this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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I know nothing about driving(?) boats, let alone a massive shipping container, but how the fuck does this happen. Captain have a few drinks or what?
It's not uncommon for these huge ships to temporarily lose power when going slowly like this, either from age, poor maintenance, or engines that just don't like being at low RPM for that long
The problem is, a few seconds of power loss at the wrong time gets you this
Oh great, everything working as intended then
That’s crazy. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often then.
I'm sorry you mean to tell me a few seconds of power losses is all it takes? I'd get like 10 or 15 minutes or whatever adrift but a few seconds is all that stands between clearing the bridge and just fucking taking it out?
If you watch the video, that's basically what happened
The ship loses power as it's making a turn into the channel to go between the pillars. By the time they get power restored - less than a minute later, I believe - the ship is drifting straight toward the pillar. These things take time to turn and get on a new course even at slow speed, so even if they went full reverse or full turn, it was too late
Oh so this was a "when" question not an "if" question
For what it's worth, this ship would have been controlled by a pilot from the port itself - when big ships enter ports a professional harbor pilot gets ferried out to them and does all the driving as they're familiar with the port.
That is such a nepotism rich job. I've first hand seen the big adult failsons that barely supervise the bridge pilot their own vessels in while collecting tens of thousands of dollars. For the military at least it's just a little noticed financial grift.
Depends on the port though. Some places it's a failson gig, other places it's pretty strictly controlled since the waters are tricky and there's bridges to avoid.
The position itself is necessary (though I'm sure there's plenty of failsons doing it out there) as waters around ports are often tricky and require local knowledge. It also ensures that the port itself has some level of control over the caliber of person captaining ships around it so that you're not getting some half-trained 14-year-old piloting a ship several hundred times larger than the landlocked village he grew up in around your critical infrastructure.
It looks like the rudder got stuck and they were unable to move it.
Container ships are massive. I don't know about the culture aboard Singaporean ships, but there's a bunch that have people overworked and understimulated which leads to them getting drunk and falling asleep on deck. "Drunk russian sailors crash into bridge" used to be a meme for a reason. On top of that ships are heavy as fuck and they're going in water so they'll just drift. Add in weird currents, having to dodge other ships, maybe a bowthruster that's fucked beyond usage and a couple other minor issues and you've got a recipe for an issue.
It's rare for these issues to culminate into problems in a port though, because the ship has to be sailed by a local navigator - a pilot who knows the waters (and someone we can trust not be too fucked up).