International Bridge-to-Bridge operates on VHF Channel 16 worldwide. It is the one radio channel that is openly broadcast and repeated throughout the length of the Arabian Gulf. Because of the repeater system operated by the Gulf States and Iran, ship captains from Kuwait City to Qatar to Bandar Abbas can generally hear the same communications. Channel 16 is also filled with bored sailors who listen and comment on events as they occur. I cannot tell you how many times on Channel 16 I have heard the famous “Filipino Monkey,” a veteran Filipino sailor (or series of sailors) who I can safely assure you operates from the harbor tower at Dubai Port (the strongest transmitter in the Gulf), comment on whatever activity happens to be the most exciting or endless taunting of ship crews about the gymnastic characteristics of the opposite sex. In this incident it was most likely not the Filipino Monkey. The comment “You will explode after some minutes” most likely came from the empty super tanker seen three to five miles away in the distance that could see the whole event and decided to have some fun. In my experience, nothing is more amusing to many bored merchant tanker crews or harbor monitors (like Filipino Monkey) than real time commentary on an incident between two navies. Filipino Monkey once commented at the height of a naval battle in 1988 “Uh-Oh, Ayatollah! The US Navy is kicking your ass!” as reports of burning oil platforms and Maydays from sinking Iranian ships were broadcast from all over the gulf. News reports and commentaries from recent days about the lack of wind or engine noise on a three man high speed boat also correctly indicates that that transmission came from an enclosed bridge. Based on signal strength of the transmission on the US Navy ship’s bridge radio, relative to other traffic, the transmitting vessel was probably operating in visual range of the incident and was inserting an unwelcome level of tension that could have proven calamitous.
Bowling for Boghammars… 2008 Edition
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