Oops, Sorry Cairns

USS Towers DDG 9 (1987?) Gettering Underway from Cairns Australia

To this day I'm not sure why or how it happened. But as we were leaving the pier at Cairns, the little underpowered tug had no control over Towers.

I can only guess the typical maneuver to pull away from the pier was executed with the belief that the little tug could do a big tugs job.

It didn't happen.

Towers stern was pulling away and out from the pier, but the bow was swinging toward the pier.

By the time anyone noticed what was happening it was too late.

Towers crushed about half of the city pier in Cairns. Destroyed it. Left it in splinters.

But there's not much you can do from the deck of a US Navy Guided Missile Destroyer, you shrug your shoulders and leave port.

Looking on various Navy web sites - this is actually listed as a Towers "incident".