As much as it would be nice to protect a bridge should it be struck, is it far better to simply do everything possible that it just not get struck at all by 1. Demanding that ships transiting beneath it do so in a manner that their generating and propulsion plants remain fully operational at every stage of the transit 2. That heavily laden ships transit at a minimal speed that they can be steered and in case either 1. or 2. fails 3. to have an escort tug made up with the ability to stop a heavily laden ship and/or steer it so that it does not strike the bridge.
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We are certainly on the same page.
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OUCH! You certainly don’t pull any punches and throw one wicked haymaker! Just hope to never be in the same ring as you and on the receiving end of one of those.
I am not that strung out about some of the inaccuracies occurring within social media and YouTube. Sal is not here to educate we professionals……he, like the rest of us will make mistakes and his primary function is to get a basic overview across to Jo/Josephine Public. He has access to some good information in way of AIS replays etc which I find helpful.
We, as a group of professionals, still do not have the definitive answers nor will we until the NTSB interim report is published if, indeed, such a report will be forthcoming. They apparently have already indicated that there will be no further press conferences which I personally find offensive.
I do agree with Sirk regarding the points he made on the making of the NTSB video of the damaged forward section………amateur hour.
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USCG says the report will be delayed as its dark on board and no aircon.
Heard that on the news
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Bug
I have piloted ships of the Dali class and can confirm that they, like the vast vast majority of large ships do not have CPP.
I am not an engineer but I also seriously doubt they have shaft generators, once again like the vast majority of large ships.
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Aus
In my port we also employed a fleet of Rotor Tugs and they were very fast at changing position although the gain was marginal compared to a well driven ASD.
Where rotor tugs come into their own in in a lock where they can apply force on either bow or quarter without leaving the confines of the ships beam, if the lock was narrow by what they term rotoring.
Rotoring was also very effective at applying force on the bow or quarter from the centre lead positions particularly useful when coming alongside but of course to hold the ship alongside there was the complication of tugs wash on the mooring lines when they were being run. Rotoring is effectively twisting the tug to apply weight on the line, to do this they have to use quite a bit of power, hence the wash issue.
Personally I preferred a push pull tug to pin the vessel alongside.
We did not use escort tugs and very rarely indirect towage so cannot comment.
IMHO Rotor Tugs are a fantastic tool but they also have their limitations and the gain is not as great as advertised over a well driven ASD.
During my tenure at the port we progressed from conventional through twin voiths with a brief phase of twin schottels to big ASD’s and Rotors .
Just to give some perspective to the type of ships we handled, our main trade was Tankers and Container Ships.
Tankers were effectively anything up to Aframax (100,000 to around 120, 000 DWT 250m ish length 14m ISH draft) anything larger would be part loaded.
Container Ships I saw grow from a large ship being 200+ m to the absolute monsters we have today at 400m and 16m draft.
Bulkers were really restricted to around Panamax size due to berth constraints.
And then a mix of any other types of ship.
244,
I have never worked with rotor tugs only high capacity ASD’s. I can imagine the wash issues when berthing indirect with RT’s would be a nightmare for the linesboats.
I was a little surprised at the claimed differentials in the Rotor V ASD video which I posted and cannot dispute the findings.
Like you, I had no problem with a well driven ASD and they would be perfectly fine for indirect escort towage within the confines of this discussion.
Apparently there are some more reasons for bridges being hit than what you lists:
Making a realistic risk assessment for the bridges that MAY be in danger of being hit by ships/barges may be a good first step.
2nd step would be to look at how bridges can be protected, whether by regulatory means, or by physical actions.
Mitigating action may be as simpler as mandatory escort tug(s), or by dumping gravel around support structures to were ship over a given size/draft will ground before hitting the structure.
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From Insurance Marine News:
Dali entangled with girders, complicating its removal | Insurance Marine News
If you look at the standard risk matrix balancing severity vs. likelihood the decision makers downgrade the likelihood so low as to make the current infrastructure low risk so they can justify taking no action.
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Just watched that vid of the Rotor Tugs and as I thought I have seen it before.
As I said I cannot comment on the escort ability of the Rotors but for the berthing phase of the operation, a good ASD driver can push pull on the tow line albeit not quite as quick in changing direction.
That still does not alleviate the wash problem that I highlighted before.
As I said before Rotor Tugs are a great innovation but not a magic bullet.
Excellent summation of the nuances of operating a Low-Speed Diesel engine on a container ship! Thanks.
I’ve seen the pilot get off the ship in the middle of Haifa harbor as soon as we cleared the dock!
As was pointed out in the other thread, this is not in relation to the Dali allision.
That’s a very annoying thing about the bridge. All electronics with alarms need to be wired into a central alarm system that tells you what all is in alarm and let’s you silence everything with one button.
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If you can go for ABS IBS notation when you design or refurb your bridge you would get that.
Some info here
https://www.imorules.com/LRSHIP_PT7_CH9_5.html
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TLDR I’m afraid chief.
But something has to be done about the amount of noise that is generated on the bridge when something goes wrong.
Every manufacturer thinks his system needs attention during a failure so crews are totally overwhelmed by alarms demanding attention during even the most simple of failures.
Do we really need a loud alarm when we are 100m off track in pilotage waters. I moved off track to avoid hitting that outward bound ship head on.
Or how about the multiple ARPA alarms when the other ship is in a different channel.
I can recall having to step outside onto the bridge wing when a fire alarm went off ( someone welding near the E C R) when I was about to swing for a berth as the noise was so intense. Master had assured me that we were not on fire but I still had to Dock the ship even if we were. Could not even communicate with the tugs hence stepping outside.
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I am going to fly a balloon here with regards to the Dali.
I hope to hell I am not correct.
I believe there is some audio from the bridge prior to the alission with regards to helm orders.
Does anyone know what these orders were?
If I am wrong, and I hope I am , I will shut up and say no more.