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Comment by usrusr | Hacker News Reader

On the videos the ship is drifting backwards, from wind and/or currents (are currents the East River dominated by tides?). I don't think that they ever intended to clear the bridge. The fundamental they missed was keeping their maneuvering engine up and running (or calling in some tugs).

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If you watch the video you can see tugs moving the boat. Current speculation is that the tugs/harbor captain messed up and the ship got away from them in the tide and drifted backwards into the bridge.

Tugs were nearby; one had helped it back away from the pier it had been docked at, but none were hooked up at the time of the collision.

Sal Mercogliano — a maritime historian at Campbell University - saw indications that the ship's engine may have been stuck in reverse.

See video edited from his livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2p9bYfFhHE

Yes, the East river and the Hudson are both tidal estuaries. The tide has a big effect on water flow direction. I'm an in-experienced sailor but I was surprised they left with the water flowing against them.

Had similar thoughts. Hell Gate is no joke.

Damn.

My bad for getting the full details .. I came to this story via a chain of bridge clearance fail stories and jumped to the assumption this was another intended passage clearance mistake.

There are some knuckle chewing engineering videos of planned water transits of "big loads" timed happen for a still water king low tide .. fast work with tiny clearances and major downsides on failure.

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