Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

jalopnik.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 136 posts

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#21

Post by gnu8 »

tmhrtly wrote: post #16

Does anyone know who pays for this process? I would imagine the owner of the ship, but I imagine there's a non-zero likelihood that something like this could bankrupt them. In that case... is there mandatory insurance or similar?

The insurers of the ship and/or cargo would be paying to salvage whatever value they can extract from the wreck, to reduce their losses. You’re right about the non-zero chance of insurmountable loss, which is why the owner of the ship and the owner of the cargo would both have a shitload of insurance. Read about Lloyd’s and the shipping insurance business. People have been doing this for hundreds of years.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#22

Post by londons_explore »

tmhrtly wrote: post #16

Does anyone know who pays for this process? I would imagine the owner of the ship, but I imagine there's a non-zero likelihood that something like this could bankrupt them. In that case... is there mandatory insurance or similar?

Scrap steel is worth $0.20 per kg. There is 28 million kg there, so the whole ship is worth $5.6 million in scrap value alone. That probably pays for the operation.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#23

Post by londons_explore »

foobarian wrote: post #17

I can't help but cringe at all the motor oil and other fluids leeching out of the ruined cars that were on board.

Cars are frequently shipped without fluids. Sometimes they're shipped with fluids so they can be driven off and onto the ship though.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#24

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

zilebune wrote: post #8
Sharlin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At these scales, and being able to use the hull's weight against itself, that chain is plenty "sharp" just by itself, I guess (sharpness being the ability to concentrate force on a comparatively small surface area). Adding teeth to the chain would probably not be worth it and/or they would just dull or break soon anyway.

Also using an alternative line an abrasive cable would not make sense either. If friction causes it to tear it would need complete replacing, which would be plenty $$$. Instead, with a chain they just replace a couple of broken links and back on track. Which is apparently what they've done: > Unfortunately, the chain actually broke during the cutting operation. “Approximately 25 hours into the cut, the cutting chain…

I'm guessing that another advantage of chain instead of cable is what happens if it breaks.

IIUC, it's much less dangerous to be around a breaking chain than a snapping cable.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#25

Post by kevinherron »

londons_explore wrote: post #22
tmhrtly wrote: post #16

Does anyone know who pays for this process? I would imagine the owner of the ship, but I imagine there's a non-zero likelihood that something like this could bankrupt them. In that case... is there mandatory insurance or similar?

Scrap steel is worth $0.20 per kg. There is 28 million kg there, so the whole ship is worth $5.6 million in scrap value alone. That probably pays for the operation.

I doubt $5.6 million would even cover the salary of all engineers and workers involved. This operation began last year and won't finish any time soon.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#26

Post by londons_explore »

Why not just refloat the ship? Floats and weights in the right places, together with the tide going up and down ought to be able to turn it over. It wouldn't be too expensive either because all work could be done above the waterline at low tide.

When it's the right way up, industrial diesel powered pumps could pump it out enough to float and reuse.

Perhaps there were political reasons? (ie. if the ship is refloated, the original owner would own it, whereas if its scrapped the port authority can take the collected 'litter' as payment for the work)

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#27

Post by SamBam »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #6
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #4

What astounds me is that the "cutting chain" appears to be just a normal chain, albeit a very large one. I would have thought they would have made something that cuts it more like a giant chainsaw.

The chain is made of harder (by a substantial enough margin to not wear through too quickly) metal than the ship. Also, the cross section of any given link is much thicker than any one piece of steel in the ship so it doesn't really need to cut efficiently, it just kind of crunches and tears the ship out of the way using the ship's own weight.

True, although

> “Approximately 25 hours into the cut, the cutting chain broke,” St. Simons Incident Response writes on its website.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#28

Post by effingwewt »

This looked really cool, but I kept getting distracted by the sheer amount of blank ad spots (tysm UBO!), they were constant.

Literally every picture in the 'article' was paired with an ad. How tf is anyone supposed to concentrate on what they are reading with constant interruptions?

Even with the ads just being blank spots it drove me so nuts I added jalopnik.com to my blacklist.

Re: A chain cuts through a capsized cargo ship filled with cars

#29

Post by francis_t_catte »

londons_explore wrote: post #26

Why not just refloat the ship? Floats and weights in the right places, together with the tide going up and down ought to be able to turn it over. It wouldn't be too expensive either because all work could be done above the waterline at low tide. When it's the right way up, industrial diesel powered pumps could pump it out enough to float and reuse. Perhaps there were political reasons? (ie. if the ship is refloated,…

The key to the salvage effort not involving refloating is probably related to the loose tangled masses of vehicles it's carrying; the ones that already caused the ship to fall over.
Post reply on HN