This is a big deal so I thought I would start a thread in the Bench for discussion. Just so much bad luck. The big question is why the ship lost power before the accident.
It is a miracle of good fortune that this did not happen six hours later....... can you even imagine how many vehicles would have gone into the river in the morning rush hour? This has been a big news story down here too. Tragic for the road workers who lost their lives.
Not the first crash for that ship... Clay Diamond, executive director, American Pilots’ Association, told USA TODAY power issues are not unusual on cargo ships, which are so large they cannot easily course correct. “It’s likely that virtually every pilot in the country has experienced a power loss of some kind (but) it generally is momentary,” Diamond said. “This was a complete blackout of all the power on the ship, so that’s unusual. Of course this happened at the worst possible location.” The ship in Tuesday's crash, Dali, was involved in at least one prior accident when it collided with a shipping pier in Belgium. That 2016 incident occurred as the Dali was leaving port in Antwerp and struck a loading pier made of stone, causing damage to the ship’s stern, according to VesselFinder.com, a site that tracks ships across the world. An investigation determined a mistake made by the ship’s master and pilot was to blame.
It's easy to lose complete power. When you leave port, a ship increases speed several times in this process. If the guys in the engine room are not paying attention to the steam pressure gages and answer the captains speed engines to quickly, they can suck too much steam pressure out of the boilers. This cause the boilers to shut-down. The process of relighting the boilers is not a quick process.
I forgot to add, the biggest issue with commerical cargo ships. They are renowned for having serious lack of maintenance performance on these ships. Vet
Bridge is pretty close to home. I didn't even know exc. for a board member texting me. Takes longer than the tunnels but sometimes I go that way just for the view or a change of scenery or to avoid traffic. The suspension section has (had) always been very bouncy. Got a good view of it Sunday going up I-95. Never occurred to me it'd be the last time. I suspect they'll rebuild a taller version even though it'll add time vs. using the remaining structure (was already pretty steep) as even the cruise ships barely fit under. I think they'll get the channel cleared & marine traffic moving relatively quickly. Probably depend on whether the ship needs to be unloaded in place. I wouldn't be suprised if the pier tore a hole in the hull. Not my area of expertise but seems to me the channel need to be such that a ship cannot veer out of it. Not sure anything can protect the structure from something that massive but maybe there are ways. Amazingly they got the traffic shut down at all but literally w/seconds to spare. In the vid you can see how much traffic there was initially even @ that time. There was a tractor trailer & car that barely made it if you watch this vid. Shame they didn't get word to the construction crew to evacuate. 2nd major loss of life on that road w/in the past year or so. Other accident also killed 6 workers on the west side of the city. I'd just seen a story a couple days ago where they were going to be doing work to the approach & have one lane shut down and what a PIA that was going to be. Not anymore. This vid is a good explanation of what transpired & in general this channel has been far more informative than the media.
The ship was 8 years old. Imagine a car from 2015 getting in a wreck and someone saying "well, no one maintains those old cars". Yes. there are sub-standard ships in poor condition out there, but they are the old / very old ones, not the new ones. This is a newer vessel and realistically it was probably ( I am not being dismissive of the resulting loss of life) "just one of those days" -- they lost power at the worst possible moment and there wasn't much they could do but hold on. The real issue is crappy and complacent bridge design / protection. After the Sunshine Skyway collapse in Tampa Bay 50 years ago, the new bridge was protected with multiple dolphins and a large island around the bridge pier, so that a collision is now almost impossible. Years ago in the somewhere in the gulf states a far smaller interstate or railroad bridge got hit; it was protected on one side only -- sheer genius -- and got taken out from the other side. The Key bridge had two dolphins far from the bridge and no protective island at the bridge pier itself. Good golly why no island? Absolutely nuts. Somehow the feds learned to put protective concrete posts in front of EVERY federal building in the U.S. I am shocked to see that no one learned their lesson regarding bridges.
That's kinda what I thought Steve.. how small are the piers that the supports are being built on.. Also, that bridge was 57 years old, so it was nearing the end it's life span most likely, just like the one that collapsed here in MSP in 2007. I would suspect that the replacement bridge will have much larger man made islands for the supports to be built on, as well as several smaller piers/dolphins protecting it from the shipping lanes, to prevent something like this from happening again. JW
No "dolphins" would have prevented this....over 100,000 TONS does not just STOP. I believe that figure is UNLOADED.
John, I just read that the Dali is a Diesel powered ship. Makes me wonder now, what caused the power lost? Very unusual for that to happen on diesel powered ships. Guess we'll have to wait until the investigation is completed. Vet
Actually, it did just stop. It just happened to get stopped by the flimsy bridge instead of by a nice massive dolphin / island.
I’ve never piloted a boat that big so I don’t know what the procedure is or what needs to be done when a ship that big loses power, but someone on the news claimed that the first thing that shoulda happened when the power was lost was to have dropped both anchors. That had me scratching my head as if nothing else it would’ve cut the boat’s momentum significantly.
I have no specialized knowledge of large ships, but I would assume that the rudder is hydraulically powered. No engine power would mean no hydraulic power, which means no rudder control. I did hear that the crew of the Dali did drop both anchors, but a 100,000 ton plus ship has a lot of momentum. Stopping it quickly is just about impossible. From what I have heard on various news broadcasts, the Captain and pilots of the container ship did just about everything they possibly could (including calling for tugboats) to prevent the collision. The one thing that I would want to check would be the fuel system - including the fuel itself. The ship was heading off on a nearly 9,000 mile voyage and lost power in about 5 miles. Something doesn't pass the smell test.
They did drop the anchors relatively quickly, but it takes time and distance for the anchors to drag and set and for the chains to go taut. Plus, if bottom conditions are poor the anchor could drag a long ways if it sets at all. Rocky / solid = best, muddy / silty = worst. Ships near shore drag anchor in strong storms all the time and frequently get pushed ashore.
I read that it hit the edge of the channel helping it stop. Even channel itself not that deep but ya gotta stay in it....
John, you are correct, rudder is hydraulically operated. However, the rutter can be manually operated by someone going into the rudder compartment, which is very small. There is a manual hand crank, but it's a slow process. I can't remember if there is a communication system to the bridge, but there must be one. Vet
