There is a video of a tanker passing under Tasman bridge, that seems quite spectacular.I’m aware of parallel index on radar and EBL, but whould auto-pilot be used for fine change of heading?
I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t either, you can have much finer control on hand steering. Do you have a link to the vid?
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Hand steer.
Did you listen to your own video? You can here the steering commands given to the wheelman and his reply. It is a nice video. With all that current the job would be much harder if the ship was coming through from the other side.
Yes 15 commands.They must be escorted by a Z -drive tug if over lenth 130m.
The first wheel order he gave was Starboard 10 the next order was Port 5, I’m being a bit pedantic here but he should have ordered midships before ordering counter rudder. He did follow procedure for the rest of the video.
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Interesting point. Perhaps the pilot felt expediency trumped formality. Perhaps he meant ease from stbd 10 to stbd 5 as opposed to port 5 from midships?
Interesting observation.
They are very sensitive about that bridge after it was hit by a ship in 1975 and it took out 3 spans with 7 killed onboard the ship and 3 cars fell about 50 metres into the water. I went under the rebuilt bridge in the 80’s to load zinc ingots at Risdon in a ship about the same size as the tanker.
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Yes,the Tasman bridge disaster is on Wikipedia.The captain slowed down too much and didn’t go through center span ,for an unknown reason.
And the wreck is still there in the channel. Very deep river.
He gave a midships command between the two.
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So am I understanding this correctly that ships could enter this port without pilot prior to this Tasman bridge incident?
essels above a certain size are required to be piloted, and vehicle movements on the bridge are temporarily halted when large vessels are to pass underneath the bridge. As an added precaution, it is now mandatory for most large vessels to have a tug in attendance as they transit the bridge in the event that assistance with steerage may be required.
I don’t understand why they didn’t didn’t just make the centre span wider in the first place.
The replacement bridge now being discussed will no doubt have a greater horizontal clearance. But this one was designed in the 1950’s to replace a floating lift bridge. The cost of the bridge was certainly the driving factor for the design. Well, that and the face that it was better than what it replaced.