Given the size of the ship and that it was so close to the coast, I wonder why two people aren’t required to be on duty. Or should there have been alarms going off, warning of the impending collision?
Honestly, no. And I lived on a small tropical island for a couple of years, and was in the ocean pretty frequently.
Just never occurred to me.
Also, once I heard of the candiru, any urge to urinate in a large body of water I might have had would have been severely diminished.
(Especially if I was in the Amazon River.)
Good question. The norm is one at the helm, one looking out. Problem is, the regulations don’t demand that explicitly. So legally, you can get away without the lookout even if it’s a damned bad idea.
Would the screws stop turning because of the grounding? Or, was the ship still powering itself up the shore until some human switched them off?
I was wondering what the process is to float it. Going by the waterline on the ship profile, a significant portion of the ship’s mass is resting on the shore. I expect the ship needs to be carefully inspected for structural damage after such an event. There has to be deformation. Obviously the structure has to be able to withstand inequal forces due to heavy seas, but htis has got to be different?
They’ve tried to just pull it off. Even at high tide (there’s a 2-3 m diffference between low and high in those waters), it didn’t work. I guess the next attempt will be to try again (at high tide) after unloading most of the cargo to get the ship to ride higher. Which will be.. interesting, since the waters are shallow and finding barges that don’t go too deep isnt trivial. If that doesn’t work… Well, I guess it’s time for the specialists to chime in.
Damned good question.
Not much automation on a ratty ship like that, so probably nothing fully automatic as in “designed by an engineer”.
If the engine is set to a low cruising RPM, does the prop digging into the bottom slow the engine enough for it to stall? Did it dig into the bottom at all, or was it far enough out in the channel that it was still in deep enough water? I’m betting the latter. The prop doesn’t care if the ship is moving or not; as long as it’s free to turn it will.
Decent bet the sudden stop attracted the attention of everyone awake and a few people asleep. So it wouldn’t be long before somebody in the bridge or engine room communicated an order to stop the engine to the crewmen who actually control that process.
Dirt in large quantity has ever so slightly more resistance than seawater. Once the ship had spent its momentum, it is unlikely that it would continue to advance just under screw power.
It’s in his garden, if they can’t remove it that would make one hell of a planter.
Right. But the question remains: how long were the ship’s screws powered after the ship was grounded? Just an engineering curiosity on ship design and operation.
Yeah, I’m guessing it was churning away while the crew figuring out what happened.
All of a sudden, I’m imagining The Captain’s Wife’s Lament:
“There’s seamen all around the bed
And seamen on the floor
Seamen in the bathroom
And behind the closet door…”
Real-world aisles were never that wide.
I’m sure it’s fine. It’s not like the front fell off.
Yet.
That’s the thing! Not like you can pop it in reverse, with the “boop-boop” warning, back it out, say you’re so, so sorry, call our company for reimbursement, etc.
Dude was drunk, passed out before the scheduled TURN! 
Hey, that’s right outside Trondheim, isn’t it? I’ve been to that fjord, on a cruise last fall. I might have looked right into that guy’s back on the way in.
It is. Not a place to be alone on bridge if you are tired.
Obviously. The fjords may be breathtakingly beautiful, but it can’t be easy to steer big ships through them. I can’t imagine it being much different than steering inside a harbor.
Me too. Feb of this year.
As you say, very pretty, but for sure the bridge crews need to be awake to do it safely.
I understand modern ships can have fully automated nav systems that know the channels and, ignoring traffic, can do the whole harbor to open ocean maneuver without human intervention. Good bet such automation wasn’t installed on that old rustbucket.