Then, as seen on the video, there's a sudden hard turn to the right to the support.
Posted on 03/27/2024 3:34:12 AM PDT by Sam77
There are no tug boats currently in existence that can do much with a large container ship. It's like an ant trying to move a buffalo.
Then, as seen on the video, there's a sudden hard turn to the right to the support.
There’s other reasons for a diesel - or any engine - to smoke...the smoke in the video looked like it was a lot more than what a simple revving would do.
Dropping the anchor might stop the ship -— in a mile or two. Assuming the bottom is not mud or silt. Assuming the current is nil or against the ship. If the anchor catches on a solid rock outcropping (really solid) the anchor likely rips off a chunk of the ship.
This ship is 938 ft. long and can carry 116,851 metric tons (cargo, fuel, provisions, crew, etc.) I don’t know what she weighs empty, but maybe we can guess around 150kt total if fully loaded? Some shipping people have said some of the containers were empty and are using a figure of ~100kt.
Any way you figure it, it’s a heck of a lot of momentum. Just look at how it clobbered that concrete support.
Russian telegram reports that the ship’s captain was Ukrainian.
No, they do not, and in any case even if a tugboat was shadowing the ship there wasn't enough time between the time the ship lost power and when it hit the bridge for a tugboat to do anything.
I've read that they did drop anchor. It can't stop that big of a ship in that short of a distance, however.
I beleive the normal procedure in a U.S. port is to have tugs guide the ship between the berth and the channel. When the ship is in the main channel it operates under its own power.
That’s right, it was the ship’s captain not the harbor master.
Also saw a retired Coast Guard questioning why no tugboat and why no horn sounded before the collision.
The timing and circumstances of this disaster are strange and the accident chain would have had to have been pretty unbelievable for this to play out the way it did.
A serious investigation is warranted.
The displacement is about 150,000 tons.
Maybe a 100 seabees would work better. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to clean it up. There are 3 truss spans. The center span is 1200 feet over the main channel. Maybe they can get that debris removed and open the port and remove the 2 outside spans after opening up.
The pilot should have just tried to float through. There just wasn’t enough time to stop at 7 knots and the forward momentum might have propelled the boat without breaking the lane. It really depends on if they had rudder control.
They DID drop at least the port anchor. Starboard anchor, can’t tell. Too much damage. Probably would not have mattered much, though it could have made steerage control worse.
There’s no indication the engines failed. In fact, it appears they were trying to back down at max power, but backing down hard can easily cause loss of control.
Electrical failure could definitely mean essentially no control. So “driving the boat” is irrelevant.
That leaves us with the electrical failure itself. Experienced mariners say it’s not common, but it happens. Or you could add a “sh” to that.
If terrorism, why did the ship send out a warning, but no indication of being hijacked, etc.?
Based on an 1851 law, the insurer of the ship may be limited in liability to the value of the ship and its cargo at the time of the accident.
Wanna to hear conspiracy theory # 77 ??
Bridge being built in 1977 it only allowed ‘small’ cruise ships to enter Baltimore harbor. Just like Tampa Bay and the skyway down there.
So in order to get mega-cruise chips into Baltimore they need a bigger bridge. So the cruise industry planned this whole take down. New bridge, higher and better than ever. Or even a tunnel will be the ‘fix’ the cruise companies need !!
Really..? Then what was that smoke suddenly pouring out of the stacks all about.? I ain't no stationary engineer, but from all that smoke it sure looked like someone hit the throttle hard forward or reverse....maybe(?)
If there was no power, how could he have reversed?
BTW
I was told that he couldn’t drop the anchor because that function requires power, also.
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