Thanks for that link Robomatic. This was certainly one boat that had luck on its side after hitting the seamount. The front end damage took out the fwd main ballast tanks. Luckily the collision shock did not cause the reactor rods to drop in at the same time. That could have made things worse.

Certainly seems a cock up with the charts which led to this happening.

We did one stint of operating in the Pacific and that was the only time I have ever been on a boat with active sonar being used regularly to try and spot uncharted sea mounts. The article is correct in stating that some of these areas have only ever been charted by Cook and his contempoaries.

Today we can use satellites to pinpoint things as small as 1 metre on the Earth surface, track weather systems, but we know so little still about the real terrain of the sea bed under the oceans of the world.

Sadly there was still a loss of a life and my sympathies to the young Petty Officers family. The Captain will also have this with him for the rest of his life.