The Baltimore Bridge incident

 Shifting blame

The ownners of the ship that caused the crash at the Baltimore Bridge ae now blaming the tug captains for the incident, saying they left too early.

As the ship was already drifting in the tide, the captains had no choice; blame should rest with the design of the ship. 

A ship  that size needs to be a double-screw, not a single-screw. The accident was bound to happen sooner, or later, as the ship is too heavy for the propulsion unit to pull, that is what you get when you cut corners.

This incident reminds me of an incident off the coast of South Africa many years ago.

A French shippong line paid for a team of four tugs to transport an oil drilling unit from its home in Russia, to India, via the Cape of Good Hope. This was a risky venture with four tugs as the Cape is a notorious grave for shipping as you have the warm Indian Ocean current meeting the icy cold South Atlantic currents causing mists.

At this point, the project was possible to succeed, then things went from bad to worse, and the actions of the tugline took the actions to the zone of Mission Impossible.

The tugline decided to earn a larger profit they'd only hire three tugs, meaning the one in front was no more than a guide. Heading to the Cape, the captain decided to cut between the rocks, rather than go around them - this decision could have saved about 30 minutes had it succeeded - in the end the tides, and rocky ledges wedged the drilling platform so firmly recovering the platform had to be forgotten; the reason is the swell is so huge the difference between levels is at least 10 feet, and can be as high as 25 feet depending on tides, and currents.