Container Ship Struck Key Bridge in Baltimore, Bridge has Collapsed

[BND]

On 4/7/2024 at 8:04 AM, shipgeeks said:

I'm just happy that Baltimore never has 3- and 4-night cruises!  Apart from that, I'm very pleased with the variety of itineraries, most of which are 9 and 12-ish nights.

Where exactly would they go for 3-4 nights?   Not a single foreign port would  work.

Edited April 23 by BND

[smokeybandit]

34 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

Reviving this thread as there's going to be a limited access channel opening on Thursday.  

 

 

So it's quite possible the channel will be totally back open when the Vision returns to service.

Fortunately the timeline hasn't changed from the original. They still plan to have everything cleared by the end of May.

Edited April 23 by smokeybandit

[BND]

1 minute ago, smokeybandit said:

Fortunately the timeline hasn't changed. They still plan to have everything cleared by the end of May.

Which I've told a few people on FB. There are posters on a couple of pages that are worried about their July and later cruises.   I really wish people would learn to google so they might at least have a bit of a clue.

[smokeybandit]

1 minute ago, BND said:

Which I've told a few people on FB. There are posters on a couple of pages that are worried about their July and later cruises.   I really wish people would learn to google so they might at least have a bit of a clue.

Hey the cost of my 2025 Vision cruise dropped over $1000, so if that's due to people's concerns, I'm all for it!

[alfaeric]

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Hey the cost of my 2025 Vision cruise dropped over $1000, so if that's due to people's concerns, I'm all for it!

People over reacting isn't a bad thing sometimes.  

[TPKeller]

7 hours ago, alfaeric said:

Reviving this thread as there's going to be a limited access channel opening on Thursday.  

 

 

So it's quite possible the channel will be totally back open when the Vision returns to service.

 

He mentions a limit of 60,000 long tons, due to the possible perturbation of Dali by the water as the ship passes.  But cruise ships are not measured in weight or displacement, they are measured in volume, so it can be exceedingly difficult to find out what the weight of the two ships hoping to get back into Baltimore are.  There are way too many different ways ship sizes are labeled.  I suspect that both cruise ships exceed that 60,000 long ton limit.

 

Plus there are limits on the transition by the wind and the tide.  With a narrow channel, crosswinds above a certain speed will prevent the ship from adjusting their heading to counter balance the force.  (Long-time Bermuda cruisers will remember the crosswind limits on ships transiting the "Town Cut" channel in or out of St. Georges, for the very same reason.  The ship cannot "yaw" enough to counter the crosswind forces without scraping the sides of the channel.  According to Google Maps, Town Cut is about 290 feet wide.)

 

Those limits would put the extremely tight and unforgiving itinerary schedule of a cruise ship at great risk.

 

All these things add up to reduce the chances that cruise ships will return until they get Dali removed and the channel open wider.

 

Theron

 

 

Edited April 24 by TPKeller

[chengkp75]

7 hours ago, TPKeller said:

He mentions a limit of 60,000 long tons, due to the possible perturbation of Dali by the water as the ship passes.  But cruise ships are not measured in weight or displacement, they are measured in volume, so it can be exceedingly difficult to find out what the weight of the two ships hoping to get back into Baltimore are.  There are way too many different ways ship sizes are labeled.  I suspect that both cruise ships exceed that 60,000 long ton limit.

Considering that Oasis of the Seas, at 225,000 GT only weighs (displacement) about 100,000 metric tons (did they actually say "long tons", because about the only ships in the world that still measure deadweight or displacement in long tons are US government vessels).  While there is no direct correlation between displacement and gross tonnage (particularly when comparing two dissimilar types of ships like container ships and cruise ships), comparing cruise ship to cruise ship will give a "good enough" approximation.  With Vision (78,000 GT) and Legend (88,000 GT) being the ships in question, I would estimate that they displace no more than 35-45,000 metric tons (close to long tons).

 

Ships will almost definitely have tugs while transiting the salvage area for the reasons you give regarding wind and tide.  Speed will also be limited, as this limits the "canal" effect of a large ship in a small channel displacing all of the water in the channel (the argument against large cruise ships in Venice's canals) that could move the Dali, and the slower the ship is moving, the less effective the rudder is, so making tugs even more required.

 

One of the main objects of this early opening of the temporary channel is to get the ships trapped in Baltimore out, as most of these will be empty, so easily meeting the tonnage limitation.

 

As you say, cruises will not return to Baltimore until the Dali is moved, if for no other reason than the cruise terminal is the command center for the operation, and won't be closed down until after the Dali is moved. 

[chengkp75]

16 hours ago, shipgeeks said:

Anyone else besides Mr. Shipgeeks watching the recovery process for hours at a time?

I've got the livestream open on my toolbar, and look in several times a day, but don't spend too much time on it.

[smokeybandit]

This new channel is only open long enough to get ships OUT of Baltimore. Then it will be closed again until they can open the entire channel a month later.

[rafinmd]

I see several issues coming into play here.

 

1. I am convinced that the temporary channel will be viable well before Visions next cruise on May 25, so a return then should be viable from a navigational basis.

 

2.  I would hope Unified Command operations would be less intense by then so that it might be possible to at least have enough space available to run cruises but am not at all confident that is the case.

 

3.   If Vision cannot return on May 25 I see another problem.  When the bridge collapsed and Vision's cruise ended in Norfolk it technically violated PVSA by not visiting a distant foreign port when sailing between 2 US cities.  Forgiveness for that violation was not a difficult decision due to the emergency.  If Vision were to sail from Norfolk May 25 and return to Baltimore May 30 or in June I don't think forgiveness would be so clear cut.  I see a few options,

 

a. The first couple of cruises could sail from Nassau instead of Baltimore, possibly ending with a Nassau-Baltimore repo when all is ready.

 

b. Perhaps a waiver could be granted due to the cruise terminal being unavailable by US authorities and the ship could return to Baltimore when availability returns.

 

c\:  Once the port is open a couple of cruises could be combined to make one cruise long enough to visit the ABC Islands.  I guess one cruise could also be shortened to allow the ship to deadhead from Norflok to Baltimore.

 

Roy

[chengkp75]

40 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

If Vision were to sail from Norfolk May 25 and return to Baltimore May 30 or in June I don't think forgiveness would be so clear cut.

I think the ship will return to Norfolk, and then dead-head to Baltimore for the next cruise.

[chengkp75]

46 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

1. I am convinced that the temporary channel will be viable well before Visions next cruise on May 25, so a return then should be viable from a navigational basis.

 

Ships using the limited depth channel will be determined by the Captain of the Port of Baltimore (USCG) on an "as needed" basis.  I believe the cruise ships will fit into the "between 40k to 60k ton displacement" category, which will mean they will be evaluated by the CotP, weighing risk to reward as to whether they are allowed or not.  Not confident that the cruise ships will show enough reward to warrant the risk in traversing the channel.

Edited April 24 by chengkp75

[alfaeric]

5 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ships using the limited depth channel will be determined by the Captain of the Port of Baltimore (USCG) on an "as needed" basis.  I believe the cruise ships will fit into the "between 40k to 60k ton displacement" category, which will mean they will be evaluated by the CotP, weighing risk to reward as to whether they are allowed or not.  Not confident that the cruise ships will show enough reward to warrant the risk in traversing the channel.

If they keep on the scheduled clean up time, it will end up being near the end of May that the full channel should be available.  The team seems to be progressing well. 

 

It will be interesting to see how they take off the remaining bridge off the Dali, and how she reacts to that weight taken off.  It was in 2022 that another container ship went aground in the Chesapeake, so they have local experience.

[chengkp75]

15 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

It will be interesting to see how they take off the remaining bridge off the Dali, and how she reacts to that weight taken off.  It was in 2022 that another container ship went aground in the Chesapeake, so they have local experience.

Taking 4000 tons off the bow, along with maybe another 1000 tons of containers (no idea how many are laden and how many are empty) will certainly raise the bow, but not sure if it will be enough to come unstuck.  I thought I've seen in a few shots that they have run mooring lines from the Dali's bow to the SE dolphin (ahead of Dali and on the other side of the bridge) to help stabilize the bow, and the two anchors will hopefully have been recovered and reset directly under the bow.  As noted by the Unified Command, the "canal effect" of a large ship moving fast in a narrow, shallow channel will cause a whole lot of hydraulic force towards things on the sides of the channel (like the Dali), and this could cause her to lift up and maybe break free.

[smokeybandit]

They were planning on removing 178 containers. I don't know how many they ended up removing, but they haven't removed any for a couple days, so I don't know if they removed all 178 or just removed enough to give space for debris removal.

[Pratique]

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

I think the ship will return to Norfolk, and then dead-head to Baltimore for the next cruise.

I think that would affect the next cruise either starting a day later than scheduled or being cancelled altogether.

 

If the port continues to require tugs through the channel, that could also restrict the volume of traffic, making arrival/departure logistics more complex.

[TPKeller]

16 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

... (did they actually say "long tons", because about the only ships in the world that still measure deadweight or displacement in long tons are US government vessels).

 

 

Yep.  He was reading directly from Coast Guard Marine Safety Information Bulletin 043-24, which can be found here.  See third paragraph:

https://homeport.uscg.mil/Lists/Content/Attachments/89633/MSIB 043-24 Fort McHenry Limited Access Channel (35ftx300ft).pdf

 

Theron

[smokeybandit]

The 35 foot channel is now open and the stranded ships are lining up to get out. The first one is about to pass through the salvage site.

Edited April 25 by smokeybandit

[BND]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

The 35 foot channel is now open and the stranded ships are lining up to get out. The first one is about to pass through the salvage site.

And it closes again on Mon.  A couple of people on FB misheard or misread this info and decided the channel was back open for everyone, including cruise ships which is not true.

[BND]

16 hours ago, Pratique said:

I think that would affect the next cruise either starting a day later than scheduled or being cancelled altogether.

 

If the port continues to require tugs through the channel, that could also restrict the volume of traffic, making arrival/departure logistics more complex.

More than likely it would just shorten it. Our Vision cruise was cut short by a day last week due to a huge event going on in Norfolk at the Nauticus and terminal area.  It wouldn't be the first time a cruise has been shortened by a day or so. Reality is, a ship can get from Norfolk to Baltimore in about 8 hours so no need to cancel the next one if that happens.

[alfaeric]

54 minutes ago, BND said:

And it closes again on Mon.  A couple of people on FB misheard or misread this info and decided the channel was back open for everyone, including cruise ships which is not true.

But it does mean that they are on the proposed recovery schedule.  Meaning the whole channel should be open to shipping sometime near the end of May.  Roughly when the Vision gets back out of dry dock.

 

Which is really good.

 

Cruising is the least of their worries, but if they can get big container ships and car ships in and out "normally", then the couple of cruise ships will be easy.

[BND]

4 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

But it does mean that they are on the proposed recovery schedule.  Meaning the whole channel should be open to shipping sometime near the end of May.  Roughly when the Vision gets back out of dry dock.

 

Which is really good.

 

Cruising is the least of their worries, but if they can get big container ships and car ships in and out "normally", then the couple of cruise ships will be easy.

I didn't say anything different.  Point is, people reporting it's open to everything starting today are very incorrect.

[alfaeric]

So sorry to post an optimistic post that progress is being made.  Terrible of me.

 

And worse that adding to your post means that I'm arguing with you.  

[shipgeeks]

3 hours ago, BND said:

And it closes again on Mon.  A couple of people on FB misheard or misread this info and decided the channel was back open for everyone, including cruise ships which is not true.

But fb is such a great source for accurate information! How else would I have learned that cruise ship toilets don't have seats (just the rim), food is not included in the fare, and all passengers are required to buy lanyards, ducks, door decorations, and magnetic hooks.

[BND]

2 hours ago, alfaeric said:

So sorry to post an optimistic post that progress is being made.  Terrible of me.

 

And worse that adding to your post means that I'm arguing with you.  

Wouldn't want facts to get in the way of anyone's feelings.