Mark Boyd’s Sea Story

Collision at Sea - USS Kinkaid (DD-965)

We were on our way to Hong Kong when we had our collision with a Panamanian registered freighter, the M/V Kota Petani. Once again, my ship was in the news. The collision happened in the Straits of Malaka which can look like a Los Angeles freeway during rush hour.

The collision at sea ripped a huge gaping hole in the starboard side. Just for some scale, the photo shows damage to three decks (floors or stories to landlubbers) above the water line. The hole extended two more decks below the water line. There was much concern about whether the keel had been damaged (fortunately it wasn't).

Several spaces were flooded, including berthing spaces. In my berthing space, where 90 sailors were sleeping, the water was coming in slow enough that we were all able to escape. We had to don our Emergency Escape Breathing Devices (EEBD) so we could breath through all the thick smoke.

Fire, smoke, and water througout most of the aft end if the ship. And the starboard torpedo room was ablaze.

As seen from above the flight deck, the hole extendeded almost all the way to the center line of the ship.

We managed to make it to Singapore under our own power. We spent a month in Singapore as they put a large cofferdam (patch) on the hull of the ship. Then several months in the yards in Subic Bay, Phillipines while they repaired the hull and replaced missing decks & bulkheads. A six month deployment ran into 10 months.

When we finally got back to San Diego, we spent more months in the yards as they repaired cabling, weapons systems, etc. “Desert Storm” came & went before the Kinkaid was ready for action again.