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That thing has sails. "Lost power" == wind stopped blowing?
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They apparently lost control of steering as they likely did not have the engine running at more than idle because the Tug had them, also the tug was trying to get around it into position in the front to push it back from the bridge, but could not get there in time. That river has a really fast current.Originally posted by Frank Cox View PostComment
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I just watched another, much clearer video shot from an office building. It shows the Tug racing to try to get around the front. Ultimately, it was stopped by a piling immediately on the other side of the bridge...Comment
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Firstly, apologies for the joke above: when I made it, all the coverage then online stated that there were no deaths and only two minor injuries.
It's like the hybrid ships of the mid c-19 (when reciprocating steam propulsion had been invented, but not scaled up to have enough power to drive a large ship at a significant speed), in that it had both sails and engines, according to this.Originally posted by Frank Cox
If that's the case, then presumably there was never any intention for it to pass under the bridge. From these pics, it appears that there is no way it possibly could have done:Authorities blamed “mechanical issues”, and said the ship had lost power before the crash, at about 8.20pm on Saturday evening.
But some experts have speculated that the ship’s engines may have been stuck in reverse after tug boats pushed it into position to set sail.
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Unless the perspective is seriously distorted in the first photo (it obviously is in the second), the front mast was at least 40-50 feet higher than the bridge deck. My wife speculated that either they thought that the tide was lower than it was (which would explain getting it wrong by a few feet, but not that much), or that they had a figure for the height of the bridge deck that they thought was in meters but was actually in feet. But the ship being totally out of control and there being no intention to pass under the bridge at all would also explain it.
If so, that raises the question as to why lessons seemingly weren't learned from the Baltimore bridge accident a few months ago.Comment
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Leo, We'll just have to wait and see what the report says... I also think if it lost the engine, even with the tug assisting, that it still would have happened. The current in the river there moves fast.Originally posted by Leo Enticknap View PostComment
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It has to be an engine or other kind of control failure, even if they mistook feet for meters, you have to be a special kind of blind not to see this coming. Either that, or the Italians must have released Captain Schettino early...Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View PostComment
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I think the ship was adrift. It went under the bridge stern first.
Since everybody was in "parade mode," there probably wasn't anybody close enough to the bridge who could get the engines started on time. Remember, you don't just turn the key and press a button to bring a big diesel engine, like that, on-line in ten seconds. There's a whole, big procedure that likely takes two or three minutes, even in an emergency. By the time the captain, his mate and the helmsmen got to their posts, I bet the ship was already under the bridge!Comment
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Once again, apologies for the crass joke. The story I originally pasted stated that everyone involved in the accident had been accounted for, as did two other sources I checked before posting that. The initial news agency reports were wrong, and it's very sad to read that two crew members died as the result of falling from a mast. More info:
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So the perspective of the first photo taken from the shore I posted earlier was a little misleading, but not wildly: the foul was 20ft, not 40-50 (assuming that the river was at or near high tide at the time of the accident). It is also being reported that the ship was departing New York for a transatlantic crossing at the time of the accident, which supports the theory that it was never supposed to go under the bridge at all (because doing so is in the opposite direction from the ocean), and that therefore it was out of control. The missing piece of the puzzle is how control of it was lost. Nevertheless, coming so soon after the Baltimore accident, I'm surprised that safety protocols weren't in place that were able to prevent this, especially with such an obvious risk (unusually tall ship maneuvering close to a bridge with a lower deck).
I saw a documentary about him (in a hotel room following a flight cancellation, and so was looking for boredom relief) a few years ago, which argued that he was made the scapegoat for the basically non-existent safety culture within that cruise line. The filmmakers claimed that pretty much all the senior officers spent their watches drunk, shagging chorus girls, or otherwise distracted and leaving the autopilot to drive the boat. Schettino's "he played his ukulele as the ship went down" response to the grounding was a gift to the Italian authorities, as it enabled them to pin the entire disaster on him and, with credibility, cover up the lax regulation, corner cutting, and other questionable practices that the filmmakers claimed was endemic in the Mediterranean cruise industry. He thoroughly deserved to have the book thrown at him, but so did many others who got away with it.Originally posted by Marcel BirgelenComment
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Question: Are pilots required to navigate ships on the US east coast?
In my area (west coast Washington state) their are laws requiring that pilots navigate foreign ships on local waters.
Source: https://www.pspilots.org/2024/01/16/...boat-captains/ON THE SALISH SEA NEAR PORT ANGELES – From our home in Port Angeles, my wife and I have a commanding view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Guests from Seattle enjoy watching the ships come and go, and they take a particular interest in the pilot boat that launches from Ediz Hook to connect with the vessels. From our faraway perspective, that boat is a tiny red dot, but it has a crucial task: delivering a pilot who can take those giant ships safely through the inland waters of Puget Sound.
Licensed Puget Sound pilots are required on all foreign-flag commercial vessels sailing those waters: freighters, tankers, cruise ships, container ships. Once a ship enters the Strait, that “tiny red dot” brings to the vessel a pilot to navigate the ship to port. Pilots have extensive knowledge the depths and currents along the Sound’s 2,000-plus miles of shoreline; they’re familiar with weather patterns and tidal action at the various harbors, piers, and docks.
What are the operation rules in New York and Baltimore?
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First article I've seen that goes into convincing technical detail:
This all makes a lot of sense to me: an unusual type of vessel that pilots likely weren't used to, crew members in a vulnerable position, the proximity of the bridge to the mooring berth, tug wasn't actually tethered to it (just pushing it), engine or transmission malfunction ... in short, a cascade of multiple failures needed to result in a disaster, not a single point of human failure. I'm not sure that an individual someone in very hot water is the fix needed to ensure that an accident like this doesn't happen again - at least, not the only one.The one mistake that made the Brooklyn Bridge ship crash inevitable
Particularly galling for professional seafarers to watch
Tom Sharpe
19 May 2025 4:09pm BST
This weekend saw another tragic shipping accident in the US involving a bridge. The Mexican navy’s sail training vessel ARM (Armada de la República Mexicana) Cuauhtémoc was departing from South Street Seaport in Manhattan in the shadow of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. This was a full ceremonial departure with the whole upper deck lit and many cadets aloft manning the yards. Minutes later the ship hit the bridge, causing masts to snap and, tragically, the deaths of two of the cadets. Many others were injured.
Inevitably, before these poor souls were even in hospital, accusations of this being an attack on the US were gathering traction. To be clear, this was not an attack – it was a seamanship incident of the sort that happens many times a year around the world, often going unreported unless captured on film – which this was, in gruesome detail. The fatalities, and the ease with which the disaster could have been prevented, make it particularly galling for past or present professional seafarers like me to watch.
The ship was initially berthed port side to, with her bows facing northwest. This is not uncommon for ships berthing at the South Street Seaport: bows photograph better than sterns, especially with the bridge in the background. So far, so normal. On sailing, there were three things that were of note, none of which on their own would be a concern, but cumulatively should have led to a change of plan.
The first is that both the wind and the tide were from the southwest, i.e. pushing the ship towards the bridge (which the ship’s masts were too tall to pass under). The wind was about 10 knots and the current probably not even a knot on top of that. Neither is extreme – nor even close – and actually a wind off the berth can be quite helpful in the initial stages, but both will make the ship hit the bridge if nothing else appears.
The second is the proximity to the bridge. The berth looks to be no more than 300 metres away. Even in modest wind and tide conditions there was not much room for manoeuvre, and I have no doubt that the investigation will look at whether or not this was a sensible time to sail in the first place.
Third was the decision to put cadets aloft. Again, manning the masts is perfectly normal for a ship of this type, and you want it to look as smart as possible as close as possible to the shore, but add this to issues one and two and alarm bells should have been ringing. Prioritising ceremonial over safety is not a good trap to fall into.
Fourth is the type of vessel itself. These ships’ focus on sailing means that their engines often lack power and their (single) propeller is designed to minimise drag, not for the best possible propulsion. Once your bow is into the wind and tide and you have two or three knots of speed through the water, you will have sufficient control of the bow to safely navigate the river. However, get stuck beam-on to the prevailing conditions and your options for powering out are really limited. This is also an old ship with all the reliability implications inherent in that. Did they test propulsion thoroughly before sailing? How often did they practise for machinery breakdowns such as the one that occurred, and so on?
Enter the tug. These come in all shapes and sizes and are a routine part of commercial moves the world over. This one was an older boat, built in 1967, and whilst it had plenty of power, its propulsion meant it lacked the agility of more modern tugs. In crude terms, it can only go forwards and backwards, whilst a modern tug can manoeuvre in all directions.
The final part of this equation, and the part that aggregates all the variables above, is the pilot. Pilots, aboard ship, are experienced mariners who are aboard specially to manoeuvre the ship in and out of the harbour where they work because of their local knowledge – of the winds, currents, rocks and shoals etc – and their special expertise on working with tugs in confined waters. With ship types that visit less often – i.e. a sail trainer like this, or a fighting warship – the pilot can be quite inexperienced in the way your ship handles, so you have to factor that in when they’re giving orders based on their greater experience of the local area. There are usually different types of pilot specialising in different areas and tasks. In New York you would normally expect to use a docking pilot who will then hand over to a river pilot for the transit out. In this case, it may have been a bay pilot, as the vessel was going to anchor and take on fuel next. This is still a highly experienced and expert mariner, but perhaps not as well versed with that jetty and that type of tug. Sal Mercogliano, a retired US Master Mariner who runs an excellent YouTube channel, has told me that when the US Coast Guard’s sail training vessel, the USCGC Eagle, berthed there, they used four tugs.
The real error in this case, given everything outlined above, is that the (single) tug wasn’t attached to the ship on sailing. It was clear from her manoeuvring before the incident that the plan was for the ship to leave the berth, come astern under its own propulsion until clear of the jetty, kick ahead to stop that, and with lots of port wheel applied, get the bows into wind and the ship underway. The tug was standing off the shoulder ready to assist with this turn by pushing the bows round. Most of the time, this would be fine. However, in this case, the ship’s astern propulsion clearly stuck on – a wake off the bow is visible as she hits the bridge that would be absent if she was just drifting. At this point the decision not to attach the tug goes, to my mind, from “expeditious” to “negligent”. Had the tug been made up on the starboard shoulder, or through the bows, it could easily have controlled the ship even with its astern propulsion stuck on. As it was, all the tug crew could do was look on with horror.
With the tug out of position, the ship would have had two options left: hope that the machinery defect is fixed in time for you to come ahead, or let go your anchors. Given the distances and type of anchors in this ship, it’s very unlikely they would work in time, but it’s a basic principle of seamanship that you at least try. In this case, it looks like one was let go as it was hitting the bridge. Too little, too late.
These occurrences are not uncommon. Last year, the container ship Dali hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, killing six. Likewise, a barge hit the Lixinsha Bridge in China, killing five. A 2018 report for the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure catalogued 35 bridge collapses caused by boat strikes between 1960 and 2015, resulting in 342 fatalities. The problem is that when it comes to fixing this problem, there are too many agencies involved, none of whom are authorised to take ownership. Tugs cost money, this is true. But so do legal fees and insurance claims.
The investigation will look at the engineering state of the ship, her culture generally and the state of the various pilotage organisations. They will note that this was an old, underpowered ship using just one ageing and un-manoeuvrable tug. They will then add the prevailing conditions, the unusual berth and its proximity to the bridge, and the cadets in the rigging, and rightly decide that someone is going to be in very hot water for this. And to cap it all, it was tragically easy to avoid – just attach the damn tug.
Tom Sharpe served as a Royal Navy officer for 27 years, commanding four different ships during that time.Comment
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Coming soon to Whatcom County:Police Issue Warning After 250 Million Bees Escape
Friday, 30 May 2025 08:38 PM EDT
A truck crash that set 250 million bees free has sparked warnings in the western U.S., with police telling people to to avoid swarms of the stinging insects.
The accident happened in Washington state in the far northwest of the country, when a semi trailer carrying a load of hives overturned.
"250 million bees are now loose," wrote Whatcom County Sheriff on its social media page.
"AVOID THE AREA due to the potential of bee escaping and swarming."
Roads in the region, which nestles the border with Canada and is just 30 miles from Vancouver, have been closed as bee experts help with the cleanup.
While some beekeepers aim only to produce honey, many others rent out their hives to farmers who need the insects to pollinate their crops.
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Apparently, they brought out a beekeeper and the cleanup was under way last I heard...Comment
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Hmmm... was it either of these two?Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View Post
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