Photo: RIA Novosti. Sergey Guneev

What is interesting about this story is how it has been reported.  Here is what we know: The fishing boat, Donets, ran into the Russian nuclear submarine, Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets (St. George the Victor,)  in the Avachino Bay on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, causing minor damage,  K-433 Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets (St. George the Victor) is a Delta III class nuclear-powered submarine that has been in service with the Russian Navy since 1980.

Most other details of the story get a bit hazy.

One source reports the accident as occurring on Tuesday, while another claims Wednesday and a third puts the accident on Thursday.  Differences in time zone in the reporting may account for some of the discrepancies.

Most of the reporting mentions that the crew of the fishing boat that hit the sub are believed to have been inebriated.  The international press tended to mention this at the bottom of the account whereas the Russian new sources often lead with that detail. The Moscow Times headline, for example, was Drunken Fishermen Ram Atomic Submarine.

Finally Fox News managed to get the story backwards reporting that “a Russian nuclear submarine collided with a fishing trawler,” at least implying that the sub ran into the fishing vessel and not the other way around.

For anyone surprised as I was, that the Russians would have a submarine named St. George,  it appears to be named after a Russian monastery in the Balkin Mountains.

Thanks to Dave Shirlaw for pointing out the accident on the Marine History list.