This makes no sense. One doesn’t “shore up” a ship by taking on ballast.
Possibly they took on ballast to “ballast down” which is the practice in a casualty of deliberately ballasting a vessel down till it is grounded, to keep it in place.
Even assuming this is correct, it is not a matter of the same amount being pumped out as was pumped in – if there is a biofouling issue (and I haven’t seen anything to suggest there is a biofoulding issue) then the issue would be whether they had been able to take on ballast into an otherwise empty tank.
Ah! I see you misread my posts as complaining - that’s not what I’m doing
I’m suggesting that one possibility that may prevent the ballast water from being discharged in place is that it might not be within the law of Maryland to do so
NOTE: The below is all guess-work (with an attempt to be in the ballpark). I have no clue about the details of these systems on the Dali. So, BIG grain of salt.
But the point remains that discharging ballast water in port is normal operational practice and there is no reason to think that Dali would not be within the law of Maryland by discharging ballast. For the Dali to do so following this casualty is (assuming no particular damage or contamination) no less likely to be within the law of Maryland than when this or other international trading vessels routinely discharge ballast as part of cargo ops.
I’m not sure I follow your train of thought, Princhester
If Magiver is correct above:
They will have to pump out some 2.5 million gallons of the ballast used to stabilize the ship. It’s contaminated so it can’t be directly released.
Then they aren’t (or aren’t supposed to) release the ballast water in this case. There may be some reasons they can’t do so, but it’s not fighting the hypothetical to propose reasons they might not be allowed to
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but your sense of scale on risk assessment is off. I don’t know the regulations for ships, and I’m sure they’ve changed over time so any given ship is as safe as the rules at the time of their build, but Engineers build planes, at least, to be safe from hazardous or catastrophic events to the tune of 10^-7 to 10^-9 events per flight hour.
A 0.1% probability of any failure at all happening is highly probable and should be limited to convenience items like window shades and coffee makers (unless that failure, like a leak, can cause issues with other systems).
The relevant regulations and guidance (American context):
AC25.1309-1A although most companies use a draft version known as “Arsenal” which is more severe. This guidance is currently undergoing regulatory overhaul. It’s the source for the probability values used to define the terms “extremely improbable” and “remote” etc found in the law. The proper application of the process involves a ton of other references and industry standards as well (RTCA, ASTM, ARP etc.)
He was making an incorrect assumption about the normal handling of ballast water.
They have just pumped about 5000 tonnes out and not into barges, right in front of the authorities’ faces. I think we can fairly assume it wasn’t “contaminated”.
The ship is back at port. It’s pretty amazing its still intact and floating after the accident. There’s probably a lot of hidden repairs that are still needed.
So, do they repair the ship as is, give it a metaphorical pat on the rump, and send it off again, or do they have to completely unload the ship and transfer all the stuff to a different ship?
With that kind of damage, from the news I’m listening to, it will be to unload then inspect as needed for investigations and such, then patch it up enough to make it safe to move to a location where major repairs can be made. What I hear is Norfolk first, probably to get it seaworthy there so they can steam to wherever the owner can make a full rebuild. Of course that all depends on cost vs. insurance value.
Thanks. That makes sense. We don’t want it running amok again. LOL
Now, in a related question: The bridge is gone, so is the process already in place for building a new bridge at that location? This whole thing was totally unexpected so, if they were caught completely unprepared, it certainly is understandable.
