I got that, as well, but then couldn’t read past the first few paragraphs without creating an account.
Any chance The Navy commander was trained at the Moreno School of Naval Warfare?
It would have made the story so much more fun if the cruse ship crew would have had to fish everyone out of the water.
I don’t know if Hilarious is what the OP was going for with the thread title, but it was certainly achieved.
I’ve had a few embarrassing bicycle wrecks in front of others, but this takes the cake. AWKWARD!
More specifically (according to this statement from the company that owns it), it has an “ice-strengthened bulbous bow” - probably much of the hull is more or less normal. But that strong bulbous underwater projection makes this ship a notably poor choice for a ramming attack. Presumably, it was damage caused by this that sunk the Venezuelan ship.
In contrast to Venezuelan claims that the RESOLUTE abandoned the shipwrecked sailors, the company claims:
This claim should be verifiable in the records of the MRCC.
Sounds like the Venzuelan Navy is trying to cover it’s ass.
As Sancho says in Man of La Mancha “if the pitcher hits the rock or the rock hits the pitcher, the pitcher loses.” (From memory from over 50 years ago, I might be wrong.)
Venezuela is in such bad shape they can hardly afford a navy - this might save them money.
Assuming they aren’t still making payments on the ship.
Near as I can tell, the boat was a lightly-outfitted version of the Spanish Avante 2200 corvette surface combatant, called the POZVEE class. Only the Venezuelans operated this particular version. Basically a big Coast Guard cutter with a 76mm gun, and a pretty high tech 35mm CIWS.
A more lavishly equipped set of five boats was to be built for the Saudis for 1.8 billion Euros in 2018. KSA Signed the Contract for 5 Avante 2200 Corvettes with Navantia
I doubt they have the money for salvage. It’s very worrisome if the Venezuelan Navy is having units reduced to piracy, though LOL upon LOL at how this turned out.
I’ve heard Germans have a reputation for lacking humor, but even they have to be laughing their heads (and other body parts) off at this one. 
This is the ship that scored the own-goal, GC-23 Naiguata. One of three in that class.
There was supposed to be a fourth one to join that ship class but it was cancelled, named Comandante Eterno Hugo Chavez,* “Eternal Commander Hugo Chavez”*, which goes to answer the question of what sort of navy would ram a cruise ship like?, the kind that wants to put a name like that on one of their ships, that sort.
The crew offered to help, but they were refused.
Or more famously
Sighted ship sank self
Now i gotta check if Harpoon2k is on steam or GoG, now that one of the oscar myer wieners is out of commish
As I understand it it hasn’t actually been canceled, it’s been more or less finished for years but for officially unspecified reasons never is actually ready for deployment. For *un-*official reasons, it’s probably because unlike the others it was built locally instead of by Spain and from what I’ve heard elsewhere is a piece of garbage:
So they had a 76 mm gun, the cruise ship had a propeller or two, and Captain Venezuela decides ramming is the way to bring it under control?
And since nobody else is doing it: [Nelson Muntz]HA ha![/NM]
Looking at the Resolute’s Wikipedia page, it’s a durable mo-fo. It’s been grounded three times and caught fire while in dry dock.
If I misunderstand correctly, the cruise ship has a reinforced bow, but the sides and bottom are only reinforced a bit to handle ice, so being rammed from the side would be a real problem? So just where did the Venezuelan ship ram the cruise ship? Even with an ordinary ship, ramming the bow is not a good idea.
Ram of the bow, from a starboard 135-degree approaching vector.
The cruise ship has some severe damage…to its paint job.
Is there any speculation as to what their intent was if they had gotten the ship to Venezuelan port? Maybe make up a bunch of violations and require “fines” to be paid to return the ship?