I wish I knew. I do computer forensics and it was one of the images on a computer I did yesterday. Absolutely no information available on this for 3 to 5 years
If you absolutly HAVE to know, I bet you could email the pic to Professional mariner magazine and they could tell you. According to a survey they did, the most popular section of the magazine is the marine casualty reports. Try <mailto editors@professionalmariner.com> for an email address. I'm sure the pic would get passed around over there until somebody remembered the incident. On a related topic, take a look at this link. it takes a while to load, even on a fast connection, so be patient. Towboat Vs. Bridge
Ten87, It looks like the overhead crane toppled over. Part of the cable dolly is laying at the bow (the yellow thing). My guess would be they did not maintain a good enough balance when removing containers, and the ship listed to port while he was lifting one of the containers. Probably his container got caught on other containers that fell onto the one he was lifting. That would have pulled him down spilling the other containers onto the port side which rolled the ship over taking the crane with it. If you could make out the name on the bow, there would be an incident report in the Maritime registery. C3PO, The Captian must have shut the engine room hatches to prevent flooding out, knowing he was going to go into the bridge! Maybe he had this experience before? He probably got his pants wet, one way or another! [ 03 March 2002, 07:43: Message edited by: watash ]
I think you're close, but not quite. i've seen quite a few ships on the Columbia with both cranes mounted all the way out on one side. I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning is, but I think it has to do with providing a larger load deck. That said, I'll agree this could be due to incorrect loading, but there are several other possibilites. The first thing that came to mind for me is that they may have had a fire on board and flooded the ship trying to fight it. The New Orleans Fire Department sunk a research ship that way last year, so it's not as far fetched as it sounds. I couldn't see any evidence of fire or smoke damage. This really looks like more of a flooding issue than a pure cargo imbalance. It seems to me that if it was just an imbalance then the vessel would have rolled, dumed the containers over the side and righted itself. Also, if she had rolled over far enough to do that, I would bet she would have kept going all the way over. Once again, I can't prove it, but this definatly feels more like a flooding issue.
Well, in going over the evidence again, the original photo was included in an email with the subject: "You think we've got bad weather..." So I'm thinking maybe hurricane?
I was judging that the crane was not a rail type, but was maybe on wheels to roll along the wharf. If the tower and lift dolly fell onto one side of the deck, trying to make a lift (and if the lifted container got hooked on the way up on other containers on board), then the operator could have been caught off guard and didn't stop in time. The weight of the tower might hold the port side down, and the two yellow booms showing braced against the warehouse might keep the ship from turning turtle. I watched a documentary on TV that showed the operators going all the way to the bottom to lift a container out, while there was still a tall stack of containers on either side! The thought came to me then: "What if his container snagged another on the way up?" That's what made me think of it.
Ah, I see where that dea comes from. Yeah, I'm 95% sure those booms are the cranes on the ship. A lot of the smaller container ships like this one have side mounted deck cranes so thay can load and unload in undeveloped ports where the big shore cranes aren't available. I wish I had a picture of one of these ships around, or if I do have one I wish I could find it.
