When a Prius hits a tractor-trailer truck, does the Prius drag the truck ? The laws of physics would indicate that the much larger ACX Crystal would drag the Fitzgerald.
“”When a Prius hits a tractor-trailer truck, does the Prius drag the truck ? The laws of physics would indicate that the much larger ACX Crystal would drag the Fitzgerald.””
A Prius weighs about 3,000 pounds and has about a 200 HP motor. An empty truck trailer weighs about 40,000 pounds and has about a 600 HP motor. So yes, the Prius is not going to do much dragging or pushing on the front end of a mack truck when a mack truck weighs 13 times as much and the mack truck HP is 3 times as much.
Now let us look at the Fitzgerald vs Crystal weight and HP.
Fitzgerald weighs 9,000 tons and has 100,000 HP.
Crystal weighs 30,000 tons (the ship mostly had empty containers) and has 38,000 HP.
So when the Fitzgerald gets hung up on the port bow of the Crystal it drags or pushes the bow of the Crystal starboard. At the same time the Crystal is pushing the Fitzgerald ahead.
I believe all of this pushing and shoving explains how the Crystal executes a 90 degree turn in 3 minutes.