.

When the alarm sounded, the XO comes running out of his stateroom, ducks the same amount as he does everytime in that situation and WHAM!:damn: He catches the hatch in the top of the head.

Now, normally I am not the kind of person that wants anything bad to happen to anyone, but I have to admit, this guy had it coming.

GraylingSTS,the victim of your fender bender is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian...7_Novomoskovsk.
or if you can read russian:http://nuclearno.com/textml.asp?7765
Did your captain lose his no-claims discount?

I knew about Sergey Bulgarkov because he knows Igor Kurdin who knows Mikhail Motsak who knows my stepfather lol chain but the captains name is over the internet as well, and he has also appeard on TV saying he knew the greyling was there.

Igor Kurdin laid into grayling by saying a few meters to the side he would have hit the missile bay and it would have been a accident worse then chernobyl.

Interesting! I would love to find more information on the incident from the Russian perspective, but it would have to be in English.

I agree that we narrowly escaped a terrible tragedy. It could have been much worse. I thank God every day that neither of the subs ended up on the bottom.

I have the utmost respect for the Delta's crew and anyone else that serves or has served onboard a sub. Especially the ones that experience an incident like this one, because everyone speculates so much, they think someone must not have been doing their job. The scary thing is that accidents such as this still happen, even when EVERYONE is doing their job.

As far as a near-Chernobyl accident, who knows what might have happened. I think I saw pictures of the damage to the Delta, either online or on a Discovery documentary, but I may be mistaken. I was thinking that damage was forward of the sail...I really wish I could figure out where I saw the pics.

Anyway, it's not like we chose the part of the sub we would collide with. It could have just as easily hit the missile compartment, or reactor compartment.

I know that we were like an ant hitting an elephant! I think the Grayling displaced about 5000 tons submerged, compared to the Delta IV displacing over 18000 tons submerged.

Do you think ex U-Boaters have ever been on here? How cool is that thought - Jurgen Oesten reading YOUR posts. :D Its cool to see modern subbers though. You guys rock :up:

Well then you best thank god harder because if it had been a typhonn or oscar 2 i could safely say wou wouldnt be chatting right now.

Why an "...accident worse then Chernobyl"? Surely an explosion inside a nuclear power plant with an exposed core is much worse then colliding a sub missile bay? Nukes don't explode on impact...you know?

Me and you know that but general joe doesnt know that its whats called upgrading the entire incident.

Why would colliding with a typhoon or oscar 2 be more dangerous than a Delta IV? Maybe the sub configuration? Missile compartment forward?

Trust me, if we had hit at a slightly different angle, or our speed had been a little faster, or our depth slightly deeper (more direct hit) we could have easily been on the bottom. A pressure hull breach would have been unrecoverable.

Most of those guys are at least in their 70s now, don't know how many of them are surfing the web.:hmm:

I think U-Boat crews would think modern submariners are downright spoiled. The sub I was on, all but the most junior crew members had their own rack. The food was good, most of the time. The spaces weren't cramped at all compared to a WWII era sub. We even had movies after watch (although it seemed like it was Road House most of the time). We had fresh water most of the time, unless there was an equipment breakdown. Hell, we could take "Hollywood" showers compared to what the U-boat crews could take.

And if you really want to talk about spoiled...the boomer crews of today, they're the ones that have it made! 1 ship, 2 crews, relatively huge quarters, those guys have it made! (Any boomer sailors reading, sorry to offend, just don't try to deny it!):)

I was in Augusta Bay, Sicily in 1976 when they towed in USS Voge after her collision with an Echo II off Kitihira anchorage near Crete. I also knew sonarmen aboard USS Belknap when she collided with USS America. The LPO named Buss, I knew from the Schofield. Two of the other techs I met later. They had gone below to check an equipment fault in the forward eqpt room 20 minutes before the collision. The stack operator they left in sonar control on watch was stuffed into the stack which was pushed 100 ft aft and down 4 decks. When the Montgomery was in Philly in '77 in the yards, they were working on the Belknap refit. That was when a welder cut away part of the wreckage and found the remains of the last missing crewman.

There was a new guy on board Grayling when we did the "CrashEX", he was still a nub, nonqual at the time. His nickname was "scrappy".

I talked to him a couple of years ago, and he has been on 2 other subs, and both of them have had collisions too. They changed his nickname to "Crash". Poor guy.

Wow this is so cool im actually reading stuff from a real submariner, its been a good read GraylingSTS(SS). :rock:

You guys are lucky ive never ever seen a real sub in my life. Friggin New Zealand and there stupid anti nuke laws :damn: :damn: