Container Ship Hits Baltimore Bridge

This picture found online shows 4 round structures too far from the bridge to protect it

Just watched a video viewing the ship/bridge from the west, ships side. The fender I thought the ship clobbered was UN-touched and far away from the ship.
UseLess dust collector.



IMO, if installed closer to the channel, may have been able to push the bow over away from the bridge support.
I kind of think that is what they are there for.

Again asking for a real bridge designer to help with my red-neck reasoning.

If that was her track, how was she trying to make a hard starboard turn throughout the two blackouts.

There are a few foundational islands for overhead high voltage poles.

I see the fenders you're referring to. I believe their purpose is to protect this type of impact from a ship that is only mildly straying. I don't understand why the ships don't have an escort beyond harm's way. I'm still somewhat confused by what I first witnessed as the ship's path as it first lost power.

Mildly straying?? This was pretty mild, just a few degrees off.

Out of harms way when the tugs pulled away 15 minutes earlier. Once a ship has some speed, tugs can not come close again.
Say even if a tug was available to intercept the ship, it probably would of turned into a suicide mission. At 7.5 kts, the tug may have been sucked under the ship.

I watched another video that may shed some light on this.
1, falling tide, low but current still flowing out.
2, Wind on her port beam.
3, The big one; Bank suction/pressure. There was another channel (deep water) to her stb rite after she lost power.
With less bank pressure on her she would turn to stb naturally.
4, Emergency power did not help rudder control. Even when the lights came on, steaming light did not, NUC..

If emergency power would at least offer rudder control, she may of corrected and avoided the bridge.

Just before she hit, the bow did start to move back to port, just way to late.
Not sure if rudder control was found or bank pressure was pushing her back to deeper water.

Very much agreed brother.
But as we do here is SWAG and speculate, hopefully in a peaceful manner.
It will be over a year before an official (USCG and/or NTSB) statement will be released.

It is interesting that when stuff hits a fan and we SWAG and speculate on past stuff, our conclusions are not far off from the final reports.

Absolutely heartbreaking! The workers on the bridge had no chance and may not have even recognized the danger in time to try and evacuate the area. One can only imagine what was taking place on the ship's command bridge as they are drifting toward the structure at 8kts and are powerless to change course or slow the ship. The Pilot who put out the Mayday call leading to the closure of the bridge deserves credit for saving many lives.

I suspect there are many more bridges that could suffer the same fate with a direct hit such this. My fear is that as this tragedy fades, we won't see any significant change is how the bridges are constructed or protected from this sort of disaster.

I have a hunch those smaller structures were never designed to protect the bridge. I believe they were former bases for the high voltage lines that appear to have moved to the larger base locations in the past few years. They appear to have recently been relocated in 2020-2021, and you can see that work happening in aerials of 5/2021.

What I thought were big fenders in my post #15 pictures were the current power line tower bases.

Some tid-bits I have discovered;
50 year old bridge. Long before these larger ships were designed and built.
Fenders were installed just a lil after the bridge, still long before these larger ships were designed and built.

The ports just finished spending hundreds of millions of dollars improving the docks, cranes & infrastructure for even the bigger ships.

Not a dime was spent on the bridge. Somewhere, some how I would think somebody would of thought; Bigger ships, we need bigger fenders.

What part of big government don’t you understand ? At best problems are addressed years if not decades later. In the wake of the Tampa accident you d think other states and the federal government would have realized bridges over waterways leading to busy ports needed protection. But many states have more important priorities than infrastructure…. Things like DEI, and social issues.

I understand well, preacher.
Many of us here in the choir, hear you, very well.

I think this youtube video discussing the timeline of the event and relevant ship operations is very useful. Much better that media talking heads speculation.