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Post by JohnV on Mar 26, 2024 8:04:13 GMT
Just been watching about an accident in Baltimore USA a large container ship destroyed a major road bridge
There have been casualties but at the moment nobody knows how many
Watched the live harbour cam film, horrific. It looks as if the ship lost electrical power as it was approaching the navigation span
The lights went out, then came back on, then out again. It looks as if they may have lost steering and they began curving towards one of the main supports.
From the huge amount of black smoke it was producing I suspect they were doing the first possible thing they could try which was going flat out astern
If there are survivors from the bridge of the ship we might find out more
Unfortunately as most of us know it takes a hell of a lot to stop something heavy when it's afloat
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Post by JohnV on Mar 26, 2024 16:51:40 GMT
been looking at the AIS data and it seems to agree with what I first saw, a few minutes before the accident the ship began very slowly changing course to starboard
the time seems to agree with the accommodation lights going off on the camera footage.
The AIS then shows it beginning to slow down at the same time as the plume of black exhaust smoke so presumably going astern
I will look up the meteorological data and check wind direction and speed, if it was in a crosswind that could have been what kept it swinging to starboard
The Ship is only 9 years old and is about 300 metres long and 48 metre beam, Singapore flag and owned by a company from the UAE
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Post by JohnV on Mar 26, 2024 18:20:25 GMT
Good run down of the AIS from this site
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Post by greenman on Mar 26, 2024 20:14:44 GMT
Report online of a similar thing with the same ship in 2016. Think it said the ship hit a dock leaving Antwerp
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Post by JohnV on Mar 27, 2024 7:44:50 GMT
Report online of a similar thing with the same ship in 2016. Think it said the ship hit a dock leaving Antwerp can't remember the figures but I know there has been a very large increase in accidents involving large and very large vessels and docksides ..... big ships cause enormous amounts of damage even if they just "lean" on something so very few ships get through their life time without being involved in "incidents" Many years ago I was on an ice reinforced tanker "39,000 tons from memory" working around NE USA and Canada during the winter and we had a very similar failure coming down the St Lawrence. We had received water contaminated bunkers and as we were going down the river (with the flow probably doing 12 or 13 kts) the main generator went out, that caused the main engine to close down (fuel pumps, cooling pumps etc all electrical) The second generator started and then stopped when it got some of the water contamination so everything closed down again. So, 12 kts a river with a couple of miles ahead a neat little cross river ferry port (sheet piling and concrete construction) just starting to come into view We let go one anchor which quickly ran out it's chain and then snapped, the second one was dropped and that ran out but just dragged, we fortunately ran up the river bank about 500 yards before the little dock (partly the curve of the river and partly that the anchor pulled her head round a little) The reason I'm telling you this is that was a then fairly new ship, well built, well maintained and fully British crewed. In the 8 months I was on her we had THREE accidents. We damaged a mooring dolphin in Come by Chance (Newfoundland) and caused half a million dollars worth of damage to the bridge onto Long Island (in thick fog while under pilotage fortunately going very slowly as we were part loaded with premium grade gasoline at the time) ..... so sometimes shit just happens (Incidentally the ship was the "Frank D Moores" built on the Tyne at Hebburn in the mid 70's) |
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Post by pattyann57 on Mar 27, 2024 7:54:52 GMT
Watched the footage.. terrifying.
What a awful thing to happen.
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