re: Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed - container ship wrecked into it

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There maybe a better reason, but if the ship was veering starboard with forward thrust, why not reverse thrust immediately to pull it back to port? Im not suggesting the ship actually would reverse, I’m saying the screw reversing direction would generally steer the ship the other direction.

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none of these things happen that quickly. Think about the size of the prop and how long it takes to get it up to speed. Maximum revolutions of the propeller
may only be like 80rpm. These ships have less power in reverse than forward. Transverse thrust of the prop is not immediate and takes longer to take effect if the ship is moving forward. also most ships are right handed meaning when going astern the bow would go to starboard.

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That ship likely had EMD's as main engines

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Oh no, that thing most likely has a single very large cross head slow speed engine. They have to be built in-place in the ship. They are massive and nothing happens quickly with those things.

The generators probably have EMD sized medium speed engines, which are their own pain the arse to restart. The lights coming back on was almost certainly the emergency generator which kicks on automatically on a blackout, but even that takes around 30 seconds and gives limited functionality, but steering pumps would have been part of that. My guess is the 30 seconds it took to get steering back was enough to get it on course with the pylon and it was all over at that point. It happened at the worst possible time.

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Because you lose all hope of controlling the ship. Same reason the titanic sequence of actions is so heavily critiqued. Going all back full headed down river might swing the bow a little, but the ship isn't going change course and the rudder becomes less effective as the ship slows.

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I agree, but the ship was originally headed down the middle of the channel until it has issues about 2/3 of a mile from the bridge according to the video reports.

So it’s not like they were headed to the bridge the entire time and couldn’t turn away. They were headed toward the middle of the channel the entire time, and simply needed to correct the loss of something to continue their course.

Maybe from that far back they could've gone all back and dropped both anchors and maybe had a chance. I haven't gotten to read up on it much, just seen the videos.

The thing with single screw boats is that slowing down reduces control. It's counterintuitive but sometimes the best thing you can do is put on more power.

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laughable to have one engine go down

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The power plant tripped, which would have likely been multiple generators in that ship. There's only so much you can do. Industry isn't going to bear the cost of what it would take to positively prevent something like this from happening. The conspiracy theorist in me knows that those ships use SCADA systems, which is what stuxnet wrecked to trash Iran's nuclear toys. If I were a genius terrorist hacker...

Maritime law like aviation law is written in lost souls. Maritime shipping is the foundation of the global economy and container ships do the bulk of the heavy lifting. They are absurdly expensive to build and operate already. Escorting them all around all critical infrastructure is impossible, replacing them with more advanced ships is impractical. I think we'll see rule changes come out of this but I have no clue what they will be.

The exact sequence of events will be made public soon enough and industry will learn from it.

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Then they shouldn’t be allowed in port without assistance from a tug.

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There's 2 other bridges miles out from the FSK Bridge, what about those? What you're saying isn't feasible. That's not even thinking about every other bridge in the US.

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No industry can afford to cover every possible eventuality, it is just not economically feasible.

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No doubt. But everyone also owns these ships with a shell company and knows that the worst damage they can cause is the loss of their ship, so there’s also little financial motivation to make a change.

It’s not every common eventuality. Losing steering or whatever happened in a port is not any possible eventuality, is a pivotal part of the job.

The major savior here was the pure luck the ship was pulling out at 1:30am. What if this had been middle of the day when 31,000 cars a day pass over and 200 people died? It’s arguable the low loss of life was pure luck here.

Let’s also be honest, it’s very likely this wasn’t just a random shutdown and was a known problem they thought they could work through at sea.

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So what was the point of purposely blowing up part of the bridge?

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WTF are you on about?

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Maybe not. The Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 AKA 46 USC § 30501 does limit liability to the value of the ship however things like previous knowledge of a mechanical issue that is a causative factor in the incident will remove that liability shield. There were reports of an interview with a harbor maintenance worker that said MV Dali had electrical issues caused by the refrigerated reefers onboard while moored that were being addressed. If substantiated this might be enough to get past Section 30501. I should point out that admiralty law is not in my wheelhouse ( ) so I can't cite chapter and verse in case law but I am willing to bet this incident results in lengthy complex litigation. A couple of admiralty firms are going to see some really fat increases in profit per equity partner and resulting bonuses for years to come.

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It is my wheelhouse. You are correct. If the owner can be shown to have had knowledge or should have known of the issue, limitation can be busted. Some cases are easy to bust and some are not. Very fact dependent. The big issue is whatever holding company owns the vessel - most end up at a judgment proof dead end.