dustie Loc: Nose to the grindstone

???????????????? "...high rate of speed..." ????????????????

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Been across that bridge many times. This one is going to take a LONG time to rebuild. Until they can at least remove the damaged sections, the port is closed. Reportedly, the vessel lost power and had called mayday in time for them to keep traffic off the bridge, but 7-8 workers on the bridge went into the water. As of this morning, 2 had been rescued.

dustie Loc: Nose to the grindstone

Yes, and a bit of a chore to safely do the initial stages of removal of the wreckage.
There's a lot of hazard there besides currents and water temp for rescuers and investigators.

srt101fan

Photos from the bridge collapse:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/photos-baltimores-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-124703206.html

clint f. Loc: Priest Lake Idaho, Spokane Wa

That’s what the news said. Mayday because of loss of power. It sounded like they shut the bridge before the collapse but maintenance workers are lost.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Reports say the ship lost power (no steering etc.) and radioed the port people in time for the police to stop cars from going onto the bridge, so only a few were on it. A work crew of 8 was on the bridge and so far they have found two of them, both alive but one with bad injuries and rushed to the hospital. Sonar does show some cars in the 50' deep water.

In the pictures that ship had a max load and in my opinion the containers were stacked too high. A huge "sail" area for wind to push on. Even with full power, a ship loaded like that would be hard to control in a cross wind. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

High speed for a ship. Which with a few exceptions is not really high compared to land vehicles. But that much mass moving at any speed is one huge amount of momentum.

dustie Loc: Nose to the grindstone

Reportedly speed was aproximately 9 mph (8 knots). That is difficult to reconcile with a "high rate of speed", even in that port channel.

No question the huge amount of momentum force of that mass is going to do massive damage, anyway, even if it is only moving one quarter or less the rate that ship was moving.
If reports are correct that it suffered a loss of propulsion, its rate of motion may have been determined by force of water current added to any residual momentum before loss of power. That would render it an unsteerable mass without acceleration contol.

The fact that some of the photos with reasonable view of the bow amongst the wrecked bridge structure show the anchor chains extending into the water, seems to be indication there were efforts made to get slowed to avoid impact.
Even if they'd had proper systems functioning, the momentum of that hunk of floating real estate is going to require a lot of opposite force in reaction, in order to give the ship crew control of speed and steering. Something like that is obviously not going to turn nor stop an a dime, even at a crawl speed.

Mr. SONY Loc: LI, NY

This is not the first time one of their container ships lost control and caused an accident.
Hopefully this company will be sued for billions.
https://archive.ph/lmpjV#selection-1777.0-1777.129

srt101fan

Careful about a rush to judgment regarding the container stack height. The loading of that ship doesn't seem to be much different from other large container ships.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

👍

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Maybe they are also overloaded. Shippers always want to move the most possible.

Railroads did the same, trains got to be so long many areas passed laws limiting how long they could block road crossings. They had gotten so long and heavy they had to start slowing many miles out from the rail yards, and the distance to make an "emergency stop" came to be measured in miles
It didn't matter if an engineer saw a stalled car on the tracks if from the time he locked up the brakes to the time he stopped his locomotive was a mile or 2 (maybe more) past the crossing.

srt101fan

you say "Maybe they are also overloaded." So now you're adding to your original accusation. I hope you never take part in an accident investigation.

And speaking of a ship's sail area, did you ever take a good look at cruise ships?

Tote1940 Loc: Dallas

Two aboard
Current apparently strong 8 kn little or no steering depend on thrusters once power lost out of luck
Horrible!
Apparently cars stopped

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Okay Jerry, tell me this. They are saying that they had a major power shutdown. I was watching the news this morning, and it was clear enough that you could see how fast the ship was going and you could see the straight direction that it was going and then just before it got to the bridge you could easily see the ship started turning to the right which made it hit that brace from the water to the bridge and there was a big splash of water as it hit and then that bridge fell and was in the water within 1 & 1/2 second. It completely fell extremely fast. Now the turning to the right just before it hit the bridge; if there was no power how much air would it take to turn that ship into that brace considering the total weight of that ship and all of that cargo. It just seems weird that that cargo ship could have been turned to the right like that to hit that bridge that quick.