Path: ...!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: Full video of ship hitting and destroying the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 11:18:04 +0000 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 38 Message-ID: References: <2iv80jd4bmm08fr24nmum9k8vikiumhe0d@4ax.com> <6604f7e3$0$897428$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 11:18:07 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="41936f8ec488f4b3d9c28af67132b35c"; logging-data="287764"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/jI1gr7DPQbWDkYE4oXkndcz7GcYOksoErVptGEHrZ3A==" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:kHygskQHBxPvMs6u/acU4tlNsyI= Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: Bytes: 2816 On 29/03/2024 06:06, UFO wrote: > > Out of all the hours it sailed in operation, maintenance checks were all > fine > then out of the blue not 1 but 3 power failures, and not out in the > middle of the ocean > from harms way...just close enough to a bridge and hit the weakest spot. > What a > "fluke" Hardly. Murphy's law can apply IRL. Dirty fuel seems quite plausible. The bridge was *designed* to fail catastrophically if anything hit one of its main supports which is unforgivable on a bridge that is over a waterway leading to one of the busiest Atlantic ports in America. Most big bridges in first world countries have buffer islands and underwater structures to deflect and/or slow a large vessel to prevent them from impacting any of the key support structures near a live shipping channel. The ship may ground and be damaged and the bridge shaken by that impact but that should be about the limit of what can happen to a properly designed bridge in these circumstances. >> I read that cargo ships of this size run diesel generators to power >> the steering pumps at low speed and then do PTO from the main shaft >> once they're cruising, and that the black smoke may have been an >> emergency generator coming up. But the steering pumps probably aren't >> a priority, in a river current that thing's a cork on backup power. Also it can take a very long time to alter course with a large vessel. The ship issued a Mayday which saved lives by closing the bridge to new traffic before the impact but it was very sad for the road crews working on the road deck. -- Martin Brown