Posted on 05/18/2025 6:52:02 AM PDT by Morgana
Mexican sailors were seen dangling from a navy training vessel's main mast moments after the ship smashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
The sailors had been standing atop the Cuauhtémoc's 150-foot masts in the lead up to the ship striking the iconic structure on Saturday as part of a traditional greeting.
The massive Navy vessel, reportedly carrying nearly 300 passengers, hit the iconic New York City bridge, triggering a colossal rescue response and leaving two dead and dozens more severely injured.
In multiple eyewitness videos, the towering masts are seen snapping and partially collapsing as they crash into the bridge's deck. Sailors perched high above are thrown into chaos, with some seen clinging to the shattered beams high up in the air.
Bystanders Sydney Neidell and Lily Katz told the Associated Press they were sitting outside watching the sunset when they saw the vessel strike the bridge and one of its masts snap.
Looking closer, they said they noticed someone hanging from high on the ship.
'We saw someone dangling, and I couldn't tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,' Katz said.
They reported seeing two people taken off the ship on stretchers and transferred to smaller boats.
The Navy personnel had been standing on the masts of the Mexican Navy ship as part of a ceremonial greeting and show of respect upon entering a port.
This tradition, known as 'manning the yards,' is a longstanding maritime custom practiced worldwide.
The sailors aboard the Cuauhtémoc appeared to have been engaged in this time-honored ritual during the harrowing crash.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The captain would have to be a total idiot to run into a bridge like that. Well, he is Mexican.
Sad situation.
Neat history.
They're very proud of their ultra corrupt government which is a de facto crime scene, all bankrolled by the cartels.
Ah, excuse me
Oh, will you excuse me?
I’m just trying to find the bridge!
Has anybody seen the bridge?
Please!
(Have you seen the bridge?)
I ain’t seen the bridge!
(Where’s that confounded bridge?)
Not at all. The captain should have read the situation and ordered them down.
As another pointed out, the US Coast Guard has long used their Academy ship USS Eagle as a vessel for training their officer cadets the basics of being a Coast Guard sailor and seamanship. They learn about the chain-of-command, responsibility, ship handling, maintenance, navigation, standing watch, and a host of other things a junior officer needs to know. The basics no matter what motive power a ship operates under.
I don’t fault the cadets in this weekend’s tragedy. I do find the Captain and his subordinate officers wanting in their duty for not knowing the capabilities and deficiencies in their ship and for not ordering the crewmen off the yards once they knew the ship had lost power and was drifting toward the bridge.
Stupid headline makes it seem they are hanging like with a noose.
I thought all large ships had to use a pilot to go through NY Harbor and up the East River.
That may be. For sure, pilots are needed to guide ships into harbors safely.
Whatever the case, I think the captain should have ordered everyone off the yardarms as the ship closed with the bridge. He should know the utmost height of his ship under its lightest load and had the foresight to learn about the clearance needed for the Brooklyn bridge at its highest tide to know whether his vessel would clear it or not. JMHO.
I get the whole cool stand-on-yardarms thing. It’s festive and the sailors are ready to unfurl sails if they must. But all I’ve ever seen them do in these tall-ship spectacles is stand there while they motor along under screws. Now we now cadets will scrupulously obey orders while their ship scrapes a bridge, trusting their officers to know better than to endanger them the entire time.
Sad. Now tragic. It all seemed avoidable to me.
Assumed they had been at Southstreet Seaport on the other side of the bridge. Something had to have happened to their engine/gears in/out of “all back”, and also the backup of the tug, just not there— comm mix up or whatever.
Perhaps someone here has the tide chart for the river— in the videos it is hard to tell, but seems the tide is coming in- and a pretty good clip, with no steerage to the vessel (again engine/gear failure or what has been posted— rudder failure making correction under power impossible).
Agree with your post- will have to find out if the tug was still maintaining hawser tension and could have acted to prevent the drift to the bridge caused by any of the above.
Such a tragedy- seems a beautiful sailing vessel- and no assumptions made on any of these points or the Captains.
Very well. Not, however a sea cutter with military interdiction/drugs/terrorism etc. in their mission. Know the Eagle well. Beautiful vessel, iirc the USS Constitution is/was female commanded for a time.
The Winston Churchill is a war vessel a destroyer. USNI has been all over the subject of qualifications of a captain- of warships of course. Most recently the imposition of mixed crews on nuclear powered attack submarines and missile boats has introduced changed standards to accommodate woke DOD directives. This in a service that has excelled in our Navy prior. Go all male or all female in each crew- don’t mix them, and uh how to put it, don’t let the all female have synchronized cycles (if you know what I mean). The action of one sailor’s failure of duty can lead to immediate full loss of the submarine with all hands. Learned the hard way with two of our SSNs- family lost a Naval Academy friend/classmate in the Thresher (which went down with 19 private contractor engineers onboard a shakedown cruise. Attributed to faulty welding of a critical outboard pipe/valve system- and further attributed to deliberate union sabotage (such were the times then).
It would be great if President Trump sent troops down there to clean up the trash that metastasizes north of the border making our country a crap-hole too.
Possibly they weren’t familiar with the waters in that area.
I thought there were Harbour pilots that guided boats in River areas?? or is that something that’s not done anymore
Nothing to figure out. Loss of engine, drop anchor. It takes less than a minute.
Then, you have time to figure things out, all kinds of time.
This is basic seamanship, and every Captain should know it, most do.
When seconds count, this Captain took minutes, he didn’t have minutes.
Here is a 24 minute video from Sal at Whats up with Shipping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlRiauatEo
A quick summary:
1. There was a 10 knot wind blowing up the river.
2. The tide is estimated to be 2 to 3 knots up the river.
3. The ships propulsion system appears to be in reverse.
4. If the ship left 2+ hours earlier the tide wouldn’t have
been a factor.
Also the NTSB is going to have an update later this afternoon.
U.S. still using sail boats to train? Planning for Waterworld?
“and skip some of that dog-and-pony stand-on-the-yardarms stuff.”
They are showing us respect.
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