jt2hunt said:

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How large of an insurance carrier do you have to be to underwrite coverage for a ship like this one? This has to be a very bad day for this insurance company.

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They will be fine, I promise.

Biden said the government would pay for it. 10% to the big guy.

Yeah, I said that. Literally, the first thing is in my post and I hope it isn't but I think a better statement would have been to say we are still investigating at this point and will have more information to come.

If asked a direct question about terrorism, they should've reiterated that they're still looking into the causes. Just saying there's no specific evidence seems to be leading towards a conclusion, but listening to it again maybe he's just reiterating that. I wouldn't have approached the terrorism issue, unless asked.

I was in PR for years, just my opinion.

(I'm going to change the original post to the original tweet rather than the guys commentary on it to make it more neutral.)

Sea Speed said:

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The Fife said:

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BassCowboy33 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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This is interesting.

As @JeffFisch notes, the collapse of the Key Bridge means that the Baltimore Port will be unusable for many months.

It's the 13th most important US port for foreign trade

The economic impact on the city, which is already plagued by social misery and violent crime, will be huge pic.twitter.com/ZpPcb4Ombs

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 26, 2024

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The guess is traffic gets diverted to Norfolk and Charleston.

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Wouldn't surprise me, a new terminal just opened up within the last year or so in Charleston / North Charleston.

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I was talking to a Charleston pilot about the politics of Charleston container terminals and it is wild to me that they built the container terminal without rail access. I cant recall the bridge name but it is always jam packed with trucks. Going to significantly reduce the life of that bridge. Is it any better since they opened the one in North Charleston?

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You're right, the one in Mt Pleasant (SCPA Wando) isn't connected to rail. There aren't even any lines that are close.

Westrock Paper Mill is closed that site is going to be bought by the Port Authority in order to expand operations. It's a bit farther up the Cooper River from the new port (Hugh Leatherman) and has great rail access already.
https://scspa.com/news/sc-ports-to-buy-westrock-site-to-expand-port-capacity-at-north-charleston-terminal/

So I guess that'll make four ports within close proximity to each other.

Also note, one key fact will be whether there was a scheduled crew change of engineering personnel that took place in Baltimore.

You got new people coming onboard you at. higher risk of human error.

Many accidents have been caused by crew change scenario where the crew member wasn't fully up to speed and made a critical mistake.

In this case, maybe fuel system related or something to trip the generators offline.

MAROON said:

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MV Dali Hitting Key Bridge in Baltimore - Track and Video Analysis (youtube.com)

pretty good video and analysis

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Informative video, thanks for posting.

jt2hunt said:

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How large of an insurance carrier do you have to be to underwrite coverage for a ship like this one? This has to be a very bad day for this insurance company.

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Usually Lloyds of London and their consortion have reinsurance upon reinsurance upon reinsurance. Limits the liabilities for each. Which means the primary pays out their policy limit, then the next in line pays out their policy limits and so on down the line, or there is a percentage agreed to between them so every insurer gets to take a bite out of the turd sandwich. Or at least that used to be how maritime policies were handled. There's almost always more than one insurer involved.

This fuel switching issue is a known risk.

Some experts have suggested that we were on the clock so far as a major incident attributable to fuel switching.

Are US ports the only ports that require switching to ULSD?

flakrat said:

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Are US ports the only ports that require switching to ULSD?

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Almost certain some euro ones as well but not 100%

Sea Speed said:

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flakrat said:

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Are US ports the only ports that require switching to ULSD?

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Almost certain some euro ones as well but not 100%

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Ships are required to use lower sulphur fuel across the entire Mediterranean. Or at least will be next year or thereabouts.

TyHolden said:

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Biden said the government taxpayers would pay for it. 10% to the big guy.

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FIFY

Rapier108 said:

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annie88 said:

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It may very well not be terrorism, and I hope it's not, but to make that statement so quickly, just hours later, seems ill-advised.

It's funny how the media these days tend to amplify certain things and downplay others, depending on the outcome they seemingly want.

For example, the color of mass shooters seems to have become a very big thing.

This FBI agent who is discounting terrorism at the Baltimore bridge (very quickly, I might add) was named Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore Field Office just YESTERDAY

Suspicious? https://t.co/7kBZm1oBJk

— Jordan Sather (@Jordan_Sather_) March 26, 2024

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Probably because there is zero evidence it was terrorism.

Not every bad event is a deliberate act. Accidents do happen, even really big ones.

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It's barely been 12 hours since the accident. I don't see how you honestly believe you have all available knowledge to conclusively say what the cause is or isn't,

Even the NTSB takes months or years to write their accident reports.

"Speaking to reporters at this morning's news conference, Wes Moore, Maryland's governor (D), stated that the reason for the incident was due to a loss of power aboard MV Dali prior to its collision with the bridge, with crew members issuing a warning that power was lost."

The latest: BRIDGE

Sea Speed said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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This fuel switching issue is a known risk.

Some experts have suggested that we were on the clock so far as a major incident attributable to fuel switching.

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All the chief engineers i talk to hate it. Go figure.

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Agreed, messing with the fuel system in any way is begging for trouble.

Some engineers will zip-tie or safety wire fuel supply valve alignment so that nobody inadvertently does something to cut fuel supply. Any change in that valve alignment requires approval of the chief engineer.

AgBandsman said:

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Rapier108 said:

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annie88 said:

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It may very well not be terrorism, and I hope it's not, but to make that statement so quickly, just hours later, seems ill-advised.

It's funny how the media these days tend to amplify certain things and downplay others, depending on the outcome they seemingly want.

For example, the color of mass shooters seems to have become a very big thing.

This FBI agent who is discounting terrorism at the Baltimore bridge (very quickly, I might add) was named Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore Field Office just YESTERDAY

Suspicious? https://t.co/7kBZm1oBJk

— Jordan Sather (@Jordan_Sather_) March 26, 2024

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Probably because there is zero evidence it was terrorism.

Not every bad event is a deliberate act. Accidents do happen, even really big ones.

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It's barely been 12 hours since the accident. I don't see how you honestly believe you have all available knowledge to conclusively say what the cause is or isn't,

Even the NTSB takes months or years to write their accident reports.

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Even if the special agent in charge had just taken the position, what the heck is "suspicious?"

And what's "irresponsible" by saying they have no information suggesting any relationship to terrorism?

TexasRebel said:

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Ugh. Switching fuel sources on a critical diesel engine is a disaster in itself.

Just a tiny bit of air and you're done. Even self-priming injectors are going to stumble.

If this was caused by ULSD regs, I hope the lawmakers are found liable for this one.

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They won't be.

Sea Speed said:

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The El Faro report is heart wrenching

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I just went down that rabbit hole. Harrowing to read the audio transcripts. I can't even imagine.

This is an interesting thread by a guy who claims to be a civil eng who deals with bridge design and construction. Says its gonna be a while in post 9 of his thread:

Quote:

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Baltimore is going to be without a critical bridge for a long time.

Tampa's Skyway bridge took 7 years, but this will be done sooner, hopefully much sooner.

What needs to be done? Well, a lot.

Can the approach spans be salvaged?

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full thread:

Bridge design for vessel collision. A🧵

The main span of the Francois Scott Key Bridge is 1300 ft. It also has 185 ft of clearance, making this a massive bridge.

This type of bridge is considered complex.

Baltimore is in for a long haul before replacement. Here is why.

1/x pic.twitter.com/OtHbqGftBF

— Matt Dursh (@MattDursh) March 26, 2024

Sea Speed said:

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So weird, I had a long reply to ThunderCougarFalconBird asking me a question and when I hit reply it said the content was unavailable to me. Sucks because it was a pretty long one.

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it was my post about the pressure between crews/owners/etc and delays to maintenance, right? That post got disappeared. Think it got caught up in a slew of pointlessly political posts that got disappeared as well. Sorry man.

Curious how they were able to "stop traffic" going onto the bridge. There are no automated barricades or gates at the entrance at either end.

There are electronic message boards. Maybe they just put up STOP.

Yea and crews hiding things. I'll type it out later.

fc2112 said:

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Curious how they were able to "stop traffic" going onto the bridge. There are no automated barricades or gates at the entrance at either end.

There are electronic message boards. Maybe they just put up STOP.

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Toll bridge.

No toll booths or gates per Google maps.

TexasRebel said:

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fc2112 said:

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Curious how they were able to "stop traffic" going onto the bridge. There are no automated barricades or gates at the entrance at either end.

There are electronic message boards. Maybe they just put up STOP.

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Toll bridge.

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It is a toll bridge but I don't remember there being classic toll booths on it.

Either way, I think most major bridges can be closed off rather quickly whether or not its obvious how they do it. There is a Maryland Transportation Authority office right at the base of the bridge. I'm sure they can do it.

Vessels like these are insured through Protection & Indemnity Clubs. There are 12 in the International Group and this one was entered with Britannia. The IG Group pools losses at various levels beginning at $10M. They are mutuals but are reinsured via Lloyds and other markets. This vessel was classed by NK.

BassCowboy33 said:

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YouBet said:

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BassCowboy33 said:

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bonfarr said:

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To my untrained eyes that bridge appears low for the volume of the port. A guy interviewed on the radio said he was on a cruise ship passing under the Key Bridge and it had to take on water to clear it. Is that unusual or is that something that has to be done in a lot of ports where entry/exit is spanned by a bridge?

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Not uncommon. Depending on tides and draft, sometimes ships pass under bridges with surprisingly little clearance.

Plus, cruise ships have ENORMOUS sail area. So, they'd definitely need to flood the ballast tanks.

A lot of these bridges were built in eras of smaller ships. I believe Corpus built an entirely new bridge a decade or so back so it's terminal could handle larger ships.

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Um, yeah, it's still being built. They had to pause for a year or so because the builder f'ed up and they had to huddle for a while to figure out how to course correct and make it safe.

For those who have never seen it, it's massive. It has to be one of the biggest bridges being built in the US if not the biggest. Granted, there aren't always massive projects like this going on, but still, it's huge.

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For Corpus, it's an economic investment. There is fierce competition between them, Houston, and Brownsville. You limit the size of the vessel able to enter, youll fall behind and get left behind.

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Absolutely. For others, 50% of the nations exported oil is now coming out of Corpus where this bridge is being constructed. Quite important. They are building a significantly taller bridge next to the current one.

Alerting authorities seems to track with the video. You can see traffic stop before the ship ultimately hits the bridge as there is none in the video.

In a scenario like this you are looking at what caused the initial loss of power.

Power was restored but then they lost power again for some unknown reason.

The second loss of power was likely attributable to human error.

Engineers probably panicked and you had people scrambling to find the issue and restore power, maybe doing opposite things that conflicted with each other and caused electrical power to trip off line again.

Switching between main power and emergency power is not something that you typically want to do while in restricted waters because it's easy to mess up causing a subsequent failure. Switching power while underway can cause problems, and especially so if you trying to recover from total loss of electrical power.

So you got to wonder if they were functional on emergency power with steering restored and might have been better off staying that way, getting stabilized and out restricted waters before they started trying to fix the issue and restore main power.

My guess is that they scrambled to restore power then tried to get back on main power and something went wrong.

On the bridge they were probably in panic mode because a lot of your emergency power is designed to only power critical systems. So theres a possibility might have gone dark on the bridge with some of their systems, with the pilot yelling at the captain and the captain yelling at the crew and engineers to get it fixed asap.

Thats how I would imagine this could've gone down.

The Key Bridge is (was) pretty tall, I think. Its long, long, long so its not a steep grade like you see over the Houston Ship Channel or whatever.