Lots of folks paying attention to the FSKB fail. Fortunately my new supply of tinfoil just got here. My new hat has a quartz beanie on top so I’m connected to the entire galaxy.
But listen up:
Adding Mitch’s SIL and her shipping ownership to the mix is way doubling down on coinkidinkies.
Night before last when the Cali hit the FSKB was full moon. Never mind that un-docking in the middle of the night, in the dark, is a bit non-standard by itself.
As chance would have it I woke up long enough, about midnight, to do a rollover and noted the FULL MOON about 1:00 high. My bedroom window faces West so I get a good look at the moonset. The Cali hit the FSKB about 1:30 AM which would have also been right at max high tide.
A local fisherman notes that channel is dredged to 60 feet. So most of the river water goes down that channel making deader water and way more mud near the bridge pilings. It was noted early on that the Cali left its tugs behind even tho it had to clear the FSKB and one more bridge before it got to open water.
The only rational for no tugs, besides cheapness anyway, is that with a 60 foot channel and a 40 foot draft no one believed a large ship could get out of the channel and into the 30 foot water to ever hit the bridge abutments?
But this ship never got itself aligned into the proper channel from the time it un-docked, according to the published path it took. From the time it lit its engine it was pointed more to the bridge than to the channel.
The main engines on these big heavy haulers are a bit different than one might expect on a more versatile ship.
They have one bigass diesel engine, 8 or more cylinders and pack 40,000 horsepower or more. The main engine does nothing except drive the ship. Electric and hydraulic power come from auxiliary engines. It’s all about cheapness.
The main engine is hard -coupled to the prop shaft which is firmly bolted to the prop. No cluth, no disconnect. If the main engine is running the prop is turning so they do not start the engine when dockside. Their little buddy tugs move them away and line them up with the channel. To reverse the ship the main engine is shut down, then re-started in the opposite rotation. That explains the puff of black smoke the Cali kicked out when heading for the bridge. It also explains that they had a serious problem before the smoke and should have shut down.
Everyone has noted the ship had been doing 8 knots, which is a bit fast for channel chasing, but had slowed to 1.5 knots before hitting the bridge. The reason the ship slowed is because it was pushing mud already, out of the main channel. But for high tide, I don’t believe it could have gotten out of the channel.
When you see the pics from later in the day, low tide, you can see the stern is out of the water at least 10 feet. It’s plainly sitting on mud that is probly only 30 feet deep.
And Mumbles was way too quick on the draw with that pledge of Fedmoney.
There’s more but I’m going with sabotage,conspiracy, sedition etc. and I’m also wanting to round up everybody associated with that ship, waterboard their axxes, rubber hose them, find out who paid them, round up their mothers and find out why they birthed such a bunch of dumbasses?