Quote (Ghot @ Mar 28 2024 08:37am)
I don't believe the power "went out" on the boat.
I mean, boats carry their own power sources, and very large boats have generator(S).
And most of those have 2 or 3 generators.
For a ship that size to lose power, you'd probably have to sink it.
This seems more like an attempt at an "economical" attack on the US.
I would imagine that China is somehow involved, even though the ship has a Singapore registry.
As someone with marine experience, not commercial, it does seem very odd. Even the smallest vessels have plethora of redundancy and vigorous maintenance schedules. It's plausible the ship did have issues, but probability is low that all those backup systems and emergency procedures failed. Perhaps the boat has inept crew, poor maintenance, etc.
Beyond speculation, if you watch the full 4iah minute clip when the boat first loses power you'll notice it would have cleared the bridge. It was when power came back, the vessel looks to have backed down engine or reverse. Then it veers off.
Hindsight 20/20, but most skippers know the boat will coast for a long while before loss of original tack in those conditions.
I still think it was an accident, very very preventable accident. Kudos to the bridge crew for stopping the traffic. They had someone about to grab the construction crew but not enough time from Mayday to hit