I use the Prince song. Little red port left. Easy!
Baltimore Bridge
- Thread starter imtoooldforthis
- Start date
Soldato
Watching the video there was quite abit of traffic crossing you see the cars going left and right.
Soldato
So more details starting to come.
Vessel tried to slow its forward heading by backing down, they had deployed the aft anchor as seen in some helicopter footage which appears to have been dragged along trying to slow down. The issue is when a vessel this large backs down being a single prop ship, they tend to career off course.
There were no tug boats nearby to assist, in the 3-4 minutes it took for the vessel to go off course and hit the bridge. The had contacted the port and notified them of an emergency on board.
Vessel tried to slow its forward heading by backing down, they had deployed the aft anchor as seen in some helicopter footage which appears to have been dragged along trying to slow down. The issue is when a vessel this large backs down being a single prop ship, they tend to career off course.
There were no tug boats nearby to assist, in the 3-4 minutes it took for the vessel to go off course and hit the bridge. The had contacted the port and notified them of an emergency on board.
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Soldato
I saw a couple of videos from a channel What is going on with shipping? (Which seems like a good channel) and it showed they were slowing.
Reading the comments… :/ I weep for mankind.
Reading the comments… :/ I weep for mankind.
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What an incredibly unfortunate time for the vessel to lose power.
What an incredibly unfortunate time for the vessel to lose power.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
- Posts
- 12,453
Would tugs even be able to do anything in a fast enough time for a ship of that size ?
Caporegime
More than enough time for a quick tug.
Soldato
There's no Port Left in the bottle
Soldato
Nope, even if they sent all of them, the entire event happened over a matter of minutes.
Soldato
x8 speed hits different, freaky
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
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One thing I don't understand is, why didn't the tower holding the bridge have protection piers (or whatever they are called) around it like most other large bridges in shipping lanes have to protect against this kind of thing ?
Associate
Whilst true that while out at sea in open water they will be almost certainly using the autopilot and autopilots on modern vessels are very advanced, in this incident I'd be very surprised if they were in anything other than hand steering due to the confined waters. In any case, the track and the autopilot settings are still programmed by a human and I've seen autopilot do some weird stuff over the years, particularly in strong currents etc.
I do this for a living and have been a deck (navigation) officer on large ships for over a decade.
The speculation so far that it was a power loss on board looks on the money to me. Something like that happens at the wrong moment then you've pretty much had it tbh. Could be all sorts of causes for the blackout, the investigation will figure it out.
Soldato
Bridge was hopeless tbh
Soldato
Think that's going to be a big insurance claim
Soldato
i think the gov are paying for it, not sure why though, unless it was a cyber attack
Soldato
They are footing the bill to get it rebuilt faster, the shipping company insurance will still have to pay out but that takes ages and may be years of litigation.
My main interest is in the ship's maintenance.
When the power went out, there were no external emergency lights to be seen. I'd have thought that if a ship suffered a total loss of power, that several battery systems would come online and light it up to prevent other vessels at sea crashing in to it, and if it suffered a breach, to light up the path to the lifeboats. Yet it just went totally dark, like a ghost ship. Going by the power repeatedly coming on and off in the short clip we've seen, it's possible that this ship was struggling for some time and that the ATS couldn't take it any more and packed up.
I'd also like to know how a ship of this size managed to get itself in to this situation in the first place. The amount of safety and alarm systems in place to prevent this exact type of scenario taking place would have had to be immense, unless it's a 40 year old 3rd world vessel running on 10p coins. That captain's deck will likely have lit up like a Christmas tree several times before getting to this point. And I don't mean in the last few minutes, I mean the last few days, if not weeks.
The investigation is certainly going to be interesting, I suspect we're going to see a company cutting corners, ignoring engineers, and forcing their staff to continue sailing despite the obvious warnings.
When the power went out, there were no external emergency lights to be seen. I'd have thought that if a ship suffered a total loss of power, that several battery systems would come online and light it up to prevent other vessels at sea crashing in to it, and if it suffered a breach, to light up the path to the lifeboats. Yet it just went totally dark, like a ghost ship. Going by the power repeatedly coming on and off in the short clip we've seen, it's possible that this ship was struggling for some time and that the ATS couldn't take it any more and packed up.
I'd also like to know how a ship of this size managed to get itself in to this situation in the first place. The amount of safety and alarm systems in place to prevent this exact type of scenario taking place would have had to be immense, unless it's a 40 year old 3rd world vessel running on 10p coins. That captain's deck will likely have lit up like a Christmas tree several times before getting to this point. And I don't mean in the last few minutes, I mean the last few days, if not weeks.
The investigation is certainly going to be interesting, I suspect we're going to see a company cutting corners, ignoring engineers, and forcing their staff to continue sailing despite the obvious warnings.
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