I've driven a number of vessels, ranging from a 17' dinghy to a nuclear aircraft carrier and have a number of friends who have been involved in accidents one way or another. I have personally not had the conn during disaster, but have been an engineering officer and a legal officer responding to them, on my ship. To be honest, steering a ship under most conditions is not hard. The anxiety-provoking issues are 1) poor bridge team management (aka toxic leadership) and 2) engineering disasters, which this appears to be.
This
> Similar to a car that hits ice, wheels have arbitrary alignment when they reengage road, when power starts being delivered again, car swerves towards concrete barrier even with brakes. Driver with limited crash experience is mostly just panicking and stomping.
is almost certainly not the case on a large ship. The rudder is rotated hydraulically. Loss of power simply causes the rudder to stop moving, it's effectively "stuck". Some ships have manual override using a massive wrench, but it takes hours to move the rudder meaningfully in that situation.
As for this:
> How many pilots, trained or not, really have any experience with a 100,000 ton ship in a crash situation with responses where seconds matter?
Probably way more than you think. This is a significant reason why they seem so calm when they show up on the bridge. They just hopped from a relatively tiny pilot boat or tug onto a massive ship, possibly with significant sea state. This can be some Indiana Jones level crazy.
Pilots are very seasoned mariners who have seen multiple losses of power, and pretty much everything.
Now, back to point 1: bridge team. I have seen a captain the crew trusts execute flawless maneuvers even in exigent circumstances. I have seen a captain the same crew doesn't trust fail repeatedly at everyday things.
We don't have the whole story yet. What happened on the bridge? What happened in the plant? Why did power drop? Did they flood an online generator with diesel oil? I ask because I've seen that happen. Did they blow an exhaust manifold? Seen that. Did they trip the plant by getting preparatory checklist work backward? Seen that. Did they go all back full immediately? Possible that they couldn't ring the order if they dropped power. Was there panic on the bridge (bad sign) or was there grim fortitude to process checklists that would never help (better sign). In any case, no doubt the captain is done. Probably happy to never drive a ship again after that, tbh.
Since you have experience in boats of this magnitude, did it make sense not to have tugs minding the ship until it passes under the bridge since it's pretty obvious through common sense what the alternative is when there is a catastrophic engine failure? Would tugs even help if they'd been around during a catastrophic failure of the boat engine(s) making my question a stupid, ignorant one?
I don't know the rules for the Port of Baltimore, but tugs aren't generally required for channel transit. It's the berthing where tugs are generally used: the ship needs lateral thrust to lay alongside a pier or quay wall. Some ships have bow thrusters or APUs but a ship this size would definitely have tugs for the mooring.
Quite amazing videos. I've no experience in this domain and so it makes me immediately wonder - is there no risk of substantial damage from those ships colliding due to a wave hitting e.g. the smaller ship just right and pushing it hard against the larger one?
I am not an expert, but clearly pilot boats must be built to take a lot of punishment. And they don’t have the mass to damage the big ship beyond the paint layer.
I agree that it seems that must be the case. I'm just curious where my assumptions break down - whether I'm overestimating the mass of the pilot boat, overestimating the force a single perfect wave can impose, or underestimating the thickness of these ships' hulls.
I've just always be impressed by the amount of energy that boats impart when they collide with anything. Like in this case, the entire bridge was brought down by a collision at under 8knots. Obviously that ship had orders of magnitude greater mass than the little pilot boat, but presumably you want to avoid even dinging up the larger ship, and so that's an orders of magnitude smaller goal as well.
Well, here’s a story to give you an idea. In November 2018, a frigate collided with an oil tanker on the Norwegian coast. It was only a glancing collision, involving the starboard side of the frigate and the bow of the tanker. The frigate was severely damaged, basically having much of the starboard side ripped open, and it eventually sank. You could hardly see any damage to the tanker. (Luckily, or perhaps miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured.)
Back to the pilot boat: Steering one in heavy seas when trying to deliver or recover a pilot is clearly a difficult art. But at least in the videos shown, there doesn’t seem to be much of an impact between the vessels. I am sure that is in part due to the skill of the steersman. Besides, I am sure the pilot boat will have permanently mounted fenders all around.
This
> Similar to a car that hits ice, wheels have arbitrary alignment when they reengage road, when power starts being delivered again, car swerves towards concrete barrier even with brakes. Driver with limited crash experience is mostly just panicking and stomping.
is almost certainly not the case on a large ship. The rudder is rotated hydraulically. Loss of power simply causes the rudder to stop moving, it's effectively "stuck". Some ships have manual override using a massive wrench, but it takes hours to move the rudder meaningfully in that situation.
As for this:
> How many pilots, trained or not, really have any experience with a 100,000 ton ship in a crash situation with responses where seconds matter?
Probably way more than you think. This is a significant reason why they seem so calm when they show up on the bridge. They just hopped from a relatively tiny pilot boat or tug onto a massive ship, possibly with significant sea state. This can be some Indiana Jones level crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18VF8WXWfZw
https://youtu.be/C8ER9Ladqg4?si=Ijwhu90iJi8WPAas&t=226
Pilots are very seasoned mariners who have seen multiple losses of power, and pretty much everything.
Now, back to point 1: bridge team. I have seen a captain the crew trusts execute flawless maneuvers even in exigent circumstances. I have seen a captain the same crew doesn't trust fail repeatedly at everyday things.
We don't have the whole story yet. What happened on the bridge? What happened in the plant? Why did power drop? Did they flood an online generator with diesel oil? I ask because I've seen that happen. Did they blow an exhaust manifold? Seen that. Did they trip the plant by getting preparatory checklist work backward? Seen that. Did they go all back full immediately? Possible that they couldn't ring the order if they dropped power. Was there panic on the bridge (bad sign) or was there grim fortitude to process checklists that would never help (better sign). In any case, no doubt the captain is done. Probably happy to never drive a ship again after that, tbh.