Funny, I swore it was ISIS.

Have they finished repairs on that Bay bridge that were supposed to make it much more immune to earthquakes?

Yeah, but there is a plumber on Facebook who seems to have a lot of experience as a structural engineer, harbor pilot, and cyber-terrorism expert and he says that this was an intentional ramming.

That Youtube channel link is really helpful.
It's shocking to see a couple of vehicles speed over that bridge seconds before the ship collapses it.

I still haven't heard. Were those containers full or empty?

Our transportation secretary made an appearance, (where has he been?) and made a ridiculous statement, that the bridge was a "cathedral of American infrastructure". A billion Chinese spit their tea out upon hearing that. If anything, just proves how our infrastructure is so bad and unsuited to the modern world that this could happen. Look at the picture of that monster ship. They are all over the world now, but didn't really exist forty to fifty years ago. That bridge was built in 1977, before anybody even considered the state of containerized shipping as it exists today. It's a technology that's changed the world, but, unfortunately, most of the world needs serious ports to accommodate them. That was an accident just waiting to happen, but I guess the only good thing to come out of this is a new, giant cargo ship resistant bridge. Or, move that port to the other side of that bridge. Maybe we should hire the Chinese to sort all of that out. They're pretty good at that.

The insurance side will be fascinating and determination of liability. The laws are also pretty unique.




Titanic Law Helps Ship Owner Limit Bridge Collapse Liability (2)
2024-03-27 12:17:51.343 GMT


By Ethan M Steinberg, Chris Dolmetsch and Matthew Griffin
(Bloomberg) -- The owner of the ship that rammed into a
Baltimore bridge could face hundreds of millions of dollars in
damage claims after the accident sent vehicles plunging into the
water and threw the eastern US transportation network into
chaos.
But legal experts said there is a path for reducing
liability under an obscure 19th-century law once invoked by the
owner of the Titanic to limit its payout for the 1912 sinking.
At the center of the legal fallout will be Singapore-based
Grace Ocean, owner of the container ship Dali that crashed
Tuesday into the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the start of a
voyage chartered by the shipping giant Maersk.

Stationary Objects

The company could face a bevy of lawsuits from multiple
directions, including from the bridge’s owner and the families
of six workers who were presumed dead after a search in the
Patapsco River.
Damages claims are likely to fall on the ship owner and not
the agency that operates the bridge, since stationary objects
aren’t typically at fault if a moving vessel hits them, said
Michael Sturley, a maritime law expert at the University of
Texas at Austin’s School of Law.
But an 1851 law could lower the exposure to tens of
millions of dollars by capping the ship owner’s liability at how
much the vessel is worth after the crash, plus any earnings it
collected from carrying the freight on board, said Martin
Davies, the director of Tulane University’s Maritime Law Center.

The law was passed initially to prevent shipping giants
from suffering steep and insurmountable losses from disasters at
sea. An eight-figure sum, while still hefty, would amount to
“considerably less” than the full claims total, Davies said.

‘Very Unusual’

“It’s a very unusual casualty in one respect, particularly
because of this footage of the whole bridge falling down,”
Davies said. “But in many ways, it’s not unusual, because ships
collide and there’s damage and there’s injury all the time.”
Lawrence B. Brennan, an adjunct professor of law at Fordham
University School of Law in New York and an expert on admiralty
and maritime law, said he assumes the Dali’s operator will
shortly begin a proceeding in the US under the 1851 law, which
was cited by the Titanic’s owner in a Supreme Court case more
than a century ago.
The ship owner’s insurance would help the company through
the legal risks. About 90% of the world’s ocean-bound cargo is
insured by an arm of the International Group of Protection and
Indemnity Clubs, which oversees the 12 major mutual insurance
associations for ship owners.
A key to determining any insurance claims will be proving
whether the accident was caused by negligence, and if so by
whom, or mechanical failure, according to Bloomberg
Intelligence. The ship is insured by the Britannia Protection
and Indemnity Club, which is a mutual insurance association
that’s owned by shipping companies. It’s one of the dozen clubs
that make up the International Group of P&I Clubs.
That gives the policies related to the Dali a total insured
limit of about $3 billion, a sizable sum but one that “would be
very manageable for the global reinsurance market,” Bloomberg
Intelligence analysts Matthew Palazola and Charles Graham said
in a note.
“We are working closely with the ship manager and relevant
authorities to establish the facts and to help ensure that this
situation is dealt with quickly and professionally,” Britannia P&I
said.
Bloomberg Intelligence also said Maersk may not be liable
as the Danish company had no crew on board and the ship was
operated by a charter company.
“Maritime insurance will likely cover some of the costs,
yet uncertainty around the total liabilities and who will pay
for them will likely weigh on Maersk’s spreads in the near
term,” said Stephane Kovatchev, a credit analyst with Bloomberg
Intelligence.

I wonder what level of hardening would be required to protect against 100,000 tons moving at a speed of a few knots. Something, either the shop or the protective gear, needs to absorb a huge amount of energy.

Maritime ambulance chasers.

I wouldn't worry too much about losses to the families of those killed. That won't be too much. May sound cruel, but, they were repairing pot holes. Their lives values will be bargained down. It's the state and federal government, and the Port of Baltimore, if they decide to sue, hooboy, that's going to be some kind of settlement. There's a lot of lawyers who are going to make life changing sums for all that.

I'm thinking a series of structures surrounding the pylons. May not fully stop the boat, but absorb a lot of the energy before it gets to the bridge.

Some sort of crumple zone maybe.

I heard a captain of one of those ships this morning say it takes about a mile to full stop one. That's a hella lot of energy.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/c...HR7Y3YJOGOY3A/

Something like a more thorough tug escort seems more appropriate than trying to design the bridge to withstand the hulk throwing the world trade center at it. There are no shortage of experts in the news saying "ship proofing" the bridge is like trying to build a bridge that the military can't destroy.

Once again from that article we are right back to "Shipping companies don't like to pay for the escort".

The ship was escorted part of the way and then waved them off.

To me the article reads like the tug company is trying to be diplomatic and cover their bases so won't say for sure whether their tugs could have stopped it.

There are a bunch of tugs where if you take two of them their combined pull/engine power is more than the Dali's powerplant and they wouldn't have had to stop it, just nudge it.

Have you seen how far aground ships can get? Even empty (which the Dali was not), that's a LOT of mass to slow down.

I guess the question is how much slower would the ship need to be to avoid a total collapse of the bridge?

And the Dali swerved pretty close to the bridge. Can we build crash structures close enough to take up the impact, but not also be pushed into the bridge.

No idea on the answers. But, it's definitely not as trivial as "just add some sand or a really big pylon".

I have heard of this guy! I understand that he's also got multiple degrees and post-doc work in public health, epidemiology, immunology.....:eek:

Don't forget international relations and war strategy in eastern Europe.

Well, as I said, move the port to the other side of that bridge. New York no longer has large boats come into the harbor beyond the Verrazano, the modern port was established out in Elizabeth. Sure, a few cruise ships, but the real monsters in that business dock in Florida.

I'm old enough to remember when most eastern shipping came into the New York ports, but, they broke that very powerful union by building up the Baltimore port. Unfortunately, if they could go back in time, they wouldn't have put that bridge there.