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

Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

wbaltv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

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

#971

Post by EasyMark »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #66

Somehow I find it surprising how completely the bridge collapsed after the damage. I understand that a container ship collision is serious, but you could imagine a scenarios where the bridge slumps or buckles but doesn’t just disintegrate like that. It’s surprising that ships capable of doing this damage were probably regularly driving past it, and its safety as a thoroughfare depended entirely on those collisions no…

If you watch it in slow motion and how it breaks apart, you won't really find it surprising how things snap and bend considering how big the container ship is compared to the bridge. It makes a lot of sense.

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

#972

Post by samstave »

senectus1 wrote: post #845
samstave wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeasus - seriously - if that was an inbound shipment then it would be worse - this appears to have been leaving - which would infer that the TEUs were more empty than full.

do they ever run these empty? I would expect they're as close to full as they can get in every trip. They'd be terribly inefficient ways to transport goods otherwise.

Apparently, I was wrong - they are reporting it as a "fully loaded" -- but that does not mean the TEUs were full of goods and services... but thats what they are calling it. So I have no Idea.

Unless ImportYtei.com can get the bills of lading for that ship....

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

#973

Post by samstave »

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.

I didnt blame the glitch on HN....

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

#974

Post by red-iron-pine »

delichon wrote: post #705
CydeWeys wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All pilots are "harbor pilots". Crew members who control the ship outside of port are just called crew members (captain, first mate, 2nd Officer, that kind of thing), never pilot.

There used to be! See William Adams, "the pilot of Miura" or "Miura Anjin", inspiration for John Blackthorne in James Clavell's Shogun.

^ see folks, this is how bots get eyeballs on things. 70 day old account finds a relevant topic and directs it to a show that's recently out

also does a shout-out to SONU Sleep mattresses a few posts back.

enough other posts in there to create doubt -- maybe this is a person. maybe this is a person who does marketing sometimes.

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

#975

Post by calfuris »

berniedurfee wrote: post #902
acdha wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The early reports suggest that the ship was having trouble actively maintaining position - some have theorized a stuck rudder or wind pressure – in which case the only thing an autopilot could do is make the situation worse. I’d wait for the full investigation to come out before speculating about fixes.

Not a fix per se, but a safer system going forward. Given all the variables, is it feasible to build a system that continuously runs through multiple failure modes, predicts where the ship would end up and then guide the ship on a course where even a loss of power would have the ship drift between the supports. Was there a configuration of the ship that would have prevented it from hitting the bridge even after the p…

I think that in general, a course that (a) gets the ship from where it started to where it needs to go and (b) stays within navigation channels and (c) minimizes the amount of time spent in configurations where a loss of control would result in a collision will spend a nonzero amount of time in such configurations.

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

#976

Post by tetha »

Symbiote wrote: post #842
tetha wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hit me a a bit ago - you can't really tell how big ships are if you just see pictures of them on sea. I recently hit this in real life. Yeah it's a ship. Oh. It's like 3 - 4 times as tall as I am above water. And it goes 2-3 stories down. And holy hell, a crows nest 30 meters up is... really high up? And we got the good tour, because we had a severe storm warning as we visited that ship - the kinda storm in whic…

The best place I've seen huge ships is Hamburg. People sit and picnic on beaches along the river in the summer, and enormous container and car carrier ships go past.

Yeah, this was the Rickmer Rickmers[1] in fact.

We had a team we work with a lot over here in HH and went on the treasure hunt on the Rickmer Rickmers as an event. That was very nice - they spread a bunch of little puzzle boxes across the ship so you can search for these, walk through the museum and look at stuff. And the puzzles were neat as well - you'd use the compass the actual helmsman used back in the day to figure out where east is to find some clue, count pests in cargo and such. Very recommendable and a lot of fun.

We just didn't climb up the ropes in winds that almost pushed you over on foot, haha.

1: https://www.rickmer-rickmers.de/

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

#977

Post by red-iron-pine »

chx wrote: post #766
xp84 wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of confused how a President can promise something like that. He doesn't have any power to appropriate money, and given his party's lack of control of Congress, I'd argue he can't promise anything. Not to mention that one can scarcely find a "bluer" area than Baltimore -- I would assume that the most proudly right-wing politicians would be more than happy to let Baltimore suffer to score points with their pol…

> It's my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge and I expect the Congress to support my effort This is what he said. I would expect Congress to play along too -- just how unpopular would it be to abandon Baltimore??

> just how unpopular would it be to abandon Baltimore??

As someone else posted above, Baltimore is a massively important US seaport, that moves tons and tons of goods.

Even the most pro-business Republican realizes that a lot of industries are going to get hurt, and in places far away from Baltimore, if they can't move freight through there.

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

#978

Post by SoftTalker »

animex wrote: post #592
lotu wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many pilots, trained or not, really have any experience with a 100,000 ton ship in a crash situation with responses where seconds matter? I would expect anyone piloting such a ship in a harbor/under bridges. We requite airline pilots to train for many unlikely plane failures because the alternative is letting planes crash that we could have saved with better training.

You can train for it, then how many years into your career you actually experience such a scenario are you likely to act instinctually and recover. The best solution would be to improve autopilot assist as it will never forget how to correct (if possible).

Part of the emergency reponse they are drilled with in simulators are "memory items" that are literally memorized responses to emergencies, i.e. "reverse engines, drop anchor" this is to prevent freezing or indecision. Of course I guess that can still happen but they are trained to the point where it should be automatic.

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

#979

Post by JudasGoat »

userbinator wrote: post #847
elihu wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do big container ships like this typically just have a standard propeller/rudder without some kind of directional thruster to assist in maneuvering? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller

Not this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali Propulsion Single shaft; fixed pitch propeller

For maneuvering in ports, Dali has a single 3,000 kW (4,000 hp) bow thruster.

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

#980

Post by egberts1 »

egberts1 wrote: post #832
paddy_m wrote: post #438

Youtube tracking analysis from a knowledgeable mariner. He says that at about 1:24 AM the ship loses power (from video feed) while traveling 8.5 knots. at 1:25.30 power is restored. at 12:25.59 the ship shows smoke. The ship has already drifted in the channel. It is believed that at this time the ship applied full reverse power as evidenced by the black smoke. (My analysis: the ship drifted but hasn't turned in the c…

Other photos of aftermath shows an anchor dropped. Was wondering if he dropped anchor before the impact.

update: anchor was on the other side furthermore that anchor wouldn’t help much in last 45 seconds at 7.5 knots.
Post reply on HN