> Redundancy doesn't inherently have to cost a lot more. For example, if you have three engines driving three props, they can each be 1/3 as large, and not necessarily weigh much more if at all.
Yah, from aviation everyone moved to twins because tri-jets and four engine jets were too expensive in comparison. Things don't scale up or down perfectly; in practice you end up with more maintenance.
But it seems like here they lost steering, so maybe there's something better we can do to keep steering more of the time (the cutover to emergency steering gear isn't instantaneous or perfect).
Planes use two engines because they can land with one and smaller jet engines are about as complicated as larger ones. Ships have different constraints. For example, a lower output diesel engine could have fewer cylinders and correspondingly lower maintenance costs.
but two engine jets can fly on one engine for a while, however a one engine boat this big is an uncontrolled juggernaut when it has some speed and no engine because it doesn't have any redundancy.
> but two engine jets can fly on one engine for a while
Not just for a while. They must be able to do so indefinitely, until you run out of fuel. Of course, you are going to want to get it back on the ground long before that happens.
Yah, from aviation everyone moved to twins because tri-jets and four engine jets were too expensive in comparison. Things don't scale up or down perfectly; in practice you end up with more maintenance.
But it seems like here they lost steering, so maybe there's something better we can do to keep steering more of the time (the cutover to emergency steering gear isn't instantaneous or perfect).