It often seems that the golden age of naval idiocy has disappeared forever.

I'm therefore pleased to note that the Venezuelan patrol vessel Naiguatá has managed to recapture some of this spirit by fighting the dumbest action of the 21st century.

The trouble began when RCGS Resolute, a smallish cruise liner specialising in penguin-bothering, stopped to repair her engines in international waters.

Outraged by this brazen act of maintenance, Naiguatá's captain seems to have decided to order Resolute to a Venezuelan port.

This in itself is a bit weird, given the times we're in. Countries across the globe are trying to persuade cruise ships to dock elsewhere lest their plague-ridden hordes cause a major public health crisis.

Quite how the Naiguatá's captain thought his superiors would react to him merrily sailing into Puerto Moreno with his potentially infectious captive in tow remains a mystery.

Resolute seems to have also thought this was a superbly dumb idea, so radioed head office for instructions.

Naiguatá's captain appears to have taken this delay badly.

At this point it's worth reviewing both ships armaments.

Seen here posing moodily in the manner of a teenager that has just discovered My Chemical Romance, Naiguatá had a 76mm main gun, a air/missile defence gun, two smaller machine guns and presumably also some small arms.

Resolute, on the other hand, is armed with nothing more deadly than a well-stocked library, Finnish sauna, and "a superb international wine list".

Some of its passengers are believed to have had binoculars.

It's fair to say that Naiguatá's captain is not to a patient man. With Resolute still sitting there doing nothing he escalated straight past asking nicely and apparently opened fire.

I'm presuming this wasn't with the 76mm main gun, but at this point who knows?

Actual gunfire failing to achieve anything in the way of changing Resolute's heading, Naiguatá then decided to commence ramming it in an attempt to forceably change its direction.

This was... unwise.

RCGS Resolute is designed to bounce off icebergs. You know, the sort of thing that opened Titanic up like a can opener.

Naiguatá, on the other hand, was strictly designed to handle water in its liquid phase.

Needless to say the ramming attempts ended up with twenty extremely pissed off Venezuelan sailors being fished out of the water after their patrol vessel sank underneath them. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-52151951

After an hour hanging around on standby in case it was required to help with the rescue effort, Resolute was left to buff out its battle damage.

So if next time you go on a cruise there's a silhouette of a patrol vessel marking a successful 'kill' on the bow, now you know why...

Bonus PSA: If you're really wanting to ram something, use one of these - https://twitter.com/Canocola/status/1144365560551084043?s=20

UPDATE - if you enjoyed reading this, you might be interested to know that the Greek navy tried something similar later in the year. Spoiler: it didn't go any better for them... https://twitter.com/TheDreadShips/status/1321124154494636039?s=20