Francis Keys bridge hit by ship. Bridge collapses, mass casualty event.

[Donald H]

You don’t understand how powerful currents be and how quickly they can alter the course a disabled ship. Even the biggest ships.

For now it just remains troubling on why the course made good is indicating a definite course change to starboard and a straight line course, as opposed to a course that would indicate the effects of winds and currents.

It's not enough to indicate foul play but it's for fkn sure that it can't be ruled out. Some of the investigations will have dealt with those questions.

But if foul play is suspected, there's no way that it would be made public yet. Maybe never?

 

[WEATHER53]

What?

Get someone to break the question down for you

 

[tahuyaman]

Sorry but I have seen the originals in regular speed . There is a decided turn to the right by the bow when the lights come back on. It was going I exit, 60-90 seconds kater it sharply turned to the right

This sharp turn to the right never happened. The current was pushing it that way for a few minutes before impact

Get someone to break the question down for you

You are completely ignorant. You seem to think because a big ship and heavy, it’s not vulnerable to being manipulated by currents and wind.

 

[HaShev]

LOL

I was duped by "Russia gate?"

I already thought of you as an idiot. Now you show me you're a complete ******* moron...

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Now stop spreading your bullshit conspiracies, you complete ******* moron.

I'm not the one who confuses normal investigative practices used to squelch conspiracies with Jumping to assumed conclusions to avoid political fallout.
What I stated is not conspiratorial, and as stated it's a process that hinders conspiracy by coming to sound conclusions, or have you forgotten "using the science" of elimination.
When someone like you says you can't investigate, shouldn't investigate and your only arguement is ad hominem nothing to see here, you end up being the fuel for conspiracy theories.
Past rants don't help, the ole no illegals vote, no dead votes counted, there is zero cheating in elections, all these overly protective lies give the exaggerator zero credibility when once again saying "move along there is nothing to see here".
Whether that's true ir not, they fueled the distrust and the conspiracies are born out of their woven tapestry-a web they did weave -when first they practiced to deceive.

 

[tahuyaman]

For now it just remains troubling on why the course made good is indicating a definite course change to starboard and a straight line course, as opposed to a course that would indicate the effects of winds and currents.

It's not enough to indicate foul play but it's for fkn sure that it can't be ruled out. Some of the investigations will have dealt with those questions.

But if foul play is suspected, there's no way that it would be made public yet. Maybe never?

Currents and wind dictates the course of a ship which has no engine power.

 

[WEATHER53]

I'm not the one who confuses normal investigative practices used to squelch conspiracies with Jumping to assumed conclusions to avoid political fallout.
What I stated is not conspiratorial, and as stated it's a process that hinders conspiracy by coming to sound conclusions, or have you forgotten "using the science" of elimination.
When someone like you says you can't investigate, shouldn't investigate and your only arguement is ad hominem nothing to see here, you end up being the fuel for conspiracy theories.
Past rants don't help, the ole no illegals vote, no dead votes counted, there is zero cheating in elections, all these overly protective lies give the exaggerator zero credibility when once again saying "move along there is nothing to see here".
Whether that's true ir not, they fueled the distrust and the conspiracies are born out of their woven tapestry-a web they did weave -when first they practiced to deceive.

I do not believe anyone conspired but I do believe identification of how these varieties of mishaps did occur and why is necessary and silence is no one’s aid right now
Part if the newer problem in the USA is withholding of facts to accommodate endless investigation
The crew has undoubtedly been fully interviewed.The idea that a “higher necessity” prevents details I disagree with

 

[AyeCantSeeYou]

Sorry but I have seen the originals in regular speed . There is a decided turn to the right by the bow when the lights come back on. It was going I exit, 60-90 seconds kater it sharply turned to the right

That's the point where the anchor was dropped. The crew was trying to manually turn the rudder as well.

 

[WEATHER53]

Currents and wind dictates the course of a ship which has no engine power.

See weight is also a factor but you all want to pretend that because it’s floating it’s helpless versus other forces
If that was so, couple of tugboats would have moved it easily

 

[tahuyaman]

See weight is also a factor but you all want to pretend that because it’s floating it’s helpless versus other forces
If that was so, couple of tugboats would have moved it easily

There were no tug boats assisting. Why they weren’t deployed needs an explanation.

But yes, when a ship has lost engine power it is helpless against the current and wind.

 

[Donald H]

Currents and wind dictates the course of a ship which has no engine power.

Yes, mostly right as long as the ship hasn't applied helm. What I'm getting at is the fact that the course made good is shown to be a straight line and that may not be consistent to the effects of wind and tide.

Assuming you know what you're talking about, I won't elaborate.

 

[Woodznutz]

If the ship was in the center of the underpass, it would have been "out of bounds" for the lane that leaves the channel. Think of the channel as a multi-lane highway for cars.

I vote for different rules for single large ships passing in the dark of night. Waddya bet all sorts of changes will result from this event? Every argument (except mine) so far supports maintaining the status quo (and of course that would be insane).

 

[tahuyaman]

I do not believe anyone conspired but I do believe identification of how these varieties of mishaps did occur and why is necessary and silence is no one’s aid right now
Part if the newer problem in the USA is withholding of facts to accommodate endless investigation
The crew has undoubtedly been fully interviewed.The idea that a “higher necessity” prevents details I disagree with

They can’t inform us about this when they aren’t sure as to how this happened.

 

[AyeCantSeeYou]

There were no tug boats assisting. Why they weren’t deployed needs an explanation.

But yes, when a ship has lost engine power it is helpless against the current and wind.

The pilot requested tugboats when the blackout occurred. There simply wasn't enough time for them to reach the ship.

 

[tahuyaman]

Yes, mostly right as long as the ship hasn't applied helm. What I'm getting at is the fact that the course made good is shown to be a straight line and that may not be consistent to the effects of wind and tide.

Assuming you know what you're talking about, I won't elaborate.

When the ship is dead in the water, there is no working helm.

 

[WEATHER53]

I don t know the wind direction between 1-1:30 am . I do know that it would have to be from ene to ese to push ship to the right.

 

[Ringo]

"Rebuilding the Baltimore Bridge could take up to 10 years."

Post-industrial capitalism is when industrialism has already been abandoned and robots are still not showing up. And everything is at the mercy of the banksters

 

[Woodznutz]

Currents and wind dictates the course of a ship which has no engine power.

And the inertia of the ship itself moving at 8.5 knots, almost 10 mph.

 

[tahuyaman]

The pilot requested tugboats when the blackout occurred. There simply wasn't enough time for them to reach the ship.

I suspected response time was the reason.

And the inertia of the ship itself.

Once the ship with no engine falls victim to the currents and wind, it’s not going to stop or turn until some other force makes that happen.

 

[AZrailwhale]

The Ship​

Facts and figures for the MV Dali

1. Named after Salvador Dali
2. Built in South Korea from October 2014 to March 2015
3. Displacement of 149,000 tons
4. 984 feet length by 158 feet wide
5. 49 foot draft (hull depth in the water fully loaded)
6. Propulsion is a single shaft with a fixed pitch propeller
7. Power is from a MAN-B&W 9S90ME-C9.2 two stroke diesel engine of 55,000 hp
8. Design speed is 22 knots or 25 mph at 82 RPM
9. Fuel usage is around 200 tons per day
10. Engine cylinder bore is 900 mm and stroke is 3260 mm (I think 9 cylinders)

I was not able to find a trustworthy number for fuel consumption but 200 tons of heavy fuel oil per day is close. At that rate of fuel burn it is obvious why optimizing the engine and propeller is an important design task.

The Engine Room​

The cargo type ships (bulk, oil, container, LNG, etc) usually have just one propeller and one engine. In this ship the engine turns at just 82 RPM, matching the optimal rotational speed of the propeller, so no reduction gear is needed. There is also no reversing gear so, to generate reverse thrust, the engine is stopped and restarted turning the opposite direction.

In a big ship it is most accurate to think of all the equipment in the engine room as the engine. The ship’s main engine can not operate without all of the other equipment around it. The main engine does only one thing — it turns the propeller. This is very different from a car engine where the engine provides all the power to operate the vehicle. In addition to the main engine is three or more auxiliary engines and all they do is generate electricity. That electricity is used to power everything on the ship (except turning the prop). Everything includes systems needed to operate the main engine itself.

This is a cutaway of a cargo ship (not exactly like the MV Dali but close enough). You can see the main engine attached to the propeller shaft and behind it are three purple things which are the auxiliary engines. Ships can certainly have more than three aux engines depending on how much power is needed and the MV Dali has four.

The Operation and Power Loss​

Everything is run from the aux engines including the fuel feed pumps, lubricating oil pumps, cooling water pumps, and the exhaust valves (hydraulic actuators controlled by computer). Without the aux engine electric power that huge beast of a main engine is dead weight. The other systems run by the aux power are the rudder hydraulic pumps (two units), lights, navigation, communication, and almost everything else on the ship.

During port maneuvering at least three aux engines are operating and synched to the power bus so even if two engines go down the third engine can still run the ship. It looks to me like all the power was lost over the entire ship which means that all the aux engines shut down or the entire aux power bus tripped of line. After that the main engine would have shut down and the rudder locked in place. At that point the Francis Scott Key bridge was doomed. There was not enough time to restart the aux systems and restart the main engine before hitting the bridge pier - although the crew really tried.

The rudder locked at whatever position it was when power was lost since both hydraulic pumps (for redundancy) need electric power from the aux engines. The ship was coasting but something started the bow turning right. Maybe it was a cross current or maybe the helm had turned the wheel slightly to the right for a small course correction. It takes a few seconds for the 100,000 ton ship to actually start turning but eventually it did and headed directly into the bridge pier.

The Worst Possible Timing​

It’s hard to say how bad the timing was for losing all power. If the incident had happened a minute earlier the engine room crew could have recovered power (at least to the rudder) and avoided the impact. If the power loss had happened maybe 15 seconds later the ship would have coasted under and through the bridge without striking anything (maybe a very close call though). But that is not what happened and now we clean up the horrible mess.

Since I've heard the ship was having power problems at the dock, perhaps it was the aux power buss failing.

 

[Donald H]

I vote for different rules for single large ships passing in the dark of night. Waddya bet all sorts of changes will result from this event? Every argument (except mine) so far supports maintaining the status quo (and of course that would be insane).

This incident/accident won't result in any changes to navigation in harbours. Why would it when the pilots strictly adhered to protocol?

The reason why the course made good was a dead straight line is because the ship had sufficient way on to do so with a neutral rudder.