Bridge destroyed by a containership

[Rodney Mills]

Corrientes re #13-#15-#28

The casualties involved in the bridge tragedy were not Indian nationals as you repeatedly stated. Eight men were performing maintenance duties on the bridge road surface filling potholes, all were Hispanics coming from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Two survived, two bodies have been recovered, and four are still missing presumed dead, their bodies are presumed trapped in the wreckage.

Rodney Mills

Sadly four of them were fathers of newborns, all leave wives and youg children.

[corrientes]

I was not referring to the maintenance men on the bridge. I was replying to earlier posts claiming that other nationals were in the "crew" of the vessel.

[John Arton]

If the loss of propulsion does turn out to have been caused by poor quality bunkers taken on either in Baltimore or at a previous port then the chief engineer and/or the captain have made a bit of a balls up. The operators of the ship appear to be a reputable outfit and they and maersk will have a procedure in their safety management system to cover bunkers and quality testing.
My last outfit had a ruling that at all times sufficient bunkers remained on board for a certain number of days steaming at full power this also allowed for time required for analysis by an independent testing outfit to receive,test and report back to the ship as to the state of the received bunkers and any recommendations on its use, i.e temperature to heat it too before purification. Only when that quality report was received would the chief engineer start using those bunkers. Most, if not all, classification societies run a fuel testing program with results being available within hours of the bunker samples being received at their accredited testing station. When bunkering either the bunkering outfit or the chief engineer himself will take samples, one for retention on board and one to be dispatched to the testing outfit with the bunkering outfit also retaining a sample.
Rgds
J.A

[Rodney Mills]

Sorry. I thought you were referring to the loss of life. Cheers, Rodney

- - - Updated - - -

To Corrientes. My apologies, I thought you were referring to the casualties. Cheers, Rodney Mills

[j.sabourn]

#53 Used to be 30% reserve as to bunkers in my days which was pretty standard on all British ships that I sailed on. Pity the Fresh water wasn’t the same. But they could always use the BOT mininum allowances as an excuse for people growing beards and failing to shower. Half the trouble re shortage of F.W. Was the company servants who signed off on the charter party agreement and gave unreasonable total deadweight lifts with the plus or minus 5% . To keep within those limits or lose the charter the fresh water suffered if a surveyor present on completion of loading. JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

My screen shot is a picture of the RFA Wave Baron that I served on, looking at that ship which was say around 5,000tons and then comparing it to the tonnage of the ship that hit the Baltimore bridge, no wonder she made such a mess.
Des

[Ken Atkinson]

As a former chief engineer viewing events the loss of electricity would lead to lubricating oil pump failure and the main engine shutting down. Normally there would be two alternators sharing power where one could cope with the load. I thought at first the load sharing was not working but one alternator failing should not have been a problem so I believe both alternators failed. When the lights came on again indicating a stand-by alternator had started and as the stand-by pumps took over the main engine could reset and start picking up revs hence the black smoke. When the lights i.e. electricity failed a second time the inevitable allision occurred. I believe until persuaded otherwise that the fuel supply to the alternators failed so after two originals failed the third would only have the fuel in it's own rail. My only similar experience was a heavy sea carrying away the vent for the dirty diesel bunker tank so the sea water was added. As the transfer pump sent the water to the dirty tank the purifier transferred water to the clean ready use tank until the lights went out and stand-by alternators failed in turn. A plank wedged under the drain valves to get rid of the water until we reached the diesel and bled the fuel system.

[John Arton]

With the imo introducing the low sulphur fuel and NOX emissions regulations I was wondering what fuel the vessel was using for its generators.
Does M.D.O meet the emissions regulations for vessels in port.
On my last ship in 2008 in port and when in the special areas denoted by MARPOL, we used to use gas oil to power the generators.
Rgds
J.A

[Bob Rowson]

Just saw on the news a containership has hit a bridge near Baltimore and destroyed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaMDoToEo4k

WHERE WERE THE ATTENDANT TUGS?? with the risk so susceptable it defies belief!
Bob Rowson. 785766

[Des Taff Jenkins]

That is two major disasters with these oversize ships in a short space of time, the one in the Suez caused enough damage commercially this one even greater, I wonder when they will wake up and one cut the size of these ships, and two it will give more seamen jobs. And this does not take into account the heavy loss of containers at sea.
Des