Ship Lost Power Before Hitting Key Bridge in Baltimore

hey what's going on with chipping salmer

kagano here this morning so we've had an

incident in the Port of Baltimore

involving the motor vessel Dolly

outbound from Baltimore I am just

beginning to process the information and

take a look at it but I want to clarify

something that I've been seeing that

needs to be done this is the video

coming from the Port of Baltimore I'm

going to go ahead and live stream it uh

or replay it this is Dolly coming out

notice the ship just went dark I'm going

to come back here for a second

go back here a second take you back

about 10 seconds here so she would have

came off the birth at dundock here and

if you play back this video you'll see

that the ship is is outbound turning

around the channel comes off to the uh

comes off of dundock right here goes out

the channel spins around and it's coming

out now let's be clear this is obviously

the e exit out this is where she wants

to come out go ahead and play it again

here she is coming out you'll see lights

along her side you'll see lights right

here that red light in the back is not

her but she goes dark all of a sudden so

now the ship is dark you are not having

any power on this vessel uh the ship has

basically dropped the plant so when I

initially heard about this happening

there was a lot of questions about was

this mechanical or is this human this is

obviously a mechan mechanical issue in

that they lost power we're not sure why

she lost power so here she is she is

basically coasting at this point without

any control now if she had lost power

does that mean she lost her Rudder uh

did she lost uh propulsion and the

vessel was in the channel on the

outbound leg she was coming out and you

see her still kind of moving here very

slowly down on the channel uh traffic up

on the bridge is moving along and the

ship is just progressing slowly down the

channel so ship's still moving at this

time and then we see the power come back

on so you see the lights come back on so

she is able to get power back on at this

moment sorry it's buffering here so you

got power now coming back on she once

again should have propulsion she should

be making weight now when you lose power

on a ship is the worst feeling in the

world everything goes quiet goes dark

now you start seeing black smoke coming

out of the port funnel so she is beling

black smoke at this time you can see it

coming out right here so this indicates

obviously an engine problem now what are

they doing at this point they may be

backing down at this moment trying to

stop uh their forward progress now the

problem with backing down on a ship is

that is single prop and what's going to

happen is when you try to back down the

ship is going to start careening it's

going to start kind of pitching around

and what happens here based on the track

line that I saw on marine traffic is the

ship starts to go across the channel she

was basically in the middle of the

channel coming out right down in the

middle and now she's kening toward the

right side notice more black smoke

coming out I saw a helicopter image this

morning that showed that the port side

anchor had been dropped so what you

would want to do is try to arrest the

forward Mo movement of the vessel the

problem with this whole scenario is

this if you start backing down on the

ship it's going to start twisting uh if

you just kept the ship going stop the

propeller and use the rudder you would

have some control but now the vessel is

starting to Veer out of the channel and

this is what we see the ship starts

Crossing from the north side of the

channel to the south side of the channel

and then eventually out of the channel

entirely and at the speed she's going uh

she is not able to stop her forward

progress so see the black smoke still

coming out of the the ship at this time

uh the ship now is coming out of the

channel entirely she would not have tugs

on her she would have had tugs to take

her off the birth at dundock but not

once she was underway and had propulsion

uh this ship Singapore flag Singapore

registered company uh dolly is one of

these ships that basically is leased by

the larger operating companies uh so

we're not exactly sure whose route she

was on what company she was servicing

she was out of Baltimore heading to

Columbo so she was heading down to the

Panama Canal and she was going to be

heading across the Pacific at this point

she is heading right for the pylons and

understand once you take out a pylon on

a bridge that's it these bridges are

designed to rest on top of that pylon

she's going to sideswipe it this is

going to be the worst kind of bridge

disaster in the United States since

Tampa back in the

1980s and even if you drop the anchors

which we know she drops the port anchor

according looking at the image from

helicopters the port anchor was not just

dropped but it was it was uh angling to

aft meaning that it dragged but at any

sort of speed it's not going to stop the

vessel uh she would have dropped I'm not

sure if she dropped the uh uh starban

aner that's her hitting right there you

can see the Big Splash as she hits the

piling right there there are barriers

around the pilings but not enough and

that will cause the the collapse and

just the horror of this event taking

place

here and and that is the tragedy right

there

so so that is my quick assessment based

on the video right there obviously a

loss of power uh resulted in the ship

losing control and hitting the uh Bridge

uh not a lot you can do the ship would

have been under the command of the

ship's Master there would have been a

Chesapeake Bay pilot on board to advise

the master remember the issue we had

with ever forward when it came out of

Baltimore and it was further down the

track than this we had the pilot being

distracted I don't think that's a case

here at all uh this obviously appears to

be a mechanical issue the fact that the

ship lost power at least once if not

twice it was kind of hard to see but it

may have lost power twice there

would have been uh the cause for the

ship to Corine into the bridge I will

have a further update here later on as

more comes to bear