I have one, maybe the only one, story from my Naval career in which I was the hero that saved the ship from going aground. The culprit in the story was the navigator, and especially his inflated ego. We were maneuvering in thick fog in the Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Virginia) area. I was the RADAR Piloting Officer and was providing the recommendations for course and speed to get to anchorage and to avoid other shipping, not to mention shoal water. The navigator, whose job is visual piloting and who normally, in good visibility, provides the Captain with recommendations, was seriously bent out of shape to be put in a secondary role. So he lied to the Captain and told him he had visual bearings when actually he was also using RADAR ranges from the bridge RADAR scope. The navigator and the men who worked for him were not experienced RADAR piloters, so they got the ship into a serious danger of going aground. I ran onto the bridge and screamed to the Captain, "I hold us standing into danger! Recommend left full rudder, all ahead flank!" The Captain followed my "adament" recommendation and the ship passed on the shallow side of the three fathom buoy. We were drawing a foot and one-half more than three fathoms at the time. We scraped the bottom and the screw sucked up massive amounts of muck off the sea bed, but we stayed afloat. My crew and I got an "attaboy" and the navigator got an abrupt end to his Naval career.
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