Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

[JimmyCarter]

Maybe just get a couple of 100 foot tall fenders to hang off the sides?

[SB]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_con...ature=emb_logo

[LongShortLong]

Tugs are a limited resource, right? So using tugs more would considerably slow down port operations?

Same as every limited resource. Make more or make do with less. At the moment, harbors and bridges are a limited resource.

[MultiVerse]

Well, that's reductive.

[LongShortLong]

Seems surreal, but what do we expect letting Dali near a bridge? This happens

from https://midlibrary.io/styles/salvador-dali

[skibrd]

Two questions: 1) Contaminated fuel possibly caused the engine failure? In the past, sulfur in fuel dissolved contaminates but the switch to low sulfur fuel is now causing more engine failures? 2) How practical are tugs to protect bridges? Tugs are a limited resource, right? So using tugs more would considerably slow down port operations?

1) Bad fuel is a possibility but ships (usually) have fuel filters/a purification something to remove crap from the fuel before it goes into the engine or generators. One of the strongest possible issues was a loss of fuel pressure when the load on generators increased and the generators were working harder. A reason for low fuel pressure would be clogged filters. You also don’t draw straight from the fuel tanks, the fuel makes 1 or 2 stops in a settler tank and/or a day tank before going into the engines or generators, this is a precaution to let the containments settle then filer the fuel. Those tanks could not have been filled up enough which would lead to low fuel pressure.

2) Very practical at low speeds, think <5kts. Depends on force/direction. Over 5kts tugs are not effective at pushing a ship, ships just too big. What we often do, especially going into and out of Honolulu (a very tight harbor), is “hang” the tug off the stern, so the tugs line is connected to a bit/cleat on the aft mooring station of a ship. This lets the tug pull directly astern to stop/slow us if we lose power, they also can pull the stern any direction, or ease the line out and move to push on the either side of the stern. Could this have helped the Dalt from hitting the bridge, definitely, but I’m not sure.

If tugs are required once the new bridge is replaced, the tug companies will build more tugs to not slow down harbor operations. Chouest spent millions on lobbies and bribes to get the contract in AK escorting tankers, those are huge money contracts. On the Great Lakes if you want a harbor tug to be turned on, it’s $10k before they even leave the dock, then you get an hourly rate on top of that. Right now tug availability would be an issue, but the harbor is closed. Tugs take about a year to build give or take how many are ordered. The more you order the faster they are built because the ship yards figure out how to put them together quicker and easier. Nearly tug, ship, barge is unique/a different design. I’ve been on consecutively built sister ships and they were close to identical but were not the same.


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[LongShortLong]

Well, that's reductive.

I hear too many times people whining we can't do X because there isn't enough Y. Usually the truth is to do X we must also do Y.

Sometimes, it's something silly, like the other day I heard the suggestion we should heat the roads so they don't get icy. And we effectively can't do that because the energy costs would be tremendously high. But usually it's something we can consider and make tradeoffs, like in this case between more tugs, stronger bridge piers, or accepting risk of loss, etc.

There's no tug shortage that couldn't be solved. Make it a requirement tomorrow, and the shipping companies would make it happen. That said, I'm not saying we should*. Current SOP costs us a bridge every 50 years or so, that tugs might have saved. Maybe that's ok.

* I would not be surprised if tugs cost more than bridges, considering tugs would be required for every port call, and the average bridge only gets destroyed once every 1000 years? 5000 years?

[XXX-er]

I think the real problem might be there is not a lot of redundancy built into modern container ships and tankers

[BFD]

wondering where you went to school skibird? My son garduated from Cal Maritime. He said pretty much what you said. Tugs not effective at those speeds. Your observations on the Valdez escort tugs is pretty spot on. I used to do oil spill response and the switch from Cowley to Chouest happened fairly quickly. Did not take long to build the tugs. I guess easier to build ships when you dont need to put in swimming pools and climbing walls.

[From_the_NEK]

As for the “dolphins” the Dalt missed, those are actually towers for power lines to go over the harbor, they are not the dolphins that are used to protect bridges.

I think there are "dolphins" (circled in yellow) at the FSK Bridge between the powerline towers (circled in red) and the Bridge tower. The Dali just hooked around at a perfect angle to miss the one that was in front of the bridge pillar that it hit. Adding a second layer maybe would have helped?

Google Earth Aerial:


Photo Fomofo posted yesterday:

[frorider]

Thoughts on former National Security Adviser Flynn’s statement that this was a Black Swan event engineered by lizard people and/or the Illuminati?

[MakersTeleMark]

Like I said, it's clearly the Ukrainians.

[k2skier112]

Was Hunters laptop on board?

[AK47bp]

Wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out the captain was ANTIFA

[XXX-er]

Up here in Canada they will blame Trudeau, personaly i would go with Hillary's emails

but seriuosly there is no redundancy in modern ships so the largest tanker or container ship only has one very large diesel engine and i would bet no backup systems

even the Titanic had 2 engines

[riser4]

What you get when you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic?

[ötzi]

About halfway?

[BmillsSkier]

About halfway?

Too soon?

[skibrd]

wondering where you went to school skibird? My son garduated from Cal Maritime. He said pretty much what you said. Tugs not effective at those speeds. Your observations on the Valdez escort tugs is pretty spot on. I used to do oil spill response and the switch from Cowley to Chouest happened fairly quickly. Did not take long to build the tugs. I guess easier to build ships when you dont need to put in swimming pools and climbing walls.

I went to SUNY.

Chouest had the 10 (I think) new tugs built before they got the contract, hence spending so much on bribes to get it.

The 12 months came from a friend at a yard. That number probably is from the day it’s ordered, not the day the keel is laid.

Those dolphins are for power line towers, not dock protection.

Prior to yesterday I would have stood on a soap box and shouted that modern container ships have enough redundant systems, but being dynamic positioning 2 complaint with 2 separate redundant systems would be cool. Today idk. This was a 1 in a 1,000,000 event, not a terrorist attack, not ANTIFA, just an accident. Two days ago there was no reason to add dolphins to the bridge because tens of not hundreds of thousands of ships have passed under with no issue, but adding dolphins are the infrastructure updates people have been begging for for decades. The infrastructure in the USA is lagging behind on updates and modernization for modern issues. When people talk about a terrorist attack on a bridge causing major issues, the Dalt crash is what they are talking about. So do we need more redundant systems on ships, probably, but we also need to update the infrastructure in the USA for modern issues. Trucks, trains, ships are all getting bigger.


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[mud]

Pensacola Bay Bridge probably holds the record for getting taken out by barges.
Twice now, once in 1989 with a drunk coal barge captain and again when Hurricane Sally broke loose some barges they were using for construction building the new bridge. I don't envy those Baltimore commuters.

[XXX-er]

I read an artical on the subect of the redundancey that is lacking on modern large ships

so of course now I know everything but it bascicaly said they make em cheap with only 1 engine and big cuz speed is a product on length so then you only need 1 engine

the black box will show that something failed at the worst possible time

[BmillsSkier]

I went to SUNY.

Chouest had the 10 (I think) new tugs built before they got the contract, hence spending so much on bribes to get it.

The 12 months came from a friend at a yard. That number probably is from the day it’s ordered, not the day the keel is laid.

Those dolphins are for power line towers, not dock protection.

Prior to yesterday I would have stood on a soap box and shouted that modern container ships have enough redundant systems, but being dynamic positioning 2 complaint with 2 separate redundant systems would be cool. Today idk. This was a 1 in a 1,000,000 event, not a terrorist attack, not ANTIFA, just an accident. Two days ago there was no reason to add dolphins to the bridge because tens of not hundreds of thousands of ships have passed under with no issue, but adding dolphins are the infrastructure updates people have been begging for for decades. The infrastructure in the USA is lagging behind on updates and modernization for modern issues. When people talk about a terrorist attack on a bridge causing major issues, the Dalt crash is what they are talking about. So do we need more redundant systems on ships, probably, but we also need to update the infrastructure in the USA for modern issues. Trucks, trains, ships are all getting bigger.


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I appreciate and enjoy reading your posts from an insider's perspective.

I wish this country could get behind meaningful infrastructure projects for a litany of reasons, that being said, I've seen every presidential, congressional and local candidate since the Clinton Administration campaign in front of the Brent Spence Bridge which is the Interstate 75/Interstate 71 bridge across the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Kentucky, citing it as the blaring example of dead and decaying infrastructure that is so vital to our country's economy (the BS carries 150,000 vehicles per day and has been deemed functionally obsolete for almost two decades and has been closed for months in recent years thanks to losing bits of it to the river way below). Just last year thanks to the Infrastructure Act a replacement has finally been approved that should be completed by [checks notes] 2032 assuming no delays.

We're fucked.

[bennymac]

Wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out the captain was ANTIFA

[skaredshtles]

OK, Dale.

[bennymac]

I’m hopeful it’s just a parody account ^