Baltimore Bridge Collapse

[Geewhiz]

From a different forum.

 

[Bluefish]

Accident. If it was deliberate it would have been done at 7 or 8 am, not 1:30 am. while tragic, the loss of life is fairly small for a major bridge completely collapsing.
as mentioned above, I bet the smoke was from trying to slow down or restarting. Not sure about a container ship, but my ski boat has no steering while in reverse. No flow across the rudder, no steering.

 

[GreyBeck]

Stop following the media’s lead and calling it a bridge collapse as if it were a failure of the bridge in some fashion. This incites fear. A ship hit a main support. The bridge fell after a collision. Tired of headlines that don’t accurately relay what happened.

Multiple mayday calls saved some lives. Don’t know of any considerate terrorists. Every port has well paid pilots to take these ships in and out of ports.

 

[Reburn]

Rudder stuck without power I'm guessing. There was a US pilot onboard also.

2 port captians were at the helm is what it said in the article I read.

 

[Mike 338]

You mean like Roksliders? Last time I remember they are experts on everything, not DRs, scientists, agency officials etc.

View attachment 693177

No, I don't mean that, unless Rocksliders can produce something credible. I wouldn't be to dismissive of findings outside of major media outlets and/or have faith in "investigations" that are concluded before they've even started. Truth is where you find it and not necessarily where you're told to look. But... that's only important if you value truth. Mockery is much easier and sometimes fun if you're part of a crowd that's doing it.

Poor Epstein... he must have been very depressed to have done himself in.

 

[NDGuy]

I see no one on this thread has a sense of humor

Keep that tinfoil tight to the head boys

 

[MattB]

No, I don't mean that, unless Rocksliders can produce something credible. I wouldn't be to dismissive of findings outside of major media outlets and/or have faith in "investigations" that are concluded before they've even started. Truth is where you find it and not necessarily where you're told to look. But... that's only important if you value truth. Mockery is much easier and sometimes fun if you're part of a crowd that's doing it.

In some situations expert consensus can quickly deduce what happened, and the only serious question left to answer is why (as in, why did the engine and the electrical die?). Based on what I have read, this strikes me as one of those situations.

And poking fun at people whose first thought is to look past the obvious to find a sinister motive is….well…fun.

 

[Mike 338]

In some situations expert consensus can quickly deduce what happened, and the only serious question left to answer is why (as in, why did the engine and the electrical die?). Based on what I have read, this strikes me as one of those situations.

And poking fun at people whose first thought is to look past the obvious to find a sinister motive is….well…fun.

It doesn't take any time or effort to absorb the "obvious"... because by all appearances, it's obvious. It only seems like people are looking past the obvious because that's the next step.

"Something sinister". Well, seems something sinister, should at the very least, qualify for equal time considering the world we live in. I could unfold a newspaper, hang it on the wall, throw a dart in it's direction and almost assuredly hit something sinister.

 

[SWOHTR]

Also FYI, no Pilot is going to be able to do anything to mitigate what happened to that ship. Pilots don’t start, stop, or shift engines…they are there purely for navigational expertise. And when I say “navigational expertise” I mean “draw the harbor chart from memory, including all NAVAIDs, soundings, magnetic variation, currents.” Pilots are no-kidding experts at one harbor.

The ship captain is the expert at handling that ship and while a marine navigation expert, does not have an Entire chart memorized. Pilot services are purchased as an extra safety measure to prevent ships from having navigational mishaps.

That is to say in this situation about all a pilot could have done is recommend distress calls and to drop the anchor(s). Everything else is on ships force.

Having done the CHENG thing for a while, I feel for that Chief Engineer. No one wants to go dark, especially in restricted waters like that.

 

[Oregon]

Y'all read SWOHTR replies. I have no where near the credentials to run a 100k ton boat but have run boats for a living since 1987. My experience ends at 1600 tons.
He nailed all the replies. Take the tinfoil hat off and realize crap happens at In opportune times. My first guess when ship turned sharp was anchor dropped and digging in. Not terrorists turning. But hey, y'all armchair all you want.

 

[Beendare]

Gotta love our president jumping on TV and saying no worries taxpayer $$ will fix it.

So what, the company is off the hook? They don’t have insurance? What about the poor folks still missing?

In the SF bay, its common to have one or two tugs accompany these big ships going into SF bay for 2 reasons, 1) they know the channels, 2) preventing accidents like this.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

If not, I have a couple pallets full of tinfoil for sale.

 

[Peregrine]

What say you Roksliders...

Unfortunate accident or deliberate terrorist attack?


*Dons tinfoil hat and takes cover*

There just has to be some sort of pilot error at work hear.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

There just has to be some sort of pilot error at work hear.

Have you ever driven any kind of boat before? You lose power in a sucky situation and things go bad very quickly. Been there done that. Except only on a 4 ton boat, not 170000 tons.

 

[Elk97]

My take on it (never run ships) having spent a lot of time in boats of various types is that when the power failed they lost steerage. So they were cruising along at about 9 knots or so frantically trying to get electrical power back and when that didn't happen they went to full reverse on the engine (the black smoke). That resulted in the prop walking to port causing the ship to turn to starboard (very common on single screw vessels). I heard that they did not drop any anchors until after the collision and I saw a video of the bow and only the port anchor was deployed which would have turned the ship to port so sounds legit. Doesn't add up being terrorists to me.

 

[Oregon]

In the SF bay, its common to have one or two tugs accompany these big ships going into SF bay for 2 reasons, 1) they know the channels, 2) preventing accidents like this.

I've spent a lot of time running boats under the Golden Gate. I seriously can't recall tugs escorting any boat. The entrance there is absolute heaven for a bar pilot. Giant! They get you to the pier and away, but not out on the big pond.

 

[*zap*]

If they would have coasted they may very well have missed the bridge structure. Instead they dropped anchor and reversed the engine. Or so i understand.

 

[tpicou]

Ft lbs of energy is a lie, penetration is mostly based on construction. KE just sells ships

I def read someone say the ship was going too slow to do that sort of damage and this is immediately what my mind jumped to

 

[SWOHTR]

There just has to be some sort of pilot error at work hear.

Unlikely, the pilot has nothing to do with the ship’s engineering plant.

Think of a rudder like a wing. It relies on wash over the rudder surface to provide lift and move the stern in one direction or another. That wash is provided by the propeller. You lose propulsion, you lose the ability to steer. You lose electricity, you lose propulsion AND the ability to manipulate the rudders.

Luckily anchors are held by a brake, so gravity does the work for you there (if the chain isn’t rusted to the hawsepipe, requiring dead blows from a sledge to free (seen that happen!)). That said an anchor won’t stop you immediately.

The engines and generators can be controlled started and stopped locally and from a central control station that is NOT on the bridge. Even then, the systems are such that engine room operators need to conduct systems alignments to verify everything is ready to support engine operation (fuel, lube oil, control air, power, installed firefighting systems, etc). Point being starting and stopping an engine is not done from the Lee helm on the bridge like you would on your boat.

Electrical distribution is a whole other animal. Generator(s) feed your switchboards, which feed load centers, into breaker panels/fuse boxes. Not sure if these ships run one gen or two in parallel. This case suggests one. Typically you can emergency run a gen on a head tank but that is only long enough to get support systems online (main fuel, oil, air…)

I could go on.

 

[SWOHTR]

If they would have coasted they may very well have missed the bridge structure. Instead they dropped anchor and reversed the engine. Or so i understand.

Then they’d simply be aground, which yes would be better but still have shipping and port implications. The channel is narrow and shallow.

Neither “option” is good, but yes simply coasting would likely have been better.