What about dropping the anchor?
They did drop the anchor. You aren’t going to stop a 1000 foot 100,000 ton ship going 7 knots with an anchor.
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.
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 know it is a FR tradition to NEVER actually read the article prior to commenting, but:
The PILOT with TEN years of experience ordered the port anchor be dropped to steer the ship away from the bridge.
“that the port anchor be dropped in an unsuccessful effort to halt or slow the vessel’s drift toward the bridge”