Domino’s. A shitload. All in about 3-4 minutes. My couch is comfy, just hate it when shit goes wrong for any mariner.
Is that rear tug in full reverse???
It would seem that way. An 18000 TEU ship, even in ballast, is a formidable beast
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Could be that they reckoned that the ship, under the prevailing favorable weather circumstances, was sufficiently ballasted for the short ride in protected waters from dry dock or shipyard to the berth.
What wheel wash is that bow tug displaying? Any takers?
Most of both tugs’ power is going to be used to just stay out at a 90 at these speeds (5-6kts +). Doesn’t matter much what their wash is showing - the fact that they’re staying out there means that’s where the power was going.
Pure speculative Monday morning quarterbacking here, but the only chance, if the pilot recognized early enough what was happening, was to get the aft tug to work indirectly (perhaps at a 45 or so) to check the swing of the stern and get some braking action at the same time. That’s not something that can be accomplished in 10 secs though and also requires some experience doing so for both the pilot and tug operator.
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Now that makes sense.
They appear to have been backing for a long while before impact with no black smoke. Smoke only appeared right at impact… Prop strike and the resultant instantaneous drop in RPM would definitely give that big shot of black smoke
The heavy black smoke starts at 1:00 on this video, before the possibility of any propeller contact.
I meant in my case, as a general rule or guide to operations or voyage planning. We plan such that at no point during the voyage does the aft draft go below 7.2 meters or thereabouts. Put another way I would consider under 7 meters to be “too light” for normal day-to-day ops. An option would be to demand an extra tug in every port but it’s cheaper to add ballast to keep the stern down.
If my ship is under about 7 meters and ballast can not be added, prior to a shipyard for example; to be prudent we should be take that into account when moving the ship.
Now I’ve no experience on a ship as large as the Milano Bridge but just extrapolating from the fact that if a 7 meter draft is a problem for a ship that draws max 10 than a 7 meter draft might be a problem for a ship that draws 15.
If it was a factor in this case I don’t know. There was a spat of these big ships going aground, one in Southampton and one on the Elbe river. Both were loaded iirc. Just pilot error I believe.
Edit: One factor is the sail area to draft ratio is a little more favorable for a container ship than a PCTC. Also in light winds it’s less of an issue, we just have to keep in mind strong winds might be encountered anytime.
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A somewhat closer view, also the tugs are better visible. The engine is going full astern all the way, like it is frozen in that position. Hard to port, that first and then full ahead probably could have avoided the accident. With that maneuver the bow doesn’t move too much and better striking the Seaspan Ganges sideways aft than creating that chaos ashore with almost loss of lives.
It looks like here that she also could have touched the Seaspan Ganges. When she strikes the gantry cranes the speed is still 4.6 knots! See the red box with SOG.
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That second video is interesting. The ship where the crew member was taking video. is missing. My guess here is that the Milano Bridge is prevented from a hard right turn because of ship not shown.
The video might be showing where they kicked the stern around the missing ship which put them in bad shape for the next ship, the one they hit…
Looks like wind might of got them and not enough room to swing the stern to port for a stbd turn.
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Kinda thinking same thing. Got set down on dicey approach, explains perhaps the speed boost in next to last leg to stay off of the other ship. His trouble began from the start of his turn (too late). He had plenty of room/ water to make a safer, slower approach. Nice that Dutchie put up those graphics, a bit clearer picture. Got worse as it proceeded. He was coming in hot with no room for error. Paperwork and lawyers for years and years. Don’t wish that on my worst enemy
See the plot at 3:55. The time of the accident was 11.00 hours LT. Just before the berthing quay the ship makes with 9.4 knots a rather sharp turn to starboard. The speed immediately goes down to 6.4 knots. That is only normal because in a turning circle manoeuvre the ship loses 25% of the original speed in the first quarter due to increased broadside water resistanc. Out of the turn the speed increases immediately as that resistance is gone.
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My perspective:
-obviously way to fast for whatever reason(mechanical, poor judgement, etc.)
-momentum from turn plus onshore breeze difficult to overcome for a vessel that size (mass) with that much windage without searoom
-I think they were trying to drive out of it based on wheel wash and rudder (wheel wash shows engine is running ahead until the black smoke starts at which point looks like they went full astern). You can see in the second video the rudder is to STBD and then shifts to PORT trying to ‘lift’ stern away from dock.
-tug not helping situation as the line looks tight. Tug working opposite the rudder. If trying to drive out of it the tug should’ve stopped which would help the ship come around a bit faster thereby giving more angle to then lift stern off dock(although increasing closure speed on stern). Perhaps the tug was just holding tight light ready to back, tough to tell.
-probably not the case here as it appears they went from ahead to astern but, it is possible for engine to get “stuck” running. Very rare but has happened to me.
Terrible situation whether self-imposed or not but glad injuries were slight.
Don’t disagree, ship will slow down in a hard turn , and then speed up a bit if you are keeping the same revolutions. After the turn his speed is slowed, good time to continue slowing down for the approach, if you have given yourself room to do so. That didn’t happen here. He was rolling pretty hot(for docking anyway) because he was not in a good spot .
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The speed and course shown on the public websites is not the speed/course of the ship, but the absolute speed/course of the relevant GPS-receiver’s antenna, wherever it may be on the vessel. The position of the antenna on the ship, is part of the AIS-signal. However, it is a manual input by the crew…
Unfortunately, I have no access to the heading of the ship, to see the ship’s real movements in the past times.
The black smoke is simply the engine throttling up - or trying to throttle up. In essence, “flooring it”. The smoke is caused by the inability of the turbocharger(s) to provide enough combustion air to support complete combustion. The fuel injection system has been commanded to go to full or high throttle very rapidly, hence there is much excess fuel in the cylinders until the turbos are able to spool up and provide sufficient air to burn that fuel. Soot - black smoke - is produced in such cases.
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Yeah, not sure now. In this video at 0:22 it looks for sure like the engine is ahead.
It is at this very moment (full astern) that the sterns movement to port really increases, digs in, and allides with the crane. This is evident in maneuvering diagrams as well. The twist significantly increases just at the end, at the final moments of headway.