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NEWS Key Bridge - Baltimore
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
And the Brooklyn Bridge was brand new technology being introduced for the first time built at the same time the rest of the country was also rebuilding from the Civil War. It's truly incredible.
Interesting fact about the increase in size of container ships over the last 50 years. I assume there are mitigation measures that can be put into place with a new bridge to prevent a catastrophic failure, compared to the old bridge that was completed in the 70's. (I know nothing of bridges, except that I want the Kerch bridge dropped. 😆)
Not just container ships, but also the size of the petroleum carriers has increased. They have been dredging quite a bit in the Chesapeake channels to support. One thing not mentioned is that these ultra-larges own exclusive rights to the channel making scheduling interesting. You have to be on time - much like not being late for your ramp time.
GroundPounder
Well-Known Member
I'm certainly not a bridgeoligst, but I think theain issue was the lack of the islands/buffers that are now built around the bridge supports. I don't think there is any bridge that could take a hit there and not be catastrophicly damaged.
I'm guessing that ultimately, this incident had a whole series of events that went wrong, at the worst possible time and place.
I wonder if a tug boat had been right there, if that would have been able to prevent the collision.
This is a bad graph as hscs says as well. Tankers have been massive since the 70’s, and also completely different in their tonnage.
I remember talking to a QM type chief like a decade ago while on an ADT as a reservist doing chart corrections for the boat as it was getting ready to deploy. One of the notes on a chart mention “vessels with a drafts greater than 50 feet…” He was shocked when I told him much bigger tankers were than carriers, as he was under the impression carriers where the largest vessels afloat.
Long story, but big ships have been around for half a century.
Also, I feel old because that was almost a decade ago, but I’m still in the JOPA so suck it hinges.
It seems like the authors of that graph know their stuff. Scroll to pt 3 of the attached link where they write of container ship capacities over the years.
Maybe the original poster and myself are misinterpreting something from it?
Chapter 1.3 – Ports and Container Shipping | Port Economics, Management and Policy
Maritime services vary with the commodities carried. In liner shipping, individual maritime services are combined to form extensive shipping networks in which seaports play a pivotal role as high connectivity hubs.
porteconomicsmanagement.org
They do, but I’m talking about tonnage, they’re talking about TEUs. Containers were a relatively new thing in the 70s, so they were generally not massive ships due to ports still developing the infrastructure to handle them. That doesn’t mean massive ships weren’t being built at the time.It seems like the authors of that graph know their stuff. Scroll to pt 3 of the attached link where they write of container ship capacities over the years.
Maybe the original poster and myself are misinterpreting something from it?
Chapter 1.3 – Ports and Container Shipping | Port Economics, Management and Policy
Maritime services vary with the commodities carried. In liner shipping, individual maritime services are combined to form extensive shipping networks in which seaports play a pivotal role as high connectivity hubs.
Point being ships of comparable tonnage have been around for awhile. 500,000 ton ships were designed and built in the 70s; Dali is something like a 116,000 DWT and 150,000ish in displacement. In the world of cargo ships, it’s not really an outlier. Few bridges actually stand a chance against ships, they’re just so much momentum. This is the norm world wide.
Shiphandling when conning this size of vessel involves a lot of anticipation. Unlike nearly every navy ship, they don’t have high HP to tonnage ratios, and you can’t correct things at the last second like you can with a destroyer or a carrier.
I do have a lot of a lot of questions concerning the plant, the EDG, steering pumps, and who/when the decision was made to drop an anchor. I’m sure the NTSB will cover the bases on these though.
Ah, makes sense. Thanks for the context.
hlg6016
A/C Wings Here
I work by the water front in Boston, All the tankers and vessels I see in my end of the harbor have tugs with them.
Boston is a lot more narrow than Baltimore, and the tugs generally cast off at Castle Island/Fort Independence.
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hlg6016
A/C Wings Here
True, I'm up by the bridge so all I see is mostly tankers and the LNG ships. Always seemed like a common sense thing for those.
I should have specified outbound ships. I imagine they get picked up by tugs at the same point. That LNG terminal is the scariest thing in Boston. If it goes up the damage would be immense.
