OT: Tragedy in Baltimore.

[Doohickie]

13 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

No manual override, like a captains steering wheel?

The ship lost all propulsive power.  They had rudder control via emergency power, but without the screws they're pretty much going where the current takes them, and can't effectively stop the ship.

[MattPie]

8 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

When I scuba dive, even with water below 70, I need a wetsuit. Granted, that's deeper water, but at 48 degrees after impact from whatever that height was will induce disorientation within seconds. 

It's crazy to see this happen in 2024, all because of a possible glitch. No manual override, like a captains steering wheel?

I guess we wait for the details to come out, at least it appears to be accidental at the moment 

The rudder is so huge, it'd require a ton of people to even come close to moving it, and cargo ships don't have a big crew, either, maybe like 20-30 people. I think I heard 100,000 tons, which is the same as the current US aircraft carriers which carry around 5000 crew. It doesn't stop on a dime, either.

It sounds weird with all the Boeing stuff, but if ships were built like planes this may not have happened. There'd be requirements for separate control systems and redundant power for this reason. This was a worst-case scenario, though; it happened at one of few places where the damage is spectacular. Most of the time if the ship lost power like this, it would run aground or be adrift in endless ocean. It was a really unlucky day.

[JohnC]

10 hours ago, shrader said:

SDS said that earlier. I’m asking how they actually stopped the cars in such a tight time window. You’re definitely not getting cops out there to block it off, so thank god they had whatever they did have there. 

I live in Maryland. It is not unusual for construction companies involved in projects that have an effect on traffic to hire off-duty police who use their marked cars and are in uniform to be at the site for traffic control. Churches with large Sunday congregations and funerals similarly hire police for this type of traffic control. I suspect that the same type of presence was at the bridge when the boat communicated that it lost control. 

[Doohickie]

12 hours ago, Gatorman0519 said:

The bridge was ancient as well.

The bridge was less than 50 years old.  Hardly ancient.  There are lots of bridges in service that are twice that.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Horrific tragedy.

We have 2 bridges across our harbour between Halifax and Dartmouth.  The older one opening in April 1955 - extensive repairs and upgrades over the years.  The 'new bridge' opened in July 1970.

We have gates to stop traffic.  We have 'rock islands' at the base of the towers at the water end (designed to take any hit from a ship - no direct hit is possible).  We also have experienced 'pilots' that board every large ship the enters the harbour that is bound for the container port beyond both bridges.  They drive the ships into and out of the harbour - probably not going to help in a power failure.  The largest ships port at a new container pier that is at the outer edge of the inner harbour and the ships do not pass under the bridges.  It is near the famous Pier 21 - where every immigrant to Canada up until about the 1970s entered the country for the first time.

We take the safely for granted.  

Edited March 27 by Sabres Fan in NS

[Wyldnwoody44]

2 hours ago, MattPie said:

The rudder is so huge, it'd require a ton of people to even come close to moving it, and cargo ships don't have a big crew, either, maybe like 20-30 people. I think I heard 100,000 tons, which is the same as the current US aircraft carriers which carry around 5000 crew. It doesn't stop on a dime, either.

It sounds weird with all the Boeing stuff, but if ships were built like planes this may not have happened. There'd be requirements for separate control systems and redundant power for this reason. This was a worst-case scenario, though; it happened at one of few places where the damage is spectacular. Most of the time if the ship lost power like this, it would run aground or be adrift in endless ocean. It was a really unlucky day.

Ah yes, I was stationed on a carrier for a few years, huge ships. I didn't get too much into the engine rooms and etc.

 

This def was some crazy bad luck and bad timing. 

[MattPie]

I've only been at all close to the USS JFK, which is in Philly. That's only 80% of the bigger Nimitz size ships, but was still amazingly big. You can see it and Lincoln Financial field (Philly Eagles) in this: https://www.google.com/maps/search/philly+naval+yard/@39.8945654,-75.1803881,3071m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

The ship is a little longer but half as wide as a football stadium.

(The Wells Fargo Center (Flyers, etc) is just to the west of Lincoln financial)

[K-9]

3 hours ago, MattPie said:

The rudder is so huge, it'd require a ton of people to even come close to moving it, and cargo ships don't have a big crew, either, maybe like 20-30 people. I think I heard 100,000 tons, which is the same as the current US aircraft carriers which carry around 5000 crew. It doesn't stop on a dime, either.

It sounds weird with all the Boeing stuff, but if ships were built like planes this may not have happened. There'd be requirements for separate control systems and redundant power for this reason. This was a worst-case scenario, though; it happened at one of few places where the damage is spectacular. Most of the time if the ship lost power like this, it would run aground or be adrift in endless ocean. It was a really unlucky day.

The Dali weighs 95,000 tons when empty. It had 4,700 containers on board and while we will have to wait for the official manifest records to be released, media reports yesterday were that the ship weighed 155,000 tons when it left port. In an interview, a ship pilot said that even at the slow 9mph it was traveling at the time would, it have needed a couple miles to come to a stop. Talk about inertia. 

Edited March 27 by K-9

[Gatorman0519]

5 hours ago, Doohickie said:

The bridge was less than 50 years old.  Hardly ancient.  There are lots of bridges in service that are twice that.

Its design was ancient. Total lack of safety measures vs modern bridges. 

[K-9]

55 minutes ago, Gatorman0519 said:

Its design was ancient. Total lack of safety measures vs modern bridges. 

The bridge design itself was fine, but the dolphins placed in the water to protect the piers from impact weren’t designed to handle the sheer size of modern day vessels compared to the ships in the 70s. 

[pi2000]

surpirsed this doesn't happen more often

[inkman]

7 hours ago, MattPie said:

It sounds weird with all the Boeing stuff, but if ships were built like planes this may not have happened. 

Duh, they’d just fly over the bridge.  

[shrader]

53 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

surpirsed this doesn't happen more often

It’s a total fluke. Look at all that space under the bridge. The vast majority of the time, any out of control vessel would miss the support and go right under*.
 

*I haven’t look closely enough, but on my tiny phone screen it looked like the bridge was taller than the boat. 

[K-9]

7 minutes ago, shrader said:

It’s a total fluke. Look at all that space under the bridge. The vast majority of the time, any out of control vessel would miss the support and go right under*.
 

*I haven’t look closely enough, but on my tiny phone screen it looked like the bridge was taller than the boat. 

Bridge had 185 feet of clearance above the water so there was plenty of room for the Dali to pass under it. 

[SwampD]

6 hours ago, Sabres Fan in NS said:

Horrific tragedy.

We have 2 bridges across our harbour between Halifax and Dartmouth.  The older one opening in April 1955 - extensive repairs and upgrades over the years.  The 'new bridge' opened in July 1970.

We have gates to stop traffic.  We have 'rock islands' at the base of the towers at the water end (designed to take any hit from a ship - no direct hit is possible).  We also have experienced 'pilots' that board every large ship the enters the harbour that is bound for the container port beyond both bridges.  They drive the ships into and out of the harbour - probably not going to help in a power failure.  The largest ships port at a new container pier that is at the outer edge of the inner harbour and the ships do not pass under the bridges.  It is near the famous Pier 21 - where every immigrant to Canada up until about the 1970s entered the country for the first time.

We take the safely for granted.  

There is no way that it was not a harbor pilot on the ship in Baltimore.

Edited March 27 by SwampD

[That Aud Smell]

46 minutes ago, shrader said:

It’s a total fluke. Look at all that space under the bridge. The vast majority of the time, any out of control vessel would miss the support and go right under.

Maybe? It seems like there would be a lot of variables there (bearing when the ship lost power, the size of the channel being navigated, currents, maybe tides). The thing that does seem flukey is that the vessel lost power and control so soon after leaving port. Wtf?! But, if a cargo ship of that size were to lose power in those kinds of waters (close quarters), it strikes me that a catastrophe of some kind is fairly likely (even if it's just a big property loss).

[Weave]

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

The bridge design itself was fine, but the dolphins placed in the water to protect the piers from impact weren’t designed to handle the sheer size of modern day vessels compared to the ships in the 70s. 

It doesn’t seem that bridge had any dolphins protecting the piers.  I haven’t seen any in any of the images I’ve seen so far.

[K-9]

34 minutes ago, Weave said:

It doesn’t seem that bridge had any dolphins protecting the piers.  I haven’t seen any in any of the images I’ve seen so far.

They’re there, but highly ineffective.

 

 

[Brawndo]

32 minutes ago, Weave said:

It doesn’t seem that bridge had any dolphins protecting the piers.  I haven’t seen any in any of the images I’ve seen so far.

There are two transmission towers close to the bridge which appear to protection around them. 
 

I’m surprised the dolphins are not federally mandated after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge accident in 1980, when 35 people died after a freighter hit the bridge during a storm 

[K-9]

12 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

There are two transmission towers close to the bridge which appear to protection around them. 
 

I’m surprised the dolphins are not federally mandated after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge accident in 1980, when 35 people died after a freighter hit the bridge during a storm 

Those little round white dots in the pic above are the dolphins.

[Brawndo]

19 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Those little round white dots in the pic above are the dolphins.

Compare those to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge ones, these should be the standard 
 

 

[PerreaultForever]

I thought this article explained it well. 

https://theconversation.com/baltimore-bridge-collapse-a-bridge-engineer-explains-what-happened-and-what-needs-to-change-226716

Bottom line is really that the size of the container ships has increased so dramatically that older bridge safety standards are no longer adequate. The ships are simply too big and heavy now. I mean just look at all those containers. Never saw anything like that 30 years ago or back when this bridge was built. 

[MattPie]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I thought this article explained it well. 

https://theconversation.com/baltimore-bridge-collapse-a-bridge-engineer-explains-what-happened-and-what-needs-to-change-226716

Bottom line is really that the size of the container ships has increased so dramatically that older bridge safety standards are no longer adequate. The ships are simply too big and heavy now. I mean just look at all those containers. Never saw anything like that 30 years ago or back when this bridge was built. 

Pretty much. On a smaller scale, the same thing has happened on the roads, the current F150 Super Scrodozer editions dwarf versions from the 90s in every way, other than having an actual 8-ft bed.

[Doohickie]

8 minutes ago, MattPie said:

Pretty much. On a smaller scale, the same thing has happened on the roads, the current F150 Super Scrodozer editions dwarf versions from the 90s in every way, other than having an actual 8-ft bed.

Do you know why vehicles continually increase in size?  The federal CAFE standards are based on the length and wheel track of a vehicle.  Larger vehicles have less aggressive fuel economy requirements.  So rather than make vehicles more fuel efficient, it's easier to just make them bigger.

[MattPie]

1 hour ago, Doohickie said:

Do you know why vehicles continually increase in size?  The federal CAFE standards are based on the length and wheel track of a vehicle.  Larger vehicles have less aggressive fuel economy requirements.  So rather than make vehicles more fuel efficient, it's easier to just make them bigger.

And make them all "trucks" so the CAFE (and safety) standards are less stringent.