I have been on boats and ships all my life. On an ocean going tug we lost all power due to fuel feed problem. It happened suddenly. All diesels stopped, generators and main engines. Before restart the fuel feed had to be switched to back up system and all engines fuel systems purged of air. This took 45 minutes before a restart and this is with a highly trained crew, we did search and rescue missions. The weather was good and we were at sea so no navigation problems. Machinery can fail at any time.
especially when just being repaired....and someone authorized it to set sail... for Sinagpore oceans awayl ok... check 1 more box on my coinky-dink list!....Felix!
@@RodgerMudd I heard some channel mention fuel in port and out at sea are different, in America at least, and sometimes the transition is illegally performed early
@@JeepCherokeeful True; but that commonality creates their cover story....the KEYS bridge ship had 2 primary engines left/right, 2 backups -left/right & and 1 emergency manual..battery?backup..each side.. so we are to believe that 6 catastrophic failures.....as they snuck out of port in the middle of night due to tides w/o TUGS..... yep i got it?
I really respect that you didn't try get him to comment more on Baltimore, and said so to the audience that he's not going to comment on a situation he's not intimately familiar with. Too many news shows would try to get that soundbyte anyway.
Yes, but they were not common when this bridge was built. I will tell you what though. Construction of them is going to be a booming business in the next 40 years. In fact I would not be surprised if they become required by future codes. That's usually what happens. Engineers study disasters and mandate new requirements based on the failures. After the Northridge quake they started building stronger structures. After 9/11 they started mandating stronger structures. After the Oklahoma bombing they started mandating bollards and other types of features to keep buildings from getting too close to structures. Unfortunately the politicians control purse strings and have more power over what engineers require and engineers only make changes when they can do it.
re: "Think about the price of these concrete “dolphins” " Now think about the piers/caissons that need to be sunk down to bedrock (just like the bridge piers) to take an impact from a large 150,000 ton ship at 8 knots w/o moving or brealing off, of course, the ship is going to be ripped open (like the Dali was, only worse ) sink on the spot.
Good presentation from the pilot's point of view, but this video does not cover the one thing I wanted to know, in light of the Baltimore disaster: Are the fenders at the main supports of the Astoria bridge adequate to protect the bridge from a wayward ship?
I race Hydroplanes, scariest thing about it is towing the race trailer over the Astoria bridge on way to Lake Cullaby . We usually have Timber fender systems on NW bridges . Container ships of today sorta defy the shape of a puny Dolphin at waterline. The dead Prop Blocks Water from Rudder!!!
Yikes!...didn't see any "dolphins" guarding the Astoria Bridge's two main support columns...even less protection than there was for the FSK bridge in Baltimore! That's a disaster just waiting on some huge ship to lose power coming up or down the river near by!!! Oh...I'm sorry; that's really a gold mine of opportunity for local maritime salvage, bridge rebuilt construction companies...duh!
Some exoert in the comments thinks those fenders they have would suffice. They are incredibly wrong . They would absolutely fail to stop a vessel that size or even half the mass. It shows you people do Not Understand physics
It’s all very well to have an experienced marine pilot, but if a vessel looses power and is in danger of collision with bridge supports, the pilot can’t do a thing. In Baltimore, the Dali had 2 tugs on departure from the berth, but they were let go before the vessel all the bridge. Who ordered that and why? If the Dali had tugs attached on approach and transiting the navigation channel under the bridge, there would not have been a collision.
Seems to be the norm there to just bring the ship out to the main channel and then the tugs depart once the ship starts getting up the speed. Maybe that will change after the channel reopens.
Unfortunately ship power loss is not uncommon. The cause of power loss is frequently tied to parallel operation of two generators where the electric load is not properly shared. On AC generators both the real and reactive power need to be stabily shared. Sometimes this is called cross current compensation. Unstable load sharing results in tripouts of one and sometimes both generators. Unfortunately this happens all to often I am a retired Westinghous field service engineer and have made many calls where load sharing was a problem
Interesting. One chief engineer here on YT was saying that the bow thrusters required 3 generators to be running when the bow thrusters are started. I'm assuming that's starting current, and once running two might do?
@@uploadJ Yes, Starting current does not last long, putting on a 3rd generator adds unnessary conplication. Load sharing on two units is based on similar governor droop curves for the real KVA load and similar voltage regulator droop curves for both generators for reactive KVAR Stable operation is where these droop curves cross. Droop means a slight slow down for the RPM as the load goes up. For KVAR share it means a slight reduction in voltage as the load goes up With 3 or more generators you start to get into a mini grid situation Getting 3, 4, 5 droop curves to cross at common point is difficult. To connect to a grid you assume the grid as rock solid and do not use a doop curve but use a flat curve to regulate both KVA and KVAR Units 3,4,5 etc are then protected with reverse power relays, both KVA reverse and KVAR reverse Not a simple subject. My experience is 99% of ship crews understand synchronizing and 15% understand the above!
I have watched some vedio where very longer in hight ship have damage the bridge trying to cross forcefully. It's high time to put toll tax on very larger ship and help ship to cross the bridge . Jay bharat.
Ya know, it was the lack of fenders around the bridge supports/columns that allowed the ship to hit it. Poor a$$ planning or dare i say corruption during the approval process?
I have read some commenting on whether terrorists or sabotage. If there was, at this time, the remotest possibility, could it have been someone in the Republican party, as the ship did veer to the right?
That seems odd. If you can't reverse the engine when the ship is going above a certain speed, then how do you stop the ship at all? Isn't the only way to stop a ship to reverse the engine?
There are no emergency brakes on a ship. That's just the way it is. Electric drive would be faster, but still not fast enough to stop the forward momentum of a ship in time. Ships should operated at bare steerageway in ports for that reason, in my opinion, at least until clear of bridge supports.
He didn't make any comment about how common it was, but he did say it was a thing that happens sometimes, and that's why they require a crew members to be on standby to drop anchor.
@@Walcingham509 my take away from what he said was that it was a thing that was common enough that they take physical steps to prepare for it happening because it might happen, as opposed to something incredibly unlikely but theoretical possible that they would deal with if and when it ever happened. The implication being that if you don't operate under the assumption that the engine might cut out at any moment and do things in a way that you can cope with that happening, then you are being negligent.
The Americans could have installed Pier Guards but they instead spent the money promoting Homosexuality. So God took away their bridge. HAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAA!
aaah..... actually.....if ships losing power is not an uncommon thing......WHY DO THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS HAVE TO PAY FOR THE REBUILDING ON THE FRANCIS SCOTT KEY BRIDGE!!!!!!!
I agree. It’s on the ship owner and operator, port that decided to let the ship depart after failing some equipment tests while docked, and the people who decided against improving the bridge protections after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster, after which several recommendations for bridge protection systems were made. They especially should have decided to improve them after the impact in 1980.
yeah, it is very exciting we are talking about the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the Fort McHenry channel! of course, we are talking about the War of 1812. we know Francis Scott Key was a United States lawyer visiting prisoners on a British ship and was told to stay on ship because the British were attacking. Fort McHenry was a very important US Fort, being Baltimore was the third largest city in the United States. Washington DC had been attacked and taken by the British. in fact, the White House was burned to the foundation! the General at Fort McHenry ordered a HUGE US flag to be made (I wish I could remember his name)! because, in his own words, he said, "I want the British to be able to find us!" the United States had NO NAVY! its merchants SANK THEIR own ships to form a blockaid of the British! THIS WORKED! the British fired 1200 contour rockets and they all fell short. the British were forced to land its soldiers where US sharpshooters picked them off, one by one! the US won an important battle and Francis Scott Key wrote an important poem about the event.
In the end it will be the insurance companies for MV Dali and others that pay for everything. After twenty years or so of lawsuits figuring who pays what to who. Since we need a cleared channel and new bridge way sooner than twenty years the US government is playing banker to get money on the table now.
Cant wait to see the interview with the Baltimore pilot.
If he's got an attorney he's not going to do any interviews. Joe Biden is already saying he will prosecute as if it's his decision.
Having crossed this bar (Ilwaco), when they close it, do not argue! It is the 2nd most dangerous in the world!
I have been on boats and ships all my life. On an ocean going tug we lost all power due to fuel feed problem. It happened suddenly. All diesels stopped, generators and main engines. Before restart the fuel feed had to be switched to back up system and all engines fuel systems purged of air. This took 45 minutes before a restart and this is with a highly trained crew, we did search and rescue missions. The weather was good and we were at sea so no navigation problems. Machinery can fail at any time.
especially when just being repaired....and someone authorized it to set sail... for Sinagpore oceans awayl ok... check 1 more box on my coinky-dink list!....Felix!
So i guess ships shouldn’t be left to navigate all alone in such situations, based on how usual it is...
@@JeepCherokeeful I would not say it is a usual thing. But if it happens in a high risk area, like this unprotected bridge. Then it is a disaster.
@@RodgerMudd I heard some channel mention fuel in port and out at sea are different, in America at least, and sometimes the transition is illegally performed early
@@JeepCherokeeful True; but that commonality creates their cover story....the KEYS bridge ship had 2 primary engines left/right, 2 backups -left/right & and 1 emergency manual..battery?backup..each side.. so we are to believe that 6 catastrophic failures.....as they snuck out of port in the middle of night due to tides w/o TUGS..... yep i got it?
Very nice report and presented in a pleasant way. Thank you guys.
Thanks Thomas!
Saw your previous report where you went out with the pilots. Very well presented and informative reports.
I really respect that you didn't try get him to comment more on Baltimore, and said so to the audience that he's not going to comment on a situation he's not intimately familiar with. Too many news shows would try to get that soundbyte anyway.
Thanks Jim- they do an amazing job!
That would be an interesting thing to see. I have to go look for that.
just Think about the price of these concrete “dolphins” …… Nothing compared to NOT having them in place🤷
Yes, but they were not common when this bridge was built. I will tell you what though. Construction of them is going to be a booming business in the next 40 years. In fact I would not be surprised if they become required by future codes. That's usually what happens. Engineers study disasters and mandate new requirements based on the failures. After the Northridge quake they started building stronger structures. After 9/11 they started mandating stronger structures. After the Oklahoma bombing they started mandating bollards and other types of features to keep buildings from getting too close to structures. Unfortunately the politicians control purse strings and have more power over what engineers require and engineers only make changes when they can do it.
re: "Think about the price of these concrete “dolphins” "
Now think about the piers/caissons that need to be sunk down to bedrock (just like the bridge piers) to take an impact from a large 150,000 ton ship at 8 knots w/o moving or brealing off, of course, the ship is going to be ripped open (like the Dali was, only worse ) sink on the spot.
I don't see any dolphins for the astoria bridge, that's scary
It does have fenders around the pylon footings, though.
Good addition to the conversation.
Good presentation from the pilot's point of view, but this video does not cover the one thing I wanted to know, in light of the Baltimore disaster: Are the fenders at the main supports of the Astoria bridge adequate to protect the bridge from a wayward ship?
That depends on when they where designed. They would have been designed for the largest ship, capable of docking it the harbor.
Nope
Thanks for this vid. I learned something today. It's not easy to learn on u tube for all the other agenda's.
I race Hydroplanes, scariest thing about it is towing the race trailer over the Astoria bridge on way to Lake Cullaby .
We usually have Timber fender systems on NW bridges . Container ships of today sorta defy the shape of a puny Dolphin at waterline.
The dead Prop Blocks Water from Rudder!!!
Yikes!...didn't see any "dolphins" guarding the Astoria Bridge's two main support columns...even less protection than there was for the FSK bridge in Baltimore! That's a disaster just waiting on some huge ship to lose power coming up or down the river near by!!!
Oh...I'm sorry; that's really a gold mine of opportunity for local maritime salvage, bridge rebuilt construction companies...duh!
Some exoert in the comments thinks those fenders they have would suffice. They are incredibly wrong . They would absolutely fail to stop a vessel that size or even half the mass. It shows you people do Not Understand physics
I’m a bar pilot. Different kind of bar though.
Yeah, and the people who use your services still wobble in the right condition.
What cases do you specialize in?
It would be sensible to have guidance tugs for the underbridge passage. Additional port charges .. so what .. bridge collapse costs so much more.
The anchors should be free falling nut mechanical so at least you can stop.
It’s all very well to have an experienced marine pilot, but if a vessel looses power and is in danger of collision with bridge supports, the pilot can’t do a thing. In Baltimore, the Dali had 2 tugs on departure from the berth, but they were let go before the vessel all the bridge. Who ordered that and why? If the Dali had tugs attached on approach and transiting the navigation channel under the bridge, there would not have been a collision.
Seems to be the norm there to just bring the ship out to the main channel and then the tugs depart once the ship starts getting up the speed. Maybe that will change after the channel reopens.
Duh.
And IF the mechanics at Baltimore port had Ben on top of things it would not have lost power.
been
Who says they got local mechanics involved rather than their own engineers on board? I haven't seen that reported.@@diane8937
A ship came out of harbour carrying a shipload of...bridge ⛳
Unfortunately ship power loss is not uncommon. The cause of power loss is frequently tied to parallel operation of two generators where the electric load is not properly shared. On AC generators both the real and reactive power need to be stabily shared. Sometimes this is called cross current compensation. Unstable load sharing results in tripouts of one and sometimes both generators. Unfortunately this happens all to often I am a retired Westinghous field service engineer and have made many calls where load sharing was a problem
Interesting. One chief engineer here on YT was saying that the bow thrusters required 3 generators to be running when the bow thrusters are started. I'm assuming that's starting current, and once running two might do?
@@uploadJ Yes, Starting current does not last long, putting on a 3rd generator adds unnessary conplication. Load sharing on two units is based on similar governor droop curves for the real KVA load and similar voltage regulator droop curves for both generators for reactive KVAR Stable operation is where these droop curves cross. Droop means a slight slow down for the RPM as the load goes up. For KVAR share it means a slight reduction in voltage as the load goes up With 3 or more generators you start to get into a mini grid situation Getting 3, 4, 5 droop curves to cross at common point is difficult. To connect to a grid you assume the grid as rock solid and do not use a doop curve but use a flat curve to regulate both KVA and KVAR Units 3,4,5 etc are then protected with reverse power relays, both KVA reverse and KVAR reverse Not a simple subject. My experience is 99% of ship crews understand synchronizing and 15% understand the above!
I think that bridge may need some Dolphins!
I have watched some vedio where very longer in hight ship have damage the bridge trying to cross forcefully.
It's high time to put toll tax on very larger ship and help ship to cross the bridge .
Jay bharat.
Ships losing power is not uncommon??? Is preventable. You hired a better engineer.
Ya know, it was the lack of fenders around the bridge supports/columns that allowed the ship to hit it. Poor a$$ planning or dare i say corruption during the approval process?
Nuclear-powered electric-motor cargo ships are very reliable
Yep right up to a melt down, or explosion like the 3 in Japan.
Did Godzilla appear?
How can they be reliable when they don't exist?
So one ship has a problen an it can destroy a bridge !!
I have read some commenting on whether terrorists or sabotage. If there was, at this time, the remotest possibility, could it have been someone in the Republican party, as the ship did veer to the right?
That seems odd. If you can't reverse the engine when the ship is going above a certain speed, then how do you stop the ship at all? Isn't the only way to stop a ship to reverse the engine?
There are no emergency brakes on a ship. That's just the way it is. Electric drive would be faster, but still not fast enough to stop the forward momentum of a ship in time. Ships should operated at bare steerageway in ports for that reason, in my opinion, at least until clear of bridge supports.
And when did he say that ships loosing power is not uncommon? Cause I didnt hear that and it looks like click bait to me..
He didn't make any comment about how common it was, but he did say it was a thing that happens sometimes, and that's why they require a crew members to be on standby to drop anchor.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 that's true but it's rare, not common. Journalists cheapening themselves by lying is MUCH more common.
@@Walcingham509 my take away from what he said was that it was a thing that was common enough that they take physical steps to prepare for it happening because it might happen, as opposed to something incredibly unlikely but theoretical possible that they would deal with if and when it ever happened. The implication being that if you don't operate under the assumption that the engine might cut out at any moment and do things in a way that you can cope with that happening, then you are being negligent.
If San Francisco had that bunch in charge at the Golden Gate in 1849 the Gold Rush would have been stopped in its tracks.
First, what is "The bar" and second, this pilot-Dan Jordan may be good at his job but he's bad at speaking. Get another pilot next time.
Hmmm, another ship looses power near a bridge & yet they aren't even suggesting terrorists attacks ?
The Americans could have installed Pier Guards but they instead spent the money promoting Homosexuality. So God took away their bridge. HAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAA!
I'll be buggherd. To do with rogering.
aaah..... actually.....if ships losing power is not an uncommon thing......WHY DO THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS HAVE TO PAY FOR THE REBUILDING ON THE FRANCIS SCOTT KEY BRIDGE!!!!!!!
I agree. It’s on the ship owner and operator, port that decided to let the ship depart after failing some equipment tests while docked, and the people who decided against improving the bridge protections after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster, after which several recommendations for bridge protection systems were made. They especially should have decided to improve them after the impact in 1980.
" oh say can you see...LOOKOUT...
yeah, it is very exciting we are talking about the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the Fort McHenry channel! of course, we are talking about the War of 1812. we know Francis Scott Key was a United States lawyer visiting prisoners on a British ship and was told to stay on ship because the British were attacking. Fort McHenry was a very important US Fort, being Baltimore was the third largest city in the United States. Washington DC had been attacked and taken by the British. in fact, the White House was burned to the foundation! the General at Fort McHenry ordered a HUGE US flag to be made (I wish I could remember his name)! because, in his own words, he said, "I want the British to be able to find us!" the United States had NO NAVY! its merchants SANK THEIR own ships to form a blockaid of the British! THIS WORKED! the British fired 1200 contour rockets and they all fell short. the British were forced to land its soldiers where US sharpshooters picked them off, one by one! the US won an important battle and Francis Scott Key wrote an important poem about the event.
In the end it will be the insurance companies for MV Dali and others that pay for everything. After twenty years or so of lawsuits figuring who pays what to who. Since we need a cleared channel and new bridge way sooner than twenty years the US government is playing banker to get money on the table now.
@@richardreid6377 thanks for the explanation!