[MBlogo Animation] Mark Boyd's Sea Story [MBlogo Animation]

[USS Kinkaid]

We were on our way to Hong-Kong when we had our collision with a freighter. 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 ripped a huge gaping hole in the starboard side. 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 1 month in Singapore as they put a patch on the side of the ship. Then several months in the yards in the 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.