Baltimore bridge collapse



Big Duke Six said:
Cheap , poorly maintained ship, cheap poorly trained and payed crew. Bottom line for these owners is to operate with the bare minimum in order to make any profit.
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Doubt the ship would be cheap mind, Should be maintained to a minimum standard. I get the crew mind (beneath officer, engineer grade) but wont be many unskilled workers..
 
Big Duke Six said:
Cheap , poorly maintained ship, cheap poorly trained and payed crew. Bottom line for these owners is to operate with the bare minimum in order to make any profit.
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Many UK shipping companies operate the same way as well. I've seen Senior Crews flogged for 6/7 week periods on busy schedules Some minimum safe manning certs are an absolute joke anarl.
Ratings, whether that be Filipino or Indian can be on board for months without a break...
 
Captain Slackbladder said:
Many UK shipping companies operate the same way as well. I've seen Senior Crews flogged for 6/7 week periods on busy schedules Some minimum safe manning certs are an absolute joke anarl.
Ratings, whether that be Filipino or Indian can be on board for months without a break...
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Which minimum safe manning certs aren’t a joke?

I’ve lost count of the number of battles I fought to get crew members relieved on time or repatriated on compassionate grounds. Whilst I was doing 3 months on, 3 months off, all on pay, ratings were on 9 month contracts with minimal leave. You do what you can arranging shore leave, but it can be impossible due to offshore terminals and made worse with the ISPS Code.
 
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cfg said:
Which minimum safe manning certs aren’t a joke?

I’ve lost count of the number of battles I fought to get crew members relieved on time or repatriated on compassionate grounds. Whilst I was doing 3 months on, 3 months off, all on pay, ratings were on 9 month contracts with minimal leave. You do what you can arranging shore leave, but it can be impossible due to offshore terminals and made worse with the ISPS Code.
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I remember not so many Years ago. The Flips in my old department working 12 hour shifts,seven days a week. sometimes for up to a Year without home leave. I was on 2/2. I always felt guilty as hell. Savage world out there.
 
PinzaC55 said:
I don't know where or why you are going with this argument ? I've said that I think it's likely that the cost of retrofitting every existing bridge with protection to guard against the tiny chance of this happening would be enormous.
I've never said, nor would I say , that they shouldn't pay for the damage. Why would you infer that I would say such a thing ?
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It did appear your first post implied the costs to instal pier protection would be prohibitive.
AlpineExile said:
Well if the ship owners' have to pay compo to the port authority for their losses each time it happens, why should the port authority bother to spend money to prevent this sort of incident?
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My take on this is that the owner of the bridge, whoever is responsible for building of it’s replacement and for other bridges, responsibility for ensuring adequate design for safety is with them, and therefore the cost of building this retrospectively would also lie with them. Whether that’s the Port Authority, local government or the Federal Government.
 
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Big Duke Six said:
Cheap , poorly maintained ship, cheap poorly trained and payed crew. Bottom line for these owners is to operate with the bare minimum in order to make any profit.
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If you want your shit from China at a reasonable cost then freight rates must be as low as possible.

TBF she was inspected in September by the US Coastguard and had no deficiencies.

All this info is in the public domain. Equasis - HomePage

If the link doesn't work then anyone can sign up and do a search for the ship info.
 
Captain Slackbladder said:
Many UK shipping companies operate the same way as well. I've seen Senior Crews flogged for 6/7 week periods on busy schedules Some minimum safe manning certs are an absolute joke anarl.
Ratings, whether that be Filipino or Indian can be on board for months without a break...
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Long ago I know, but when I did my first trip back in 1970 the crews of the company were changing over from Chinese to a Bombay Indian manning agency. Contract time on board was not to exceed 24 months and the crews would not be pleased to be repatriated earlier than the contract time. Sometimes the crews would be changed early if the ships were local to India or the Gulf to save money on air travel and accommodation. For individuals in the crews, a two year trip was a career one-off chance to save some money, hopefully to buy a house or start up a business back home. By the end of the 70's the contract time was down to 12 months. By the 80's it was 6 months on/6 months off for the British officers and still 12 month crew contracts at their insistence. By the 90's it had pretty much become a free for all with manning agencies supplying all nationalities of crew and officers. Any senior officer in the company I worked for felt penalised for having a contract while short contract agency staff could just turn up, do the minimum they could get away with then leave to be replaced by another agency man. Seemed to spend all the time training people up with no long term benefit. One of my last spells, a 100 hour week was not unusual so I came ashore. There's a lot more to the marine industry than working on ships. I had a further 15 years within the industry until retirement and, I think, a decent and rewarding career in terms of fulfilment and finance. I'd do it again.
 
obrienobrien said:
could use the Chesapeake bridge near Annapolis... we went over that by mistake one day..
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Over the summer that bridge is basically a parking lot many days with beach traffic from DC, but the larger issue is it dumps you way down on the Eastern Shore with no way to get back to 95 (or any interstate for that matter) within hours and hours.

The more likely workaround here is a combination of I495, 270 and 70 (or 15 and I81 if you’re going further north)- going around Baltimore and DC to the west, not east. Not great: the DC beltway and 270 are often traffic-choked to say the least, but it’s still better than trying to go up the Eastern Shore and Delaware.
 
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safcforever said:
I know it’s a disaster and devastating for the families but I would love to be part of that clean up crew.
my last job was cleaning up train derailments. Once the initial panic is over and everyone is safe it’s actually exciting doing the clean up

Probably :rolleyes:


That cost under $200 million.

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medium.com

This one took 43 hours to build (with 8000 staff)
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It's so contradictory in that article ..
 

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