Bridge collapse.

[worth1]

Bridge collapse.
Maybe they'll start thinking about tug boats until the ships get out into open waters.
The idea of letting these raggedy ships go under their own power without escort in sensitive areas is ridiculous.
I've been around some of these ships and I gotta say they're pretty bad.
Running on a shoestring budget just to make ends meet.
If the only come to one port in the US they don't have to have the same safety guidelines as they would from one US port to another.
Or at least I've heard.

[Mark_Thompson]

It’s only a ten year old ship, and passed some Port State Control inspections recently. Check out GCaptain’s Forum for a wide ranging mega-thread on the disaster if you’re so inclined.

https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/very-sad-b ... /68913/377

Eta the link

[karstopography]

Seemed like a preventable catastrophe. Could have been much worse had they not had the warning and the workers on the bridge not acted on it.

The bridge could likely have been designed with barriers that took the blow from the ship therefore saving the main bridge supports. How does a ship that size completely lose power and steering ability? There were two harbor pilots aboard the ship to navigate through the harbor including through the channel under the bridge.

Truss bridges like the Francis Scott Key bridge are the ugliest. I hope they build a suspension bridge in its place. Costing the port of Baltimore 15 million dollars a day every day the harbor is closed according to one source. Going to be many many billions of dollars lost by the port and the economy in Maryland.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 110543007/

Could take up to four years to replace bridge.

[zeuspaul]

Right-wingers blame the Baltimore bridge collapse on everything short of the Mothman
From lax immigration policy to cyberattacks, Tuesday's Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy led to wild finger-pointing

By KELLY MCCLURE
Nights & Weekends Editor
PUBLISHED MARCH 27, 2024 5:30PM (EDT)

Early Tuesday morning, a section of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River after the Dali, a 213-million-pound cargo vessel, lost power and crashed into a structural pillar. As a team from the National Transportation Safety Board is gathering evidence for their investigation and crews search for six members of a construction crew that were repairing potholes on the bridge at the time of the incident — who are now presumed dead — right-wingers are slinging conspiracy theories relating to the collapse and what "really" led to it.

A recent report from Mother Jones runs down the wildest of the finger-pointing, with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo listed at the top, suggesting a “wide open” immigration policy at the border could be a factor. A theory she arrives at due to the fact that the cargo ship had been flying under a Singaporean flag. Also making an appearance on the list is Alex Jones, co-signing a theory from Andrew Tate that the ship was "cyberattacked," to which Jones adds, "WW3 has already started.."

Brigitte Gabriel, Founder & Chairman of ACT For America, weighed-in via a post to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, writing, "The bridge collapse has a lot of the earmarkings of a potential terrorist attack," having placed blame on Pete Buttigieg, United States Secretary of Transportation, in an earlier post.

In the world of reality, investigators are looking into whether or not contaminated fuel had something to do with the cargo ship losing control, with The Wall Street Journal pointing out that such a thing can interfere with a ship’s main power generators.

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/27/right- ... e-mothman/

[worth1]

There's a slim but reasonable chance that the steel piling was magnetized drawing the ship into the bridge.

It's obvious that the ships power going off and on was caused by this huge magnetic force coming from somewhere.
Possibly something like the government project known as the Philadelphia experiment.

Seriously those power plants run all the time I bet it going to come down to poor maintenance.
Even a ship 10 years old has to have engine overhauls and so forth.
But contaminated fuel would pass it off to someone else.

[GoDawgs]

That ship may be only ten years old but I've read comments that it has a history of safety issues. Loss of electricity means loss of steering ability. I'm sure the cause for that (be it a purely mechanical failure or possibly hacking) will be thoroughly examined.

Apparently that ship smaller than some of the other cargo behemoths in port. Agree that a tug escort should be in place where transit under bridges is involved.

[worth1]

Some of these auxiliary engines on these ships are massive.
You'd think they were the ships main propulsion engines but they aren't.
In another life I used to overhaul these massive beasts.
In many cases I did the measurements on the parts with giant micrometers.

[karstopography]

A good friend of ours is marrying the daughter of a harbor pilot. I think it would be interesting to hear a harbor pilot’s unfiltered perspective on this horrible incident.

Harbor pilots are very well compensated, but believe it or not, it is a dangerous job. The transfer between the enormous ships and the relatively tiny pilot boat is fraught with peril. We had a pilot die out our port here many years ago on the transfer. It’s the transfer on the sea edge of the whole navigation. Many ports have extra rough conditions and very strong and complicated currents and winds just leaving the harbor and channel going out to sea.

Anyone that has been on a pitching and relatively small boat like a pilot boat in rough weather and waters will understand. Add to it a giant ship that is most definitely not moving in sync and it’s a recipe for danger.

[worth1]

This ship is moving the helicopter is taking cargo off of.
I used to fly on these helicopters.
Talk about some crazy rides.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

If you want to get a good read on it, the thread that Mark Thompson posted was an interesting read. Had electrical issues in the days proceeding but only reported by one source per that thread; will be interesting to see if protocol was followed if true. Per that thread, the USCG should have been made aware of. Does seem to push the importance of tug boats - and with these heavy ones maybe front and back. From watching the video almost looks like if the anchor had not been dropped, if steering had not had an attempted correction, they may have possibly floated through under the next section of bridge but of course the 'who knows' exists.

Can't imagine being THAT person and living with the 'what if I had only...." for the rest of my life. Thank goodness this happen in the wee hours instead of a few hours before or later. So sorry for the loss of human life. Cannot imagine the pain of those family members knowing how terrifying their last moments were.

Take a moment to give thanks for the air we breathe and our ability to think ahead to exciting events like our first tomato blossom....

[karstopography]

@CrazyAboutOrchids and @Mark_Thompson thanks for mentioning the captain’s thread. I didn’t read every word, but enough I think to understand the enormous responsibility those pilots and ship crews have navigating around in these harbors. The videos shared, especially one that shared that had the GPS track side by side with video of the allision were very helpful. Allision was not a word I knew before this event.

We sort of come to trust everything will work as designed and things like this bridge collapse just can’t happen, but in reality there are so many complicated moving parts to life now and so many things go right only because of the tremendous expertise and skill up and down the line without which a whole lot more of these tragedies would be happening. Maybe they should not happen at all, but with as much shipping that is out there and the sheer size of these vessels I’m surprised these events aren’t more common.

[karstopography]

https://www.marketwatch.com/livecoverag ... 3sBYGVUAvD

Where the Port of Baltimore ranks in tonnage as compared to other US ports.