Just want to say, I checked a clip online, they *absolutely do not* tell all passengers to get below deck: they're all cheering and partying and jumping around in the clip of its first trip under Storebaelt.
When the ship left Finland, there were no paying customers on board. They were all crew and other people assosiated with the ship construction. So they knew what was going on and they were obviously cheering since the trick worked as planned. Also they obviously timed the whole thing with tides to help too. And yes this is insider knowledge. @@lateralcast
All I can picture is a ship full of passengers looking at the bridge, wondering if they can clear it, when the Captain comes on the PA, and just yells, “Leroooooy Jenkinnnnssss!”, and then kicks it into full ahead.
Something else to consider is that clearances on charts are measured above "Highest Astronomical TIde", the highest level the water will reach due to to the moon and sun. I expect the passage was timed for low water thus giving extra clearance.
Ships only barely fitting past obstacles is definitely a thing that happens sometimes. Go look at photos of an Iowa-class battleship (108'2" wide) going through the locks of the Panama Canal (110' wide). They had 11" (28cm) of clearance on either side - this would never be allowed for a civilian ship, but because the Panama Canal was owned by the US government at the time, they allowed their own ships to do things like that.
The US Navy for years designed its ships to transverse the Panama Canal, limiting the size of many ships or forcing the largest ships to not use the canal when the size could not be reduced.
@@JonBerry555it's so common that ships are often referred to as panamax, new panamax, or post-panamax. On the Asia/Europe shipping you have suezmax or post-suezmax. Kind of handy not just for the ship. Building container ship harbor capacity in Europe? Build it to handle suezmax and you know nothing larger will shop up.
I'm curious if Tom being able to answer the first part can be (partially?) explained by his earlier video of simulating the piloting of a container ship, felt like a nice callback.
There is an alternative path through the Danish straits, via Øresund, which could have been considered. But that faces the opposite problem, because the part of the strait traversed by tunnel is relatively shallow. So they'd have had to go very slow and have the ship loaded as lightly as possible. It's also complicated to go slow, because the surface water in Øresund flows northwards, ie. pushing the ship forward. They would have very little relative speed to maintain control of the vessel with. Much easier to just race through the Great Belt.
No, that's not an alternative path for a ship of this size. It quite literally wouldn't fit either way - not under the bridge or over the tunnel. The clearance under the Øresund Bridge is only 57 m (Storebælt is 65 m as mentioned in the video), and the maximum draft through the Drogden channel over the tunnel for a ship is 7.7 m, but the Oasis of the Seas has a draft of 9.3 m.
@@papaquonis The regularly allowable draft for ships to pass Øresund is 8 meters, but there is a little more depth to play with. Still a very tight situation, just like squeezing under a bridge with less clearance than the regular height of the ship. It's just a lot more feasible to handle the latter issue.
"Big ship. Little headroom." reminds me of touring the Iowa-class USS-Wisconsin, one of the largest warships of all time. I banged my head on like every single hatch opening, and I'm not all that tall, the ceilings were just short.
SPOILER: Apparently the effect is called the squat effect. While running at 20 knots they get an additional 30 cm clearance. And looking at video, people are on deck whooping and hollering.
Somehow "flooring it" and "cruise ship" ended up in the same sentence, and my head still cant imagine what that would look like, but the internet says top speed 24 knots / 45 KmH.
Modern, extra large passenger steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers have folding smokestacks. I saw a jumbo one just fit under the 120 year old bridge by a few feet/meters with the smokestack horizontal. (The smokestacks are more decorative than functional, I think.)
River cruise ships on the Rhine can fold down all their sun deck hardware, and the bridge retracts down into the deck for low bridges. I can remember only one time in my two river cruises where they ordered the passengers off the sun deck, but there were a couple of times standing on the deck I could touch the passing bridges. In those cases the bridge only went down half way. But the river level fluctuates from year to year and season to season, so it’s possible on another trip they would have gone full down on those bridges.
Tom, you need to get Hank Green (and/or John Green) on Lateral AND Tom, now that you're semi-retired and "have time for that kind of thing" you should do SciShow Tangents with Hank!
In former times it was a usual thing to fold down the chimneys of steamboats to clear bridges. I guess even before that there were sailing ships with foldable masts (just like you insert small model ships into bottles).
The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy have to lower their mast to fit under the bridge on the Firth of Forth. They also have to time their transit with the tide so that they neither run aground or strike the bridge.
Today I learned: Grat Britain has (at LEAST) an aircraft carrier. I seem to have read a little while ago that only the US, France and Russia* have any. *and the Russian was isn't even fully operational.
The bridge here in New York in question is the Verrazzano, which has a clearance is 228 feet/69.5 meters at mean high water. They had to design the Queen Mary 2 specifically with the Verrazzano in mind. And it still gives only a few feet of clearance.
Technically, they designed the QE2 with the Verrazano in mind, the second (missing) _z_ was only added a couple of years back. In any case: Is this bridge in Finland the same height above water as the VNB? I would not have thought that the Verrazzano is a low bridge, relatively speaking. It looks pretty high, based on its approaches and walking underneath.
I once did some work on a yacht so tall I was told by a crew member there's only a handful of bridges in the world it could sail under, however they were all inland and they couldn't get to them anyway.
I love all your shows, and I do often scream at the radio... it is much easier to be bystander. For a person in the maritime industry, this show was a little pain full. I know it is a small detail, but could you guys look up the difference between a smokestack and a mast? The mast is for flags and radars, the smokestack is the funnel / chimney. Most ships can tilt their mast, no biggies, but only very few can tilt their smokestack. Maersk have a group of containership which also can tilt their smokestack to get under bridges such as the Golden Gate.
Reflecting on the Baltimore bridge collapse, it reminds me of this episode… The footage of the Baltimore bridge collapse seems to show that the ship struck the pillar though.
When the battleship _New Jersey_ went into drydock earlier in 2024, they had to cut off her mast to fit under a bridge, and then re-attach it after she returned to her normal berth.
The same technique of running at high speed is used for larger boats to go under Potter Heigham Bridge on the UK Norfolk Broads, but the effect is more noticable where the beam of the vessel closely matches the width of the water way. It's also noticeable on canals especially where as in many places in the UK the canal narrowed to only about a foot wider than the boats beam (Narrow boats are limited to a beam of 6' 10") and if a modern motor driven narrow boat moves at 4 Knots in the wider main channel but keeps the engine speed and controls the same, as it passes through a narrowed section you can feel the boat decelerate and regain its speed as it leaves the narrowed section.
I don't know how frequent that is, but small tourist ships that sail on inland canals have a telescopic superstructure which helps them pass under the bridges. I was a little surprised first time I've seen the ship lowering their bridge to pass under a bridge :)
does anyone know why they went through the Great Belt? Why did they not just go over the tunnel section of the Öresund fixed link? Does it have to do with the draft?
I got this question right, though I didn't know the specific details. I could tell right away that they did something to make the ship sink slightly, I just didn't know specifically how they did it. I also knew right away that they took down the tall part, I just didn't know that it was a telescoping smoke stack.
I know this is kind of a dumb question, but does the tide affect how much clearance they have? Is the stated clearance of the bridge an average, or does it include the max water level?
It's totally normal for ships to drop the funnel when going under a bridge. In some ships the full ships bridge will drop down to go under a bridge. A more interesting trick, as was as said in the video is to weigh down one side of a ship to go through a narrow opening. This was done a few years back with a US Aircraft Carrier when one side of the flight deck was lifted above the lock wall in order to go through a navigation lock in the US.
A non-planning hull, like those on ships, have a fixed "hull speed" that is a function of the waterline length of the boat. Once hull speed is reached no amount of added power will make the boat go faster. The added power simply causes the ship to sit lower in the water. This is why early 20th Century passenger ships were built longer than any previous ship. The use of steel allowed for longer ships, and the use of steam power allowed for faster ships, meaning the additional length was well justified.
My mind was going to flooding the bilges of the ship to increase it draft. Some ships can do this, but on alot of ships this is a very bad thing to happen as this is where alot of the ships machinery is located. However I was thinking if the ship has been specifically designed to have floodable bilges, not only can it increase its draft, it can also help to lower the ships center of gravity and make the ship less susceptible to pitching and rolling so much. Being able to adjust the draft by pumping water out or letting water in is surely a great design feature. Hey ho, better luck next time!
Immediate guess: Just flood it a bit. 1 min guess: have passangers all stand in the front, and then all stand in the back. ( wouldn't matter that much but whatever)
and here I was thinking that the bridge is in a place where the river reaches the sea, so the scientific way is to time the passing with the low tide, that propagates a bit upstream... and the technological way - I though of flooding compartments and/or folding mast/chimney (unlock and turn 90° from vertical to horizontal)
@@Sakkura1 I have checked where is the bridge - I thought it's on some river, as bridges usually are... but apparently this is the bridge across the sea (from "mainland" Denmark next to Germany to the part of Denmark next to Sweden), so yeah, tides would play even bigger role here than I previously thought :D
You forgot to mention tides. On the 12th of March a high Spring Tide will raise the hight by 30cm at 12:20 whereas 05:40 and 18:04 the height will be 10cm lower. These tidal heights are calculated and do not take into account high or low pressure weather systems which also have an effect on tidal heights as do strong winds. If there is only 60cm then I would not risk a midday crossing. Just to compare London Bridge has a Tidal range of 6.5m
At 0:26: I think i heard something about boats going faster so they would go deeper, so maybe that the scientific solution? But i've no idea about the technological one.
Technological - Ballast Scientific - Tides Adding water to all ballast tanks will increase draft, and reduce height above waterline. If you need more, you may also have to do some disassembly of the mast reduce the maximum height. Charted heights above water are based on (one of) the highest tide stages, typically MHHW, and depths below water are based on (one of) the lowest, MLLW. This means that if you go under the bridge at an extremely low tidal stage, there's actually more clearance under the bridge than the chart shows. I was on a US Navy ship that went to Portland, OR and there was a flood stage from snow melt. We were getting some upgrades to equipment at the very top of the mast, so for comfort, we had the top bit of mast removed before we left San Diego, and didn't get the new part installed until after we got back. (I was a Quartermaster, and so well aware of these discussions and chart measurements.) I'm guessing the answer only involves ballast and tides, though.
These ships are so massive that most most ports are off limits for them. If my memory serves me right it is 60m too long for Stockholm. Åbo can take all of them but lack the amount of touristy attractions for that many people.
Before watching, I think the scientific solution will be to go faster. The technological one I'm not so sure of. Does it have a funnel that can retract or something like that?
Initial thoughts: Let's say the bridge is immovable (no draw bridge, no raising the supports, etc.), the ship cannot be modified (disassemble the mast then put it back on), and the integrity of both cannot be jeopardized. They could lower the level of the water, if the flow can be adjusted by locks, dams, spillways, etc. (The technical one? Water bending) They could partially "sink" the ship by putting more weight on it. (The scientific one? Archimedes) They could also tilt/list the ship by changing the weight distribution, so it could slide under. Risky.
Before hearing the real answer i think they might’ve done this by getting everyone to the back of the ship so that it tilted backwards making its height shorter than if it was upright…maybe but i feel like it might sink. Edit: 3:10 no way tom thought of it too!
This is already 3rd ship from Finland in same size (few meters differens). So this is not the first telescopic smokestack in the cruise ship, it’s 3rd. And I think you did also forgot 3rd thing. Nature, it need to be done at low tide.
As a dane, hearing someone pronounce "storebælt" as "store belt" is really weird. I get why that's the intuitive way to pronounce it in English, but it still feels strange 😅
I've watched enough youtube videos to know two things:
1) Going fast helps boats get under bridges
2) It doesn't work with trucks.
You can add two more to that:
Sailing through deep water is a good idea
Driving through deep water isn't.
Is 2) a reference to the 11 foot 8 bridge?
11"8 moment
2a) Neither does going slow.
If you drive fast enough you can get under a bridge. Just not necessary all of the truck will get through.
Just want to say, I checked a clip online, they *absolutely do not* tell all passengers to get below deck: they're all cheering and partying and jumping around in the clip of its first trip under Storebaelt.
Yep, here's the link for anyone interested: th-cam.com/video/X3gNGRhEA3g/w-d-xo.html
That was funny and amazing. Both thanks for posting.
When the ship left Finland, there were no paying customers on board. They were all crew and other people assosiated with the ship construction. So they knew what was going on and they were obviously cheering since the trick worked as planned. Also they obviously timed the whole thing with tides to help too. And yes this is insider knowledge. @@lateralcast
Oh, so it's only 30cm extra clearance from the high speed. Most of it comes from the telescopic funnel.
@@lateralcast They did it at night?? Insane
“Tilty under the bridge thing”. Matt Gray influences Tom Scott
He really does have a way with words, doesn't he? always describing so eloquently
But that doesn't how boats is!
That was my guess too!
All I can picture is a ship full of passengers looking at the bridge, wondering if they can clear it, when the Captain comes on the PA, and just yells, “Leroooooy Jenkinnnnssss!”, and then kicks it into full ahead.
Something else to consider is that clearances on charts are measured above "Highest Astronomical TIde", the highest level the water will reach due to to the moon and sun. I expect the passage was timed for low water thus giving extra clearance.
In the Baltic sea the tide isnt very impressive. That must be more important everywhere else.
Ships only barely fitting past obstacles is definitely a thing that happens sometimes. Go look at photos of an Iowa-class battleship (108'2" wide) going through the locks of the Panama Canal (110' wide). They had 11" (28cm) of clearance on either side - this would never be allowed for a civilian ship, but because the Panama Canal was owned by the US government at the time, they allowed their own ships to do things like that.
The US Navy for years designed its ships to transverse the Panama Canal, limiting the size of many ships or forcing the largest ships to not use the canal when the size could not be reduced.
@@JonBerry555everybody does that! Not just the US Navy.
@JasperJanssen only knew for sure that the US Navy had a specific policy regarding the Panama Canal and I did not want to assume.
@@JonBerry555it's so common that ships are often referred to as panamax, new panamax, or post-panamax. On the Asia/Europe shipping you have suezmax or post-suezmax. Kind of handy not just for the ship. Building container ship harbor capacity in Europe? Build it to handle suezmax and you know nothing larger will shop up.
I'm curious if Tom being able to answer the first part can be (partially?) explained by his earlier video of simulating the piloting of a container ship, felt like a nice callback.
Or possibly his experience helming a Russian icebreaker
There is an alternative path through the Danish straits, via Øresund, which could have been considered. But that faces the opposite problem, because the part of the strait traversed by tunnel is relatively shallow. So they'd have had to go very slow and have the ship loaded as lightly as possible. It's also complicated to go slow, because the surface water in Øresund flows northwards, ie. pushing the ship forward. They would have very little relative speed to maintain control of the vessel with. Much easier to just race through the Great Belt.
No, that's not an alternative path for a ship of this size. It quite literally wouldn't fit either way - not under the bridge or over the tunnel. The clearance under the Øresund Bridge is only 57 m (Storebælt is 65 m as mentioned in the video), and the maximum draft through the Drogden channel over the tunnel for a ship is 7.7 m, but the Oasis of the Seas has a draft of 9.3 m.
@@papaquonis The regularly allowable draft for ships to pass Øresund is 8 meters, but there is a little more depth to play with. Still a very tight situation, just like squeezing under a bridge with less clearance than the regular height of the ship. It's just a lot more feasible to handle the latter issue.
The shipyard protested against building the bridge, because of the height restriction . Solved in ICJ case 86.
"Big ship. Little headroom." reminds me of touring the Iowa-class USS-Wisconsin, one of the largest warships of all time. I banged my head on like every single hatch opening, and I'm not all that tall, the ceilings were just short.
SPOILER: Apparently the effect is called the squat effect. While running at 20 knots they get an additional 30 cm clearance. And looking at video, people are on deck whooping and hollering.
The QE2 hit some rocks near Nantucket Island due to squat.
I'm a little surprised the technological answer wasn't pumping in ballast water from the river to increase their draft, honestly.
They could also fill the ballast tanks with water to make it ride lower...
Somehow "flooring it" and "cruise ship" ended up in the same sentence, and my head still cant imagine what that would look like, but the internet says top speed 24 knots / 45 KmH.
Apparently Keanu Reeves said something similar after reading the script for "Speed 2".
Nashville has a riverboat and when it passes under certain bridges its smoke stacks can bend back
As I understand it folding funnels where pretty common in the days of steam propulsion.
th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxHX1puZvp_GyLCf9cg1UOUHFUiwQzHJj0?si=peu0AL4WIMFQx4D_
very efficient and quick guesses from the contestants!
I love it when someone throws out a joke answer right away that actually almost nails the question
that suction caused by the boats speed is part of the reason why the evergiven got stuck in the suez
Modern, extra large passenger steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers have folding smokestacks. I saw a jumbo one just fit under the 120 year old bridge by a few feet/meters with the smokestack horizontal. (The smokestacks are more decorative than functional, I think.)
River cruise ships on the Rhine can fold down all their sun deck hardware, and the bridge retracts down into the deck for low bridges. I can remember only one time in my two river cruises where they ordered the passengers off the sun deck, but there were a couple of times standing on the deck I could touch the passing bridges. In those cases the bridge only went down half way. But the river level fluctuates from year to year and season to season, so it’s possible on another trip they would have gone full down on those bridges.
Disappointed we didn't get a _Speed 2_ reference from Brian David Gilbert.
Wow. I assumed they filled the ballast tanks and went at low tide.
Tom, you need to get Hank Green (and/or John Green) on Lateral AND Tom, now that you're semi-retired and "have time for that kind of thing" you should do SciShow Tangents with Hank!
Is that a SECOND dr Hannah Fry episode? I know what I'll listen to on my commute tomorrow 😊
In former times it was a usual thing to fold down the chimneys of steamboats to clear bridges. I guess even before that there were sailing ships with foldable masts (just like you insert small model ships into bottles).
I think they also waited for low tide too.
Tides in denmark strait aren't low enough to matter much. The ship was designed to go under the bridge from the start.
I think every inch possible is better. I think that this is true. They wait a low tide too.
This is a very similar effect that caused the Evergiven Sues Canal incident.
The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy have to lower their mast to fit under the bridge on the Firth of Forth. They also have to time their transit with the tide so that they neither run aground or strike the bridge.
Today I learned: Grat Britain has (at LEAST) an aircraft carrier. I seem to have read a little while ago that only the US, France and Russia* have any.
*and the Russian was isn't even fully operational.
The bridge here in New York in question is the Verrazzano, which has a clearance is 228 feet/69.5 meters at mean high water.
They had to design the Queen Mary 2 specifically with the Verrazzano in mind. And it still gives only a few feet of clearance.
Technically, they designed the QE2 with the Verrazano in mind, the second (missing) _z_ was only added a couple of years back.
In any case: Is this bridge in Finland the same height above water as the VNB? I would not have thought that the Verrazzano is a low bridge, relatively speaking. It looks pretty high, based on its approaches and walking underneath.
I once did some work on a yacht so tall I was told by a crew member there's only a handful of bridges in the world it could sail under, however they were all inland and they couldn't get to them anyway.
I love all your shows, and I do often scream at the radio... it is much easier to be bystander. For a person in the maritime industry, this show was a little pain full. I know it is a small detail, but could you guys look up the difference between a smokestack and a mast? The mast is for flags and radars, the smokestack is the funnel / chimney. Most ships can tilt their mast, no biggies, but only very few can tilt their smokestack. Maersk have a group of containership which also can tilt their smokestack to get under bridges such as the Golden Gate.
I was picking low tide as the scientific solution. But that's probably in addition to what they were doing or not applicable.
It has to be the right tide, not high or low. Too high tide, and they hit the bridge. Too low tide, and they hit the ground.
@@thomasgade226 At least they'd hit the ground running 😄
Oh no, that would be running aground 🥲
Ok, not a running joke 😋
The tides are negligible in this part of world, so it probably wouldn't help that much
Couldn't they just let the tyres down😂
Reflecting on the Baltimore bridge collapse, it reminds me of this episode… The footage of the Baltimore bridge collapse seems to show that the ship struck the pillar though.
Pretty sure there was a movie about this. I think it was called "The boat that couldn't slow down"
Hey I know that one. That was the sequel to "The Bus that couldn't slow down"! 😀
When the battleship _New Jersey_ went into drydock earlier in 2024, they had to cut off her mast to fit under a bridge, and then re-attach it after she returned to her normal berth.
The same technique of running at high speed is used for larger boats to go under Potter Heigham Bridge on the UK Norfolk Broads, but the effect is more noticable where the beam of the vessel closely matches the width of the water way. It's also noticeable on canals especially where as in many places in the UK the canal narrowed to only about a foot wider than the boats beam (Narrow boats are limited to a beam of 6' 10") and if a modern motor driven narrow boat moves at 4 Knots in the wider main channel but keeps the engine speed and controls the same, as it passes through a narrowed section you can feel the boat decelerate and regain its speed as it leaves the narrowed section.
I don't know how frequent that is, but small tourist ships that sail on inland canals have a telescopic superstructure which helps them pass under the bridges. I was a little surprised first time I've seen the ship lowering their bridge to pass under a bridge :)
How much difference does the going fast thing make - I want some numbers!
Some of the inland ships that go on the rivers in Europe had retractable funnels already in the 60's.
The Storebaelt Bridge is fantastic. In fact if you can do all three in one road trip - little Belt, big Belt and Oresund, I highly recommend it.
Not so much a road trip as a relatively short drive from Germany to Sweden...
@@57thorns well, Hamburg to Malmö!
They would also have to wait for low tide?
there isn't that much tide inside the baltic sea.
@@driwen 50 cm is definitely noticeable, plus that low tide makes the suction effect more pronounced.
@@57thorns for copenhagen its more like 40 cm. So sure it has an effect. But they needed to gain 8 meter.
does anyone know why they went through the Great Belt? Why did they not just go over the tunnel section of the Öresund fixed link? Does it have to do with the draft?
I would also consider passing at the lowest tide possible just to be sure!
Low tide and squatting at high speed.
Well I was half right.
I got this question right, though I didn't know the specific details. I could tell right away that they did something to make the ship sink slightly, I just didn't know specifically how they did it. I also knew right away that they took down the tall part, I just didn't know that it was a telescoping smoke stack.
I thought it might take on extra water to lower it.
my first thought was that they leaned the boat to one side, but that might come with the potential risk of permanetly lowering the ship
I know this is kind of a dumb question, but does the tide affect how much clearance they have? Is the stated clearance of the bridge an average, or does it include the max water level?
My guess:
1. fold down any masts.
2, as other mentioned go faster to make the boat "squat" in the water.
I thought they were going to 1 wait for low tide and 2 shift weight towards the shorter end
"... and Fast & Furious it ..." XD
It's totally normal for ships to drop the funnel when going under a bridge.
In some ships the full ships bridge will drop down to go under a bridge.
A more interesting trick, as was as said in the video is to weigh down one side of a ship to go through a narrow opening. This was done a few years back with a US Aircraft Carrier when one side of the flight deck was lifted above the lock wall in order to go through a navigation lock in the US.
So is this Toms new gig?
Also Prof Hannah Fry, is always a delight.
The ship be like I’mma speedrun this bridge let’s goooo
I am amazed that no one mentioned tides! Presumably they do this cruise ship limbo at low tide…
A non-planning hull, like those on ships, have a fixed "hull speed" that is a function of the waterline length of the boat. Once hull speed is reached no amount of added power will make the boat go faster. The added power simply causes the ship to sit lower in the water.
This is why early 20th Century passenger ships were built longer than any previous ship. The use of steel allowed for longer ships, and the use of steam power allowed for faster ships, meaning the additional length was well justified.
Oh of course, the Mariner’s Guide to Navigation!
Did they let some air out of the ships tyres?
How about a Lateral show where everyone is actually in the same room, instead of doing it by Zoom, etc?
It'd be nice to do that one day.
My mind was going to flooding the bilges of the ship to increase it draft. Some ships can do this, but on alot of ships this is a very bad thing to happen as this is where alot of the ships machinery is located.
However I was thinking if the ship has been specifically designed to have floodable bilges, not only can it increase its draft, it can also help to lower the ships center of gravity and make the ship less susceptible to pitching and rolling so much. Being able to adjust the draft by pumping water out or letting water in is surely a great design feature.
Hey ho, better luck next time!
Nice that Hannah Fry still does (presumably unpaid) podcasts, now that she's on TV.
Immediate guess: Just flood it a bit.
1 min guess: have passangers all stand in the front, and then all stand in the back. ( wouldn't matter that much but whatever)
where do i watch full episodes of this? It's not super clear to me.
I'm sure this isn't the first time ive seen BDG on one of these but it makes me excited every time
and here I was thinking that the bridge is in a place where the river reaches the sea, so the scientific way is to time the passing with the low tide, that propagates a bit upstream...
and the technological way - I though of flooding compartments and/or folding mast/chimney (unlock and turn 90° from vertical to horizontal)
The tides affect the sea level, so they definitely also looked at timing for that.
@@Sakkura1 I have checked where is the bridge - I thought it's on some river, as bridges usually are... but apparently this is the bridge across the sea (from "mainland" Denmark next to Germany to the part of Denmark next to Sweden), so yeah, tides would play even bigger role here than I previously thought :D
The two new UK aircraft carriers have hinged masts to get under some bridges, I think it's quite a common solution.
2:53 "Tom, what's your favourite Death Grips song?"
on the Chicago River they just raise the (basculade) bridge
You forgot to mention tides. On the 12th of March a high Spring Tide will raise the hight by 30cm at 12:20 whereas 05:40 and 18:04 the height will be 10cm lower. These tidal heights are calculated and do not take into account high or low pressure weather systems which also have an effect on tidal heights as do strong winds. If there is only 60cm then I would not risk a midday crossing. Just to compare London Bridge has a Tidal range of 6.5m
Is there a place to watch the full versions of these that aren't just clips?
We're looking in to providing this when our podcast provider makes the facility available.
At 0:26: I think i heard something about boats going faster so they would go deeper, so maybe that the scientific solution? But i've no idea about the technological one.
Technological - Ballast
Scientific - Tides
Adding water to all ballast tanks will increase draft, and reduce height above waterline. If you need more, you may also have to do some disassembly of the mast reduce the maximum height.
Charted heights above water are based on (one of) the highest tide stages, typically MHHW, and depths below water are based on (one of) the lowest, MLLW. This means that if you go under the bridge at an extremely low tidal stage, there's actually more clearance under the bridge than the chart shows.
I was on a US Navy ship that went to Portland, OR and there was a flood stage from snow melt. We were getting some upgrades to equipment at the very top of the mast, so for comfort, we had the top bit of mast removed before we left San Diego, and didn't get the new part installed until after we got back. (I was a Quartermaster, and so well aware of these discussions and chart measurements.)
I'm guessing the answer only involves ballast and tides, though.
Wow, they relied on squat? That's a bit risky because if an engine failure happens, you can't back down to stop faster.
@@Rollermonkey1handbrake turn!
These ships are so massive that most most ports are off limits for them. If my memory serves me right it is 60m too long for Stockholm.
Åbo can take all of them but lack the amount of touristy attractions for that many people.
Before watching, I think the scientific solution will be to go faster. The technological one I'm not so sure of. Does it have a funnel that can retract or something like that?
Initial thoughts: Let's say the bridge is immovable (no draw bridge, no raising the supports, etc.), the ship cannot be modified (disassemble the mast then put it back on), and the integrity of both cannot be jeopardized.
They could lower the level of the water, if the flow can be adjusted by locks, dams, spillways, etc. (The technical one? Water bending)
They could partially "sink" the ship by putting more weight on it. (The scientific one? Archimedes)
They could also tilt/list the ship by changing the weight distribution, so it could slide under. Risky.
All good until that one time when the engine decides to call it quits just before the bridge and there's no way to brake in time.
I would wait for low tide, unless they are doing it at low tide? 🤔
Before hearing the real answer i think they might’ve done this by getting everyone to the back of the ship so that it tilted backwards making its height shorter than if it was upright…maybe but i feel like it might sink.
Edit: 3:10 no way tom thought of it too!
I hope the Captain told them to "Punch it Chewie"
I thought for sure the answer was gong to be passing at low tide.
Respect to her for her prononciation of Storebælt
Don't forget to shut your eyes tight and hold your breath.
This is already 3rd ship from Finland in same size (few meters differens). So this is not the first telescopic smokestack in the cruise ship, it’s 3rd. And I think you did also forgot 3rd thing. Nature, it need to be done at low tide.
couldn't have just waited until low tide?
I was expecting a silly answer like just redefine the meter.
Look at you getting a major TV personality on your podcast.🤪
Of course someone in florida pulls a USS Texas
Why telescoping stacks though? If they work just fine at that height, why not just make them shorter in the first place?! o_O
It was just the crew on board so it didn't matter if they got a lungful of stinky.
I came to ask this very question since the smokestacks are retracted at a time when the engines are revved up...
Did I get that right? 😂
Turns out if you are a ship you can just not hit the bridge, because you're Built Different(TM).
Oh, yes, Tom's knowledge of everything random finally paid off.
0:19 So I'm guessing technology isn't science?
As a dane, hearing someone pronounce "storebælt" as "store belt" is really weird. I get why that's the intuitive way to pronounce it in English, but it still feels strange 😅
My initial guess: the technological one was to raise the bridge up like Tower bridge.
Yeah me too, along with the scientific way of going faster. Lowernig masts etc is probably easier and cheaper than moving the bridge though.
They don’t have waves over 60 cm there 😳?
They Indonesia cargo ship should've watched this video
⚓️
*Littoral Highlight
BDG FTW!!!
60 cm less than 2 feet.
Spoilers: th-cam.com/video/X3gNGRhEA3g/w-d-xo.html
Might want to change the thumbnail