I hate it when ships hit the water. Totally ruins my day.
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Mexico has renamed the bridge the “Cuauhtémoc Bridge” because of the whole Gulf of America thing.
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In such a circumstance, with men on the upper yards in harms way, why put up a line?
If her engine was going astern and stuck, the tug should have attempted to swing her, pointing the stern to sea. WAFI makes a good point re an anchor, which in an ordinary ship would be at the ready.
It took less than 4 minutes
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3 or 4 minutes in a dire situation is a long time, believe it or not. Reaction is critical.
All this hindsight from an armchair. It is really sad to see young folks die.
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I wrote “Do The Math”.
Figure 1/4 mile at 3 knots is about 5 minutes of drifting. You have 5 minutes to get headway going southbound.
Assuming they are backing out of the slip, 1/8 mile into the East River, at an average of 3 knots, that is 2 minutes of backing. Then full power ahead, to make the turn.
From Google: AI Overview.
It’s impossible to give a precise number for acceleration time without specific hull design and resistance characteristics. However, a ship of 1800 tons with an 1125 hp engine will accelerate from 0 to 9 knots in a substantial amount of time, likely exceeding 100 seconds
So 2 minutes to accelerate from 3 astern to 6 ahead (this sounds quick to me, but Google says, so it must be true)
4 minutes so far, and you have just managed to buck the current. With maybe a minute to spare, best case scenario.
Does it really matter what f***ed up? Engine failure, MOB, a bee in the skipper’s shorts…
Best case, getting started, was one minute from catastrophe.
Would you leave the dock?
Everyone forgets about the Horst Wessel… sorry, Eagle.
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(All pure speculation on my part) Well, there wasn’t time for that to be effective. From pier 17 to the closest part of the Brooklyn bridge it’s about 900’.
If the Charles was able to grab a line near the bow it would have swung the stern towards Brooklyn and probably had an allision there. Would it have stopped the ship from hitting the bridge? Who knows, it may have lessened the impact or reduced the amount of injuries or damage.
Edit- Rosepoint has slack going to flood at the bridge as 2012 last night, the incident was at 2030. So the flood played a role but much smaller than the mechanical problem.
I have not heard if the poor souls fell to the deck or if they were tied off and succumbed from suspension trauma. However regarding the latter, in the case of our standards at the power plants, we have mandated that all fall protection harnesses also have the ‘stirrups’ for that very reason. A very simple, cheap solution for the risk of suspension trauma. They can get a bit in the way and are potential snag point, but that’s a small price to pay to stay alive long enough to be rescued.
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I was thinking more along the lines of the tug off her stbd quarter pushing the stern around.
Edit: The tug was off the strbd bow initially
While they likely didn’t have time to get stern pointed downriver, the end result may have been worse … The masts are designed to take the stress of wind from aft. Had they gone under the bridge bow first, they may have lost all the rigging. The stays simply aren’t designed to take a significant load from forward.
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One of the video shows a large piece of dirty canvas hanging over the starboard quarter. My guess is that the canvas was there to protect the paint when the assist tug was alongside.
If the assist tug had pushed on that piece of canvas to swing the stern toward the Hudson River they might have been able to swing the stern away from the bridge without putting a line up.
Why did the pilot release the tug so soon?
Why didn’t the pilot call the tug back?
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In this forum we should all know why square rigged circa 19th century sail training vessels are used. The intricacies of many findamental aspects of seamanship from the pre-engine period imparts a particular knowledge and also team building exercises especially when setting and dousing sail that are best demonstrated on the legacy square rigged sail ships.
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Irrelevant comparison. The military exists for entertainment purposes not military actions?
You just answered your question. The difficulty of dealing with emergencies without the fallback of cutting age horsepower, manueverability and rapid engineering response is the reason a large less responsive more elementally impacted legacy vessel is useful for cadet training. Just as being forced to do daily work with underpowered tugs, OSVs and ships forces the crew to think ahead.
Good point Ombugge, in reference to the snarky remarks of the “comically outsized” Mexican flag, the USCGC Eagle, former Horst Wessel sporting a similar outsized “holiday” flag is noted.
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There will be more horrible videos coming I am afraid.
Interesting explanation . I stood on such yards a few times when entering ports during our visits and once parading in front of the Royal Yacht of the King of Norway during OPS Sail 1978 ( Goetheborg ->Fair Island → Horten ) and then for the parade in OSLO Fyord . It was on good old s/s Gift of Pemerania. When I graduated in 1982 the Pomerania ( a museum now) was replaced by S/S Gift Of Youth, which has been active until today.
The accident clearly demonstrates what the safety harnesses are for.
In 1977 during my first trip as cadet candidate, we were not using such. The tradition was,one hand was for you and everything else including your teeth was for the ship .
Hence quite often while trimming and folding sails , so they were nicely stowed attached to the yard body,we used teeth to hold already lifted part of the sail and one hand to grab another fold of the huge sail to pull it up.
The worst position was at the yards end, what we called ( yard nok) because all those closer to the mast caused the line on which you were standing (foot rope) to lift so you ended there with your knees touching the yard body. Not comfortable position for the taller guy.
So we arranged heaviest and shortest guys to man the yard end and dystitributed lighter guys towards the center close to the mast.
Surprisingly there were no accidents. I do not remember if we made the yard parade entering Southampton in 1978 preping the whole crew to ops sail race . It looks I met there Alias @244 and may be we drunk beer together.
During Ops Sail race we got observers on board and the rules demanded using safety harness or belts. We used belts and were unhappy because many cadets forgot sometimes to attach themselves to the yard, what caused dangerous confusion. As far as I remember since that time the use of the harness has been compulsory.
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I passed her in Gibraltar Strait in 1974. She was under full sail. In the mid-Eighties I shipped with a mate who was aboard her at that time. Funny world, except for the tragedies -
Yep, I have a lot of questions. Indeed it looks like the tug was made up on the starboard quarter for getting underway, but then let go and dismissed. The video from the dock perspective on the other side of the bridge seems to show the tug heading back to the barn, job well done. The ship had its mechanical issues, apparently, and the tug only realized too late that something was amiss. Weird. If the McAllister boat was to be the escort, the why in the world didn’t they put a line up? Trail back all unobtrusive-like and enjoy the music.
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