Navy Ships

AS A NAVY MAN, Joseph Darlak looked toward the water and quickly realized his service faced a "major threat": A terrorist in a small boat laden with explosives that sidles up to a U.S. warship. The best way to counter such a threat, he believed, was to use small patrol craft manned by sailors armed with .50-caliber machine guns or 20 mm. cannons as well as mortars. Many in the Navy would undoubtedly agree with Darlak. After all, it was a small boat full of plastic explosives that left a 40-foot wide hole in the USS Cole last fall in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39 others.

WASHINGTON - Six sailors from the USS Cole were killed yesterday and 11 are missing after a small workboat piloted by suspected terrorists pulled alongside the Norfolk-based destroyer and exploded, ripping a 20-by-40-foot hole in the ship as it prepared to refuel in Yemen. Witnesses aboard the Cole saw two men aboard the workboat suddenly stand up as if coming to attention moments before their craft exploded in a blinding flash. Thirty-five other U.S. sailors were injured, some of them seriously, officials said.

NORFOLK, Va. -- A female sailor who reported to the USS Yellowstone's sick bay with cramps early Sunday delivered a big surprise five minutes later: a baby boy. Officials believe it's the first time in U.S. naval history a sailor has given birth aboard ship.The woman, 21, a seaman apprentice assigned to the Norfolk-based destroyer tender, delivered what officials said was healthy, full-term, 5-pound boy early Jan. 16, said a spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet's Surface Force.The ship was in port at Gaeta, Italy, one month into a six-month assignment to the Mediterranean.

A team of Navy ship restorers from Boston's 1797 frigate Constitution boarded Baltimore's sloop-of-war Constellation yesterday and began up to three weeks of inspections and stabilization work.The riggers, carpenters, planners and estimators will be joined at the Inner Harbor next week by divers from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, who will inspect under water.The inspectors will report to Congress on the "feasibility and cost-effectiveness" of several repair options for the rotting 1853 warship.

The Navy's troubled ship-scrapping program and its plan to sell warships abroad came under attack yesterday from members of Congress and several environmental organizations.Critics demanded that the Navy and Defense Department justify a program that has run into serious environmental and safety problems at yards around the country. They objected to the only alternative the Navy has offered -- sales of ships, laden with hazardous materials, to Third World scrapyards, where worker protection is minimal and pollution routine.

THE USS CORAL SEA -- the "Ageless Warrior" -- steamed at 33 knots to Cold War trouble spots for 42 years, carrying planes, nuclear capability, 4,000 crewmen and the hopes, pride and fears of the superpower whose security it maintained.Now it's junk at the former Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock yard in Fairfield, dying in ignominy and scandal. The Seawitch Salvage company chief who took on the largest shipbreaking and salvage project in American history now stands convicted of forcing his men to breathe asbestos and dumping oil and filth in the Patapsco.

WICHITA, Kan. -- They were going to get blinded by the bright lights of playing in their first NCAA tournament. They were going to get buried under an avalanche of three-point shots by Saint Louis. They were going to fly home quickly and quietly to College Park, satisfied with the experience and looking ahead to next season.But the Maryland Terrapins would have none of that yesterday at the Kansas Coliseum. Playing its best game in a month, and one of its best of the season, 10th-seeded Maryland rode yet another sensational performance by freshman Joe Smith to a 74-66 victory over the 24th-ranked, seventh-seeded Billikens in the opening round of the NCAA Midwest Regional.

Before yesterday, Navy backup quarterback Aaron Polanco was known mostly for his solid, steady play during mop-up duty. But all that changed in an instant yesterday when he came on for injured starter Craig Candeto and nearly became the first Navy quarterback to beat Notre Dame since Roger Staubach before falling, 30-23. Though Polanco didn't do anything jaw-dropping statistically, he kept Navy composed after Candeto, the team's leading rusher, had to leave on the game's fourth play with a sprained ankle.

WASHINGTON - General Dynamics Corp. sought yesterday to overturn the Navy's award to Northrop Grumman Corp. of a $2.9 billion three-year contract to design a new class of destroyers that is less visible to radar. General Dynamics' attorneys filed a protest with the U.S. General Accounting Office, alleging problems with the Navy's process for determining a winner in the design contest. Raytheon Co. is the prime subcontractor on Northrop Grumman's team. Lockheed Martin Corp. teamed with General Dynamics.

A partial solution to the problem of sheltering the homeless may be floating off the gloomy docks of Fairfield in South Baltimore.The Sanctuary, an old Navy hospital ship rusting away at the end of Childs Street, has been taken over by a new board of directors that envisions it as a shelter where addicts and alcoholics would have access to detoxification and job training.The old board of Life International, a nonprofit group that bought the 49-year-old ship from Congress for $15 in 1990 with plans for Third World medical missions, resigned on Tuesday.