The bridge is basically valueless compared to everything else about the ship and cargo plus the lawsuits from various contract breaches and other damages. Port shutdowns, environmental cleanup, insurance losses. $100m is a rounding error.
It's cost is both material and in the business of links from one side to the other. It's almost certainly worth multi billions at this point.
And not just the business from one side of the land to the other, but also from the port to… everywhere out in the ocean. With the old bridge remnants blocking ships, that’s a LOT of lost business…
It doesn't matter what the bridge is worth, the owners are only liable up to the value of the ship. They're protected by US and International law. The owners will be filing to limit their liability soon if they haven't done so already.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/maritime-law/Limitation-of-liability
Interesting.
This formula means, generally speaking, that the shipowner is entitled to limit his liability for the negligence of the master or crew, but not for his own personal negligence or that of his managerial personnel.
Does this mean, if the captain fucks up their liability is limited, but if the accident is caused due to systematic poor maintenance maybe not?
[IANAL]To a degree yes, this is why they love to find human error, it gets them covered by their insurance and limits the liability. Systemic issues that can be proven to come from the office would open them up. This is all before we get into shell companies and vessel charters .
Does this mean, if the captain fucks up their liability is limited, but if the accident is caused due to systematic poor maintenance maybe not?
I think so, yes. It makes sense and is likely to apply here. IIRC, some article report that the ship lost power twice right before all this happened. Assuming that's a direct cause, the whole mess may wind up with a deep investigation to understand if the crew or shipping company is at fault.
I also looked up what that means for the pilot. While the pilot works for the harbor, they are acting as a part of the crew when on ship. So outside of insubordination or gross negligence, the harbor and/or pilot take no liability here.
Can you get insurance for a ship?
Sir I will insure your ship for just a $1000 premium. I only take payment in iTunes gift card.
Ship insurance is somewhat how modern capitalist world trade came into existence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company?wprov=sfla1
Bunch of people putting money together for ship to have a try going and returning with lots of goodies, is like an insurance I'm some way.
I think insurance isn't just possible, it's obligated to be allowed to enter certain ports with certain shipsizes.
Estimates I could find said $60-$120 million
I assume wrongful debt suits are gonna eclipse that tho
I think that's when it was built. A superstructure like a major port bridge will be well into the billions in 2024 money.
Remember to also factor in losses due to transport disruptions in the calculations regarding the value of the accident
They'll declare bankruptcy before they fish the victims out of the water
You made me think, I wonder how the related legislation differs in Singapore vs the US
I feel out of the loop. What happened to the bridge?
Container ship hit it and the entire thing collapsed
The front fell off.
You remember that childhood song, London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down? That happened, but it's not London
I want to hear the song about this one
This: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JebyNOvJmCM&pp=ygUfYmFsdGltb3JlIGJyaWdhZGUgY29sbGFwc2UgbGl2ZQ%3D%3D
Police audio from the incident: https://youtu.be/xzOvImnlHFc?si=INIeTXr7ThY5dAlw
The whole bridge just collapsed
So cars these days have anti-collision systems. One would think a million dollar boat, with millions of dollars in cargo, approaching a multimillion dollar bridge would have some sort of active sensing system to prevent a collision. That video shows the Dali strolling right into the support. It wasn't a glancing blow, rather it was a direct hit. Either somebody f'd up big time, or major act of sabotage on US territory.
Apparently, the Dali lost all power. Anti collision kind of needs power to work, so having it would not matter regardless
As an electrical engineer I will say there are giant thick sections of code for backup power regarding life safety systems. Generally a backup generator will keep running even if on fire and breaking just to keep power on... backup batteries on even more sensitive equipment provides even more redundancy. Power failure leading to a disaster is a engineering failure.
I wouldn't think anti-collision systems would be feasible on a container ship: they're too big with too much inertia. It can take miles to slow to a stop or execute a turn. It's not like a car, where you can just hit the brakes and have immediate results. All that extra braking and re-accelarating would burn a bunch more fuel, too.
Best guess atm is they lost power when approaching the bridge, they, at least periodically got it back, but given that they had lost power they were taking measures to stop themselves. They put their engine in reverse and dropped their anchor. Both of these cause the ship to go off course as they slowed it down pulling it out of the center lane it was in. Basically the crew panicked when trying to do the right thing and did everything wrong.
A ship that size takes a loooong time to stop. There are no brakes. It has momentum and will keep moving forward, even without propulsion, even with the engine in full astern mode.
It would not just be the bridge cost, some Corps. could try suing for business income lost. Do not think they will get very far.
Like, most people still are not aware how this is going to fuck a bunch of market sectors that is theich bigger problem until the port is fully operational. Most (if not all) European car imports come into Baltimore. Cocoa comes there too. There are dozens of products. Ramifications are dire. On top of just to the local economy. Not to mention the pain of worst traffic.
Expect price increases on some specific markets. Surely someone with more time and better knowledge will do a much better write up soon enough. Either here or on the news.
Everyone's blaming the ship, but the bridge should have been built to withstand such an impact.
Edit: Tell me you don't know that pier protection systems exist with saying you don't know that pier protection systems exist.
https://www.repierson.com/projects/drba-ship-collision-and-protection-system/
Just one example of such a system.
Liz, can you go back to working the register at the Quik Trip and stop getting high behind the dumpster and making comments on Lemmy? K? Thanks.
Can you point out any bridges are built to withstand 100,000 ton ship directly colliding with them?
For whatever reason I don't think you've done the math.
I think you have to look at natural bridges like Beringia for that kind of durability, which would be unfeasable to build as standard infrastructure
The point of most bridge protection systems is to stop a ship before it can directly collide with it. They are usually separate structures.
Look at you out here victim blaming a bridge.
Uh, yeah, that's how engineered safety systems work. House fires have been getting rarer in the developed world because building materials have become less flammable (among other reasons). We didn't just blame the people who started the fire, we also changed their environment to make it less flammable.
Yes, the boat is partially to blame, but the bridge should have also been able to withstand the impact.
The bridge you linked likely wouldn't have been able to withstand the collision of this ship at one of its pillars. Assuming that the numbers are for a fully loaded ship at 120,000 DWT at 7 knots, it could only take about 90% of the momentum maximum that the Dali had (116,000 DWT at 8 knots) at once.
For my American friends that's about 27.56 fully loaded F-35Cs going max speed (Mach 1.6) at the same spot at the same time. Or 312 M1A2 Abrams.
I'd have to look at shipping logs and whatnot to say whether that specific protection system is sufficiently rated for the traffic going under that bridge.
And I mean, come on, the fact that a completely random protection system I pulled up can "only" withstand 90% of the impact we're interested in is not a fucking gotcha. It's evidence that this kind of system is completely reasonable for this kind of impact. Engineering, physics, and numbers don't work this way, but shit, scale it by 20%. Tada.
