Wanted: Experienced ship's Master and Harbour pilot, Pusan KR

The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
M

MRRiley

Senior Member
Joined
May 27, 2015
Messages
243
Location
US
Container ship MILANO BRIDGE in the afternoon Apr 6 contacted gantry crane 85 at Busan New Port container terminal while proceeding to berth 7 with pilot on board, then she contacted berthed container ship SEASPAN GANGES, and moving on momentum further on, contacted cranes 81 and 84. Crane 85 collapsed, cranes 81 and 84 were derailed, crane 85 operator was slightly injured.

Probably should have had the tugs made up and backed off the throttle a tiny bit sooner rather than trying to power through it. Wow!!:eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RxSTdzNCY
 
Oooopppss!

caught-on-camera-containership-takes-out-crane-in-busan-south-korea

https://gcaptain.com/caught-on-camera-containership-takes-out-crane-in-busan-south-korea/
 
If it's like the US, the pilot's union will protect him and the captain will take the heat.
 
There are some Unlimited Masters on here so I will defer to them, but that sure looks like a major mechanical with the main engine somehow stuck in forward. It’s dragging the aft tug around like a toy in a bath tub.
 
A quick read of reports says the ship was proceeding to Berth 7 when this happened, does not say where berth 7 is in relation to the small ship it didn't hit or the one further down that it did hit.

A few comments / observations -

1) Ship is 1200' LOA and is very light draft, probably empty.

2) Around 0:25 mark you can see propeller starting to go astern, prior to
that it was going ahead, rudder is still to Stbd.

3) Around 0:50 you can see the combined forces of propeller torque and
on dock wind - look a stack exhaust - as things go crunch.

Hard to say why the ship was that close to the dock at that speed IF it was
going to berth in the empty berth just past the small ship.

You can see 2 tugs in the video both pulling as hard as possible while
trying stay as perpendicular as possible to the ship.

Even if each tugs were around 100T. bollard pull it's clear that wasn't near
enough for the situation.
 
It's interesting, the first time I watched it it appeared the tugs were not made up, clearly that was not correct.

I wonder if they'd caught it early enough, it was a pretty hot approach, if he'd gotten the fwd tug around the bow to push it stbd, he might have had the capital tug aft, push the stern port, getting it through before impact with the crane. Now of course that puts the fwd tug in a very precarious position, on the port bow headed rapidly towards the stern of another container ship.

As it was it was, the aft tug at 90 or 110 degrees was not allowing the stern to swing through, locking them into the exact result they were trying to avoid. Pretty decent on setting wind based on the stack, though not a lot of white caps.

It will make great read as the investigation proceeds and then training simulation fodder for quite a while. I'll bet the bridge was chaotic. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt.
 
Ship looked very light, prop partly out of the water. Prop won't get much bite like that, especially in astern direction. And once in astern, rudder basically useless.

Not ballasted enough?? Harbor too shallow to be ballasted deeper? Can't imagine that being it a full-on cargo port..
 
Rather than assuming everyone involved is an idiot and incompetent, and that any fool could have done things properly, perhaps we should assume something went horribly wrong and that everyone was doing all they possibly could to avoid/minimize the disaster.
 
twistedtree said:
Rather than assuming everyone involved is an idiot and incompetent, and that any fool could have done things properly, perhaps we should assume something went horribly wrong and that everyone was doing all they possibly could to avoid/minimize the disaster.
Click to expand...

Come on now TT. You know they did that just for YouTube and TF members !!
Hold my beer...
 
At some point in time (prior to the video footage) in the vessels transit some event or events occurred (possibly human and/or mechanical)
which placed the vessel in a situation that was non-recoverable.

A ship of that size near a berth is typically moving very slowly if
not almost stopped.

Even though the tugs are "tractor" tugs, when a vessel still has
speed through the water some of the tugs power is being used to "stay up"
with the ship, which further reduces it pulling power, at a time when it's
most needed.
 
twistedtree said:
Rather than assuming everyone involved is an idiot and incompetent, and that any fool could have done things properly, perhaps we should assume something went horribly wrong and that everyone was doing all they possibly could to avoid/minimize the disaster.
Click to expand...

My speculation, if that's what you're referring to, was not of incompetence, rather spitballing what else they might have done in the rapidly developing situation. From my experience docking using tugs, at the speed they were going there was clearly some sort of mechanical situation, they had two options, drop an anchor or use the tugs vectors to their advantage. It doesn't appear to me, they had enough time to accomplish that. Of course it's always easy to arm-chair QB.

As my old LHA Co used to say, "I've never gone so fast as being 2 knots over where I want to be around the pier." He was a F18 guy....
 
Besides the pilot losing it, the breaking tug wasn't powerful enough. In the US, the tugs in that position have to be able to stop the vessel within the vessels length and they use kevlar lines. We should have been able to see the tug noticeably slow the ship.

The prop probably hit the dock and was damaged, too. Good news for S. Korean shipyards and crane builders.
 
It was a grand display of Newton's three laws of motion.
 
Yea, looked like the prop could have hit the pier pilings. Looked close. Possibly tangled with crane debris too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom