With the port of Honolulu in the foreground, the USS Port Royal, a Navy guided missile cruiser, sits grounded atop a reef about a half-mile south of the Honolulu airport’s reef runway, Friday, Feb. 6, 2009 in Honolulu. Navy tugs tried early Friday to nudge the 9,600-ton warship away from the spot it hit but were unsuccessful. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)
Without a doubt, this is known as a bad day. I fully expect to see the Skipper relieved after this incident. I know nothing of the current skipper of Port Royal so I cannot judge if this is a good or a bad thing for the Navy overall.
This is not first, nor will it be the last time a Navy ship runs aground. No ship is immune, even the large battlewagons of years past. On early 17 January 1950, Missouri (BB-63) was proceeding seaward on a training mission from Hampton Roads when she ran aground at a point 1.6 miles from Thimble Shoals Light, near Old Point Comfort. She traversed shoal water a distance of three ship lengths [!!] from the main channel. Lifted some 7 feet above waterline, she struck hard and fast.
Shown here is Missouri (BB-63) hard aground on Thimble Shoal in Chesapeake Bay. This picture is on 21 January 1950, as several harbor tugs attempt to free her. Note minesweepers and other ships in the shipping channel beyond the stern. Their apparent closeness indicates that the photograph was taken with a telephoto lens. (US Navy Historical Center Photo, courtesy Navsource.org)
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
Three ship lengths means he was nearly 500ft in the wrong direction. For more detail see Information Dissemination (http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2009/02/uss-port-royal-hard-aground.html) for more details.
what do the exclams mean? is three shiplengths far off-course or shockingly close?