Bad evening on the New River for someone.

Oh, that's LOTS of paperwork and phone calls.

S

Some time " lens parallax" gives a wrong impression? Dunno...but that sure does seem like its tied up beneath the bridge. Have they calculated deck height and the mast is outside the bridge's drop? Maybe they know the schedule? Must be a packed harbor to pick that spot...

Pretty sure they're not just tied up... The picture on this story shows more clearly what you can make out in the picture on the original post:

https://www.local10.com/news/local/fort-lauderdale/sailboat-mast-hits-bridge-in-fort-lauderdale

I am guessing that the captain hugged the wrong side of the bridge, not thinking about what is over his head. That bridge does not go completely verticle and sticks out a little, but I think that he would already have to be against the side boards for the mast to get close enough to hit it. He could have hit Andrews Ave also, and just was able to stop there, the story is not clear.

This actually made the 11pm news up here. Apparently the main mast (schooner I reckon) got tangled up in the railroad bridge, then something about “crewmember working on it was injured and drove himself to hospital “, but due to the poor quality of “news” today, it was in Ft. Lauderdale on the Tarpon River”. Smh.
I haven’t been down there in years but I’ve always thought that the New River, and read that the Brightline is now Virgin. How do you “drive yourself to the hospital from a boat? I know how to reach Jackson Hospital in Miami via a tender off the Miami River, but in Broward, how?
Now we know how to stop the trains though.

I refueled with Peterson today and the barge captain told me he was just ahead of that boat when it hit. He was simply too close to the fenders and hit.

There was a guy up the mast to sight height at other bridges who ended dangling in his harness ... I guess that s crew member who was injured.

So they were moving thru, and the tie up is after the accident?

The aftermath

Gotca. You'd think someone would have been lookin" up....

Even if they were. It is impossible to judge clearance looking straight up a 60-70 foot pole. I've gone under bridges where I KNEW I had 10-15 and not until we were UNDER it did I see we had clearance, but the difference between 5 and 20 is darn near impossible to see. In tight cases we've had people up there in bosuns chairs. Which, btw I understand these operators were doing.

Why did the snailbote hug close to the drawn bridge?
Why did not the snailbote ask the bridge operator to open the bridge further?

Two wild guesses from my experience of running sailboats up and down the New River (don’t know why it’s all of a sudden called the Tarpon River!) but current is one, and the Jungle Queen barreling down at you at full speed is the number one reason I’ve bounced on the bottom before. Single screw and draft, you aren’t backing out of the way, you just have to get out of the way. Is there a bridge tender for the FEC railroad bridge? It used to be controlled by somebody in Jacksonville.

Why always a derogatory term for sailboats? I don't go around calling powerboats stinkpots?

Just to bug you.

As long as it's not personal.

Not personal to you.

Been there, done that... once. Probably around 20 years ago... Seriously got my attention.

-Chris

So know I gotta know - what the heck is the Jungle Queen?

This is not an excuse, I run the river all of the time. All of the big boats are on the VHF radio, calling securities and broadcasting their position. Guess what type of boat is the biggest offender of not having a VHF radio on, on the New River?