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Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

wbaltv.com

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Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#941

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

pixl97 wrote: post #603
thekid314 wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a harbor pilot on board, or the normal ship pilot? Were there tug boats helping with the exit? I have often felt that the harbor protocols were overkill, but this is one of the times they could have helped.

Once the ship is under way I don't think the tugs hang around. They are just for the push away from the dock and initial turns.

Depends on the navigational requirements. Indirect towing using tugs as an extended rudder are sometimes used. Although I think it is more common in Europe which has a more modern tug fleet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stebWQNrv5Q

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#942

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #773
araes wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current personal suspicion after watching your linked video (excellent discussion by the wgowshipping author) is: Catastrophic engine failure (1:24) causing wide scale power loss. No rudder control, rudder drift, and ship alignment drift (1:24-1:25:30) Power restored and ship reengages prop with bad ship/ruddder alignment (1:25). However, ship is now pushing itself into a further bad turn. Pilot likely stomps the bra…

> Baltimore had $350 million of insurance. Wouldn't the ship's insurance be the one paying here?

I bet we will see a General Average play out. Gonna be a legal mess for years to come.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#943

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

nwiswell wrote: post #751
HarryHirsch wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there’s no effective defense for a bridge that needs support in more than 30 or so feet of water You put in sheet piling 50 meters upstream, and you fill the box with rocks. That's state of the art practice, nowadays, but that bridge was 50 years old.

The sheet piling didn't need to be 50 years old. In 1977 (and in 1972, when construction began), vessels of this size did not exist, and certainly were not allowed in the harbor[1]. But over time, they were given authorization, despite the fact that they could collapse the unprotected bridge like a load of toothpicks. The real crime here is that there was no retrofit to protect the pylons. It was almost certainly con…

The Oil Tankers of the 70s were the largest vessels ever built. Today the largest container vessels are starting to creep up to their size, but not weight.

The container vessel in question is tiny compared to e.g. the Seawise giant or Batillus Class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawise_Giant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batillus-class_supertanker

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#944

Post by ClumsyPilot »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #653
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would and furthermore I think there is a massive bias at play - if the exact same disaster happened in China there would be jokes about bridges made of Chinesium. There is an expectation that a disaster happening in the west in a result of unforeseeable act of god, but in China it will be a result of corruption or shoddy workmanship. Whereas in reality maintenance standard in the west have fallen but in the east th…

> Whereas in reality maintenance standard in the west have fallen In the context of this incident, are you saying that we _previously_ used to go around retrofitting our 50-year-old bridges with more modern defenses, and then at some point since then we stopped doing this? Obviously if we're talking about new construction, it stands to reason that standards have only _increased_, but this was an old bridge built to o…

Literally, yes, someone is responsible

> 46,154, or 7.5% of the nation’s bridges, are considered structurally deficient, meaning they are in “poor” condition. Unfortunately, 178 million trips are taken across these structurally deficient bridges every day

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#945

Post by DennisP »

tasuki wrote: post #721
greenavocado wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boat changes direction after impact with the bumper

It was a massive boat. They don't change direction very easily.

The bumpers are also massive. They're large concrete pillars. Here's video showing what they look like on similar bridges around Baltimore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFl412SuWZE&t=41s

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#946

Post by persolb »

ericyd wrote: post #835
h2odragon wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks they died; but our life goes on. For almost all of us, there's nothing we can do to help anyone immediately effected by this incident. Would you have everyone else stand idle in mourning and respect? For how long?

More than a couple hours I guess

The shear volume of death everyday is mid blowing.

I don’t see any benefit to anybody to just ‘stop’ when a small number of those deaths happen in an exceptionally dramatic way.

The repercussions of this accident could very well kill more people indirectly than the actual workers who died.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#948

Post by ericyd »

persolb wrote: post #946
ericyd wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than a couple hours I guess

The shear volume of death everyday is mid blowing. I don’t see any benefit to anybody to just ‘stop’ when a small number of those deaths happen in an exceptionally dramatic way. The repercussions of this accident could very well kill more people indirectly than the actual workers who died.

I don't see a benefit to it either, but I still find it surprising when people react to tragedy with zero sympathy or emotion beyond self preservation. My surprise was all I was trying to indicate with my original comment.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#949

Post by cdelsolar »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #799
samstave wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT was a glitch in posting... I was responding to multipile threads and somehow my comments merged...

No part of that comment made sense. I don't think the problem was that multiple comments merged.

lol don’t be mean
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