Ot...ship hits bridge

[michiganbuck]

OT (A Russian court would find the shipping company guilty and try to repossess all assets worldwide.

The USA might pay cost and blame the USA for putting a bridge there.
There is a law on the USA books that puts ship and cargo at risk for damages.
but we should ignore the law and give Hong Kong a free ride because the US tax payers need a good slap in the pocket book.

Darn shame we often have to buy car insurance when foreign ship owners get a free ride.
If that was a USA company they would get beat to bankruptcies.

Boeing is still getting beat up for a door falling off and putting a dent on a bean field.

And a Hong Kong ship gets a free ride for a billion dolar bridge destruction accident that killed 6 people.

 

[rjwalker1973]

I kept all the Delaval purifiers running on fuel and lube oils on the ship I was. They are very simple machines, but guys can still fuck them up bad if they don't follow the instructions or turn the wrong valve. Most people operating them have absolutely no clue whatsoever how the things actually work. "You have to put water in it to clean the fuel??? WTF?".

Had a situation when the young guy working for me now first started where I programmed my threads inside out to prevent chips packing in the id. He looked at me and said. "You are cutting a lh thread with a rh tool....you just can't do that." ...while the machine was running making the part in question.

 

[rjwalker1973]

I suppose this opinion will not resonate well with a lot of folks:

I think the shipping company is only partly at fault here. Clearly they are the ones who, after decades of warnings to the port, had a control failure that caused them to "bump" the house of cards and cause its collapse. But the port is, in my opinion, far more at fault for not spending the money to construct adequate protection to the piers on which that fragile bridge stood. It was well known that the bridge would not withstand impact with a large ship. It was only a matter of time. They decided to do nothing knowingly risking property and certainly lives.

I firmly believe that for far less than the cost of removal and replacement competent civil engineers could have designed protections that could have deflected the boat in question. I think the port was negligent resulting in major financial losses and loss of six lives.

So, yes, the shipping company and its insurers have some liability. But the port and the US have a lot more responsibility. I hope we learn a lesson and survey various bridges around the country, rank them in terms of vulnerability and potential monetary and human loss and spend some money now before we spend a lot more under emergency conditions later. To me it's like spending money tooling up the shop. The cost seems high at the time but the benefits virtually always greatly outweigh the outlay.

Denis

I agree they do shoulder the lions share of the blame. Especially if maintenance records show this particular ship has not had a history of electrical and mechanical issues and failures.

 

[michiganbuck]

Engine came back so quick somebody might have pushed the kill button...
Certainly, they would not admit to doing anything wrong.
Good that they did not blame it on Leprechawns.

 

[Homeshopblob]

Boeing is still getting beat up for a door falling off and putting a dent on a bean field.

And a Hong Kong ship gets a free ride for a billion dolar bridge destruction accident that killed 6 people.

Someone tell me again, which one provides 10% for the Big Guy and which one doesn't?

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Engine came back so quick somebody might have pushed the kill button...
Certainly, they would not admit to doing anything wrong.
Good that they did not blame it on Leprechawns.

The main engine did not come back on, it was the much smaller backup generator, which can run the lights and electronics, but not propel the ship.

 

[Ox]

I think we saw two different ships then.

The ship that I seen was rollin' coal from the pipe after re-fire.
It Shirley looked like they were on "Full Back" when they hit.


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I am Ox and I approve this here post!

 

[cnctoolcat]

Without shipping their products to U.S. shores, most other industrialized nations of the world would be living in abject poverty (especially China).

So, since we're the Big Dog Buyer of the World, we definitely should proclaim to the world that any damage done by their ships will be 100% their financial responsibility to pay.

Sure, a few shipping companies may say "to hell with America", but there's more than enough hungry countries and shippers out there: their products would still get to American shores.

If not? Then hey, we import less of the world's bullshit.

ON EDIT: What would tugboat assistance to open ocean have cost the shipping company...$1,000? Billions in damages because they were too cheap to pay a thousand dollars....make 'em pay now!

ToolCat

 

[plastikdreams]

Without shipping their products to U.S. shores, most other industrialized nations of the world would be living in abject poverty (especially China).

So, since we're the Big Dog Buyer of the World, we definitely should proclaim to the world that any damage done by their ships will be 100% their financial responsibility to pay.

Sure, a few shipping companies may say "to hell with America", but there's more than enough hungry countries and shippers out there: their products would still get to American shores.

If not? Then hey, we import less of the world's bullshit.

ON EDIT: What would tugboat assistance to open ocean have cost the shipping company...$1,000? Billions in damages because they were too cheap to pay a thousand dollars....make 'em pay now!

ToolCat

Tug boat on the ship wouldn't have stopped the crash...

 

[cnctoolcat]

Tug boat on the ship wouldn't have stopped the crash...

Well then whatever is required to be able to control the ship: 2 tugs, 3...some number will control any ship, that's what they do.

Make them hire the proper amount of tug(s), or assume full responsibility.

ToolCat

 

[Joe Gwinn]

I think we saw two different ships then.

The ship that I seen was rollin' coal from the pipe after re-fire.
It Shirley looked like they were on "Full Back" when they hit.

From what I read, the black smoke was from the immense diesel quitting. I don't know the exact sequence, but have seen some analyses from ship engineers of one kind or another.

 

[Gearclash]

I thought the purpose of Loyd’s of London was to insure shipping for a high dollar mishap such as this.

 

[eKretz]

Someone tell me again, which one provides 10% for the Big Guy and which one doesn't?

I'm pretty sure you've heard that if political commentary isn't shop-related, it should be left out of the conversation. Everybody... Thanks...

 

[dgfoster]

Sleipnir here has a pair of 10kt hooks.

Of course, it's sitting in Rotterdam. With a 12mph cruise, it's about 300 days away from Baltimore.

I think somehow a decimal got misplaced here. Closer to 300 hours which is probably what you wanted to say.

Denis

 

[gustafson]

I think we saw two different ships then.

The ship that I seen was rollin' coal from the pipe after re-fire.
It Shirley looked like they were on "Full Back" when they hit.


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I am Ox and I approve this here post!

Uhh pretending to know something and reading up and learning something are different
The main engine never restarted

 

[john.k]

A tugboat would have kept the ship away from a collision course ...........however shipowners are very resistant to extra charges ,and in the case of ships registered in convenience countries ,they simply dont pay the bill ,where a tugboat is mandated by the harbour authority..........Back in the day ,every ship was required to berth with a tug ..........however the Russians generally refused to pay ,and were allowed to get away with it.

 

[Garwood]

Well then whatever is required to be able to control the ship: 2 tugs, 3...some number will control any ship, that's what they do.

Make them hire the proper amount of tug(s), or assume full responsibility.

ToolCat

Yeah, I don't know where this "tugboats can do almost nothing" stuff comes from. Modern tugs have a cubic fuckton of horseponies crammed in a little package- They can move some serious shit.

I'd expect no more than 2 modern tugs could have easily pushed and pulled the Dali to safety.

EDIT, I forgot I have several friends who run tugboats for Crowley- I'll ask them what they think of all this.

 

[john.k]

One tug would have been enough to keep the ship on course

 

[TeachMePlease]

Yeah, I don't know where this "tugboats can do almost nothing" stuff comes from. Modern tugs have a cubic fuckton of horseponies crammed in a little package- They can move some serious shit.

I'd expect no more than 2 modern tugs could have easily pushed and pulled the Dali to safety.

EDIT, I forgot I have several friends who run tugboats for Crowley- I'll ask them what they think of all this.

Serious question, because I don't know, I'm not disagreeing...

But aren't tugs kind of meant to slowly accelerate or decelerate things?

Like, a tug could make a million horsepower, but applying it all rapidly against the mass of something that is 500x larger (Dali was 95K tons unloaded, tugboat is 200 tons, these are the numbers I found online, used for rough math), and moving at 9mph in the opposite direction seems equivalent to hooking an F350 (4 tons) up to a 2000 ton boulder that has already started rolling down a hill... The F350 would just spin its tires. I feel like a prop would make it an even larger issue than the hypothetical tires on an F350?

Or are we saying that if the boat had been under tug control the entire time, it never could have gone so far off course? Because that would make a lot more sense in my little brain.

 

[eKretz]

I've read that the deep water tugs can have 20,000+ horsepower. I expect a couple or a couple pairs of those could have made a significant difference but they would have had to have been in position and ready to go, and if they were, they would have probably been guiding the ship completely already.