chengkp75

That would be a question for the USCG Captain of the Port, Baltimore, who sets those requirements.

Until the channel is 100% cleared of debris by the Corps of Engineers, no ship will traverse it, but once clear, there will be no limitation on number of ships.

As I said, Synergy is the operator, so their P&I insurance will need to cover the expenses of the bridge repair. I have to apologize that I'm not answering in full, I'm getting the run-around from the power company about our loss of power Saturday night in the ice storm up here, and still no power, and a blocked driveway.

Just looked at a few posts here, been mainly on 4 other threads, mainly concentrating on the RCI forum. Maersk is the charterer, but this was not a "bareboat charter" to Maersk, where Maersk would have supplied the crew and taken control of all operations of the ship. Instead Maersk merely chartered the ship from Synergy Marine merely to carry cargo for Maersk, so Synergy is responsible if they have bareboat chartered the ship from the owner Grace Ocean.

Cruise fares basically cover the overhead. Onboard spending gives the profit.

Not sure about her "vintage" as she is only 9 years old. All ships are required to have two steering systems in order to provide redundancy. They are identical electro-hydraulic systems, one powered from the main switchboard, and one powered from the emergency switchboard. The emergency switchboard is powered from the main switchboard under normal conditions, but when the main switchboard goes black, the emergency switchboard will disconnect, the emergency generator will start, and provide power to all the emergency circuits, including the one steering motor. A hydraulic accumulator that would be large enough to move a rudder on a ship of that size (medium-large) for anything more than a few moments would be the size of a couple of the shipping containers it has on deck.

While the MDOT maintains the bridge, and will be responsible for the rebuilding, the US Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the shipping channel under the Key bridge, so they will be the lead agency involved in clearing the wreckage.

And, I saw my first knowledge of this incident at 0530 Eastern, and found out at that time that there were only 8 potential casualties.

There was likely no questions about the ship's generators. A fuel pump can seize on an engine at any time (especially when the load changes from what the engine has been experiencing for a while (like going from just hotel load in port to using thrusters). A seized fuel pump can drag the plant down to blackout, even with another generator online, as there would be while under pilot's orders.

Yes, it is fairly obvious from the video that the ship lost all power (blackout). I won't repeat the answers I posted on the RCI board, anyone interested can look there. Maritime investigations have moved away from "placing blame" decades ago. It is felt that if persons involved in incidents know that if they followed the company's SMS (Safety Management System) policies and procedures, that they will not be blamed for incidents happening, then investigators can more likely get truthful information from those involved in the incident. The purpose of the investigation is to determine what went wrong, and to determine what changes to the SMS system need to be made to prevent the incident from happening again. Having said that, the shipowner is always responsible for any allision with a shore facility, and the cost of damages from that allision.

The resumption of cruising, just like commercial shipping, will not depend on rebuilding the bridge, only on removing the debris from the shipping channel, not even the outer arches which are outside the channel. But, yes, it will take 2-4 months to accomplish that.

Weeks Marine has a 500 ton salvage crane barge (Weeks 533) based in NJ, though it is currently in Boston.

The ship sounded a Mayday, and bridge officials were able to stop vehicle traffic in time. The people on the bridge appear to be DOT workers filling potholes.

Could be done (though slower for provisions) by barge while at anchor.

9 days? No way. Ships would not want to chance a "potentially foul" channel (meaning not all the debris has been cleared). It is going to take 9 days to contract with salvage/dredging barges, let alone get them moved to Baltimore.

Isn't Sparrows Point still a Superfund toxic waste site?

Not sure there is a difference, since both are on "navigable waters" of the US, and therefore under Federal jurisdiction, and Federal environmental laws.

A total of 7 or 8 people went into the harbor, and two have been rescued. Hardly massive casualties. Nope. Loss of power. Nothing caught fire, but the ship did lose power. Bingo. The whole port is closed now. Baltimore is the largest port for car imports on the East coast. if they can get the engineering done by the end of the year, I would be amazed. 7 knots is about "slow ahead" for a ship like that. The only slower speed is "dead slow ahead", which is still about 5 knots. From what I see in the video, and from what I remember from sailing under the Key bridge for years, they never learned from Florida's Sunshine Skyway bridge (that got hit by a ship a couple decades ago), and did not provide a sufficiently sized caisson (island surrounded by concrete pilings) to prevent a ship from striking the bridge supports.

As I've said above, lightning strikes on ships happen frequently, but if it strikes part of the ship's steel structure, it passes directly through the hull to the sea, without damaging anything. However, fiberglass is not a good conductor of electricity, so the power of the lightning is dissipated in the fiberglass, causing it to heat up and catch fire.

I've sailed under the Key bridge many, many times, but I never thought about the lack of fendering, dolphins, or caissons to prevent allisions between ships and the bridge. Other bridges that have been hit (Florida's Sunshine Skyway bridge) have built caissons (like small islands with concrete fendering) around the bridge supports, so that even if a ship strikes the caisson directly, it cannot reach the bridge support. From what I see, they have a small caisson at the bridge support, and another ahead of that, but that one has a power line tower on it, which brings its own problems if struck.

There are three diesel generator sets that provide electricity to the ship. These generators are not connected to the propeller in any way. There would have been two of the three generators on line while in the port. The "main engine" that propels the propeller does require electricity to operate it's various automation features. So, without electrical power, the engine will stop. It can be run "manually" without electricity, but it takes time to transfer control to the local control stand physically on the engine, but this is a difficult thing to do, especially at low speed, and another reason for continued black smoke, as the throttle is less precise than the electric governor, and the turbocharger has a hard time providing enough air for complete combustion. So, even when the lights came back on the ship, that does not mean the main engine was able to run, or running at that time.

And, slightly of a lower priority (sarcasm), is the fact that Baltimore is the 9th largest port in the US, and the largest port for importation of cars on the East Coast. Then there is the container traffic, which is going to affect the US economy for a few months.

I don't know who this blogger is, or what his maritime experience is, but it has some errors in his analysis. The most glaring error is when he says that the black smoke coming from the ship indicates an "engine problem". This is not correct. The type of diesel engines used on ships like this, are connected directly to the propeller, and are required to stop whenever the propeller is needed to be stopped, or reversed. Therefore, the engine needs to stop and restart when going from ahead to astern, and this always results in a cloud of black smoke when the engine starts. Also, if the engine is immediately placed to a "full astern" bell, the black smoke will continue until the turbocharger catches up with the air needed by the engine at that high load. And, the engine that drives the propeller is not the engine that provides electricity to the ship, so when the generator engine failed, causing the black out, the "main engine" that drives the propeller stops as well, so when power comes back on, it restarts, causing the black smoke again. He also claims that by backing down (going stern to stop the ship), the ship will veer to one side or another (and this is correct), but that if they continued to allow the ship to glide forward without propulsion, that they would have had "some control". This is also not correct. A traditional rudder loses effectiveness when the speed of the ship through the water is less than 5 knots (that's why ships use thrusters to swing ships at the dock, and tugs to push the ship when operating at low speed along the dock). So, there would have been almost no benefit from the rudder when coasting forward. Steering would also not be lost when the power went out. One of the two electro-hydraulic steering systems is powered by the emergency generator (which comes on automatically when the ship loses power), and when in confined waters (under a pilot's orders), this is the steering system that would have been in use, just because this could have happened. I can't remember other things he said, but it may come to me later.

Delaware Memorial Bridge has a clearance of 174 feet. Vision class ships are 165-170 feet (not quite sure), and they won't let a ship under unless there is a minimum clearance of 10-12 feet. And, this will vary with tides.

That is even further upriver, and one more bridge, than the old Philly cruise terminal at the Navy Yard. The Kennedy had to remove most of her masts just to get to the Navy Yard.