Windoc Incident – Story Behind YouTube’s Most Chilling Video

In August 2001 the Bulk Carrier Windoc was lined up on the Welland Canal’s Bridge 11 in Ontario Canada. After receiving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel, the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots. Minutes later while the vessel was half way through the bridge started descending.

The fire look very bad, but here is a very wet, boat/ bridge event.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080504230717/http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/towboat.htm

The river current was so very treacherous that we were forced to drop down to the bridge in the slack(er) water on the left descending bank and when we got down to the bridge, we uncoupled the boat from the barges and let the barges drift down under the bridge. The bottom of the bridge would “shave” the coal stacked in the barges off to a level surface. The next step was to back the vessel upriver and then go over to the far West side and traverse the bridge’s channel span with the boat, and run down and catch the barges. It was just too dangerous to try to bring the barges through the bridge span in the current.

Anyway, Jimmie dropped down properly and with the entire rest of the crew standing on the barges for safety, he began to reverse his engines to back away. His stern would have to be kept directly pointed into the current or the boat would travel sideways like a kite without it’s tail. Captain Jim was a fine pilot, but he made a small mistake and his stern was caught in the current, twisted sideways and the river smashed him into the bridge sideways. Notice that the boat re-surfaced right side up on the down stream side. What luck you say? Nope, WGN ballasted all their vessels with three to four feet of cement in the bottom. The boat was like a little yellow rubber duckie, and came back up like a duckie oughta do. The boat suffered major cosmetic damages, but little flooding because of water tight doors, except in the pilothouse. Notice the picture where the boat is not quite righted and you can see water pouring out of the wheelhouse door. The chair washes out, and Jimmie told me he was holding on to the controls with all his might to keep from going out the drain and into the river.

He was very shook up and you can see him approach the tow of barges downriver. Well he didn’t get it together quite soon enough and he smashed into the barges, causing further damage.

I next saw Jimmie about a month after this and we had a cup of coffee together and talked about the incident. He was smoking a Camel Non-filter but didn’t even need an ashtray beacuse his hands were still shaking too much for the ash to build up to any degree.

How do I know all this? I was on the boat that went through the bridge immediately before the Cahaba. The Motor Vessel James E. Philpott made the bridge and was headed south at close to 15 MPH. For all you who don’t understand, that is very fast on a commercial towboat with that much tonnage.

Glad to pass this on to everybody...
Captain Michael L. Smith
http://gryder.com/istories/towboat/story/

"Facts are that the ship never had a “green light”"

FACTS ARE THAT THE SHIP HAD A GREEN LIGHT.

As the vessel neared the bridge, the signal lights on the bridge were flashing red and the lift span was being raised. When the vessel was approximately 0.75 to 0.5 nm from the bridge, the signal lights changed to solid green and the lift span was in the fully-raised position. With the centre line of the vessel lined up with the bridge signal lights, the vessel proceeded under the bridge.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/marine/2001/m01c0054/m01c0054.asp

“After receiving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel, the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots.”

The vessel proceeded downbound, and the wheelhouse team observed the flashing amber approach light, located 925 m from the bridge on the west side of the canal, which indicated that the bridge operator was aware of the approaching vessel. The speed of the vessel was reported to be approximately five knots. As the vessel neared the bridge, the signal lights on the bridge were flashing red and the lift span was being raised.

Link already provided ...

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