Surfing the Inner N8

I just read in TIME magazine that a couple weeks ago two European nuclear submarines collided “deep in the Atlantic Ocean.”  One was the British H.M.S. Vanguard, the other was the French Le Triomphant.

Aside from all the other questions and concerns this raises, two questions stand out:

(1) How the heck can you collide “deep in the Atlantic Ocean”?  I mean, is it really not big enough or deep enough?  I can understand two people in a narrow hallway who do the back-and-forth thing followed by the obligatory awkward laugh, but colliding in the middle of the ocean?

(2)  The article reports that the French navy believed at first that they had struck a shipping container.  Who in the world is steering these things?  Do they need a better windshield?  Can they actually see where they are going?

You just never know what you’ll hear of next.