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The difference for a car and drive by wire system is that the failure mode of control systems on cars is normally catastrophic and dangerous. If a car loses st

The difference for a car and drive by wire system is that the failure mode of control systems on cars is normally catastrophic and dangerous. If a car loses steering or brakes, it will hit something within seconds 95% of the time. That ship spent 1 (4:30 to 5:30) hour of a presumably 10-20 day voyage in a critical control section. The tugs left the ship right around 5:08 (43 seconds into the video). A much better policy for this case would be to have required the tugs stay with the boat until it passed the main span safely. There were no doubt maintenance issues that led to this accident, but it is exceedingly rare for these types of failures to cause this type of catastrophic result.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
Damage is less likely, but much more destructive. Same as for a nuclear reactor. It’s not clear why adding ~$100k to the cost of a billion dollar ship is unreasonable
- throwup238 3y ago
  Aircraft carriers are billion dollar ships, these are not. The most expensive container ship tops out at ~$250 million and the one that crashed today is more like $80-150 million. The propulsion systems on these vessels cost tens of millions. $100k wouldn't even pay for the material costs of a rudder. I don't know enough about the cost and safety tradeoffs made in the design of these ships to comment but your numbers are orders of magnitude off from both directions.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    Right. It's not like the ship owners (or, more saliently, their insurers) want things like this to happen. Second-guessing the marine engineers in this case is like the people post-9/11 who argued that future buildings should be designed to withstand the impact of a wide-body jetliner fully loaded with fuel. It's basically not a serious argument.
    - vkou 3y ago
      Neither the insurers nor the owners of the ship will be on the hook for the full set of damages this inflicted. Thanks to that, they aren't performing an accurate cost/benefit analysis.
    - jordanb 3y ago
      Really recommend you read Tankership Tromedy which was written by a marine engineer. You don't even have to find a copy, the author put a PDF on the internet: http://martrans.org/documents/2006/safety/The%20_tankership_tromedy.pdf http://martrans.org/documents/2006/safety/The%20_tankership_...
      - Turing_Machine 3y ago
        This was written in 2006, so it clearly does not take any data from this incident into account. Even if it were written today, it would not be based on any real data -- it's far too soon for that. The bridge has been there for nearly 50 years, in a port that handles around 50 million tons of cargo every year. It seems pretty clear that whatever the cause, it was an extremely rare incident.
        rramadass 3y ago
        You should have browsed the book. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39836079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39836079
        Turing_Machine 3y ago
        I don't need to browse the book to understand that a book from 2006 can't possibly have any data from an incident that happened yesterday, and that no conclusions can possibly be rendered at this time about the causes of this specific accident.
        myself248 3y ago
        People are telling you to read the book because, yes, it has a ton of perspective on the long-standing market and regulatory forces that shape the environment that almost certainly led to this specific incident. Understanding how loss-of-power incidents happen, why ships are built the way they are, how flags-of-convenience affect the standards to which ships are maintained and inspected, how ship builders, owners, lessees, operators, crews, and regulators interact, YES, all of those things are extremely relevant to understanding the present situation. If someone made a landscape painting today using the wet-on-wet technique, would you argue that a Bob Ross episode from years ago couldn't possibly tell us anything about it? That's silly. It's precisely applicable. Mr. Ross himself might not describe the specific location of today's trees or clouds, but he can darn sure tell you how the brush strokes add up to make a tree. Actually he's probably one of the world experts on precisely that. Proclaiming your ignorance of extremely-well-researched expert sources is not a good look.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    While the ship is $200Mish, how much is the cargo also worth? If the ship had went to the bottom in this event the cleanup would take 10x as long and release god knows what pollutants.
    - throwup238 3y ago
      Based on what I've read the container ship was only half loaded (5k out of 10k TEU) and most of the containers were empty or lightly loaded. I don't think ships of that size can even navigate those waters fully loaded. AFAIK the water around the bridge is only like 50 feet deep and the ship itself is about 150 ft high. It wouldn't even really sink, just get stuck on the bottom. A crane ship would come unload it and then tugboats would pull it out. The worst case scenario though does take a long time if it gets fully grounded and stuck beyond the ability of tug boats to pull it out. A company specializing in marine salvage has to come in to cut it up in place and haul the ship away piece by piece. They use large cutting chains that they pull back and forth to cut through the metal. It's a fascinating process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndr2a7AQ8b4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndr2a7AQ8b4
    - dmurray 3y ago
      The ship can carry 10,000 TEU, which would fit at least 10,000 imported cars, which would cost around $500mm. In this case it seems the ship wasn't full, but it's not hyperbole to estimate it as being worth a billion dollars fully loaded. Cars aren't the cheapest things you can ship in containers, but they're far from the most expensive either, and they're what the Port of Baltimore specialises in.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I know this may seem pedantic, but to image that the cost of an additional screw or screw+engine at 100k for vessels like this is patently absurd. Just trying to offer some explanation if you're confused at the responses you're getting. Requiring such a thing would probably have a measurable impact on the global economy, even if all current vessels were grandfathered in and exempt.
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Maritime shipping is a business where shaving every penny rules the day. Most ships use flags of convenience, so the regulatory structure is pretty much nothing.
myself248 3y ago
All valid points. Tugs are quite a reasonable option.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

Damage is less likely, but much more destructive. Same as for a nuclear reactor. It’s not clear why adding ~$100k to the cost of a billion dollar ship is unreasonable

throwup238 3y ago
Aircraft carriers are billion dollar ships, these are not. The most expensive container ship tops out at ~$250 million and the one that crashed today is more like $80-150 million. The propulsion systems on these vessels cost tens of millions. $100k wouldn't even pay for the material costs of a rudder. I don't know enough about the cost and safety tradeoffs made in the design of these ships to comment but your numbers are orders of magnitude off from both directions.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Right. It's not like the ship owners (or, more saliently, their insurers) want things like this to happen. Second-guessing the marine engineers in this case is like the people post-9/11 who argued that future buildings should be designed to withstand the impact of a wide-body jetliner fully loaded with fuel. It's basically not a serious argument.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Neither the insurers nor the owners of the ship will be on the hook for the full set of damages this inflicted. Thanks to that, they aren't performing an accurate cost/benefit analysis.
  - jordanb 3y ago
    Really recommend you read Tankership Tromedy which was written by a marine engineer. You don't even have to find a copy, the author put a PDF on the internet: http://martrans.org/documents/2006/safety/The%20_tankership_tromedy.pdf http://martrans.org/documents/2006/safety/The%20_tankership_...
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      This was written in 2006, so it clearly does not take any data from this incident into account. Even if it were written today, it would not be based on any real data -- it's far too soon for that. The bridge has been there for nearly 50 years, in a port that handles around 50 million tons of cargo every year. It seems pretty clear that whatever the cause, it was an extremely rare incident.
      - rramadass 3y ago
        You should have browsed the book. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39836079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39836079
        Turing_Machine 3y ago
        I don't need to browse the book to understand that a book from 2006 can't possibly have any data from an incident that happened yesterday, and that no conclusions can possibly be rendered at this time about the causes of this specific accident.
        myself248 3y ago
        People are telling you to read the book because, yes, it has a ton of perspective on the long-standing market and regulatory forces that shape the environment that almost certainly led to this specific incident. Understanding how loss-of-power incidents happen, why ships are built the way they are, how flags-of-convenience affect the standards to which ships are maintained and inspected, how ship builders, owners, lessees, operators, crews, and regulators interact, YES, all of those things are extremely relevant to understanding the present situation. If someone made a landscape painting today using the wet-on-wet technique, would you argue that a Bob Ross episode from years ago couldn't possibly tell us anything about it? That's silly. It's precisely applicable. Mr. Ross himself might not describe the specific location of today's trees or clouds, but he can darn sure tell you how the brush strokes add up to make a tree. Actually he's probably one of the world experts on precisely that. Proclaiming your ignorance of extremely-well-researched expert sources is not a good look.
- pixl97 3y ago
  While the ship is $200Mish, how much is the cargo also worth? If the ship had went to the bottom in this event the cleanup would take 10x as long and release god knows what pollutants.
  - throwup238 3y ago
    Based on what I've read the container ship was only half loaded (5k out of 10k TEU) and most of the containers were empty or lightly loaded. I don't think ships of that size can even navigate those waters fully loaded. AFAIK the water around the bridge is only like 50 feet deep and the ship itself is about 150 ft high. It wouldn't even really sink, just get stuck on the bottom. A crane ship would come unload it and then tugboats would pull it out. The worst case scenario though does take a long time if it gets fully grounded and stuck beyond the ability of tug boats to pull it out. A company specializing in marine salvage has to come in to cut it up in place and haul the ship away piece by piece. They use large cutting chains that they pull back and forth to cut through the metal. It's a fascinating process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndr2a7AQ8b4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndr2a7AQ8b4
  - dmurray 3y ago
    The ship can carry 10,000 TEU, which would fit at least 10,000 imported cars, which would cost around $500mm. In this case it seems the ship wasn't full, but it's not hyperbole to estimate it as being worth a billion dollars fully loaded. Cars aren't the cheapest things you can ship in containers, but they're far from the most expensive either, and they're what the Port of Baltimore specialises in.
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
I know this may seem pedantic, but to image that the cost of an additional screw or screw+engine at 100k for vessels like this is patently absurd. Just trying to offer some explanation if you're confused at the responses you're getting. Requiring such a thing would probably have a measurable impact on the global economy, even if all current vessels were grandfathered in and exempt.
Spooky23 3y ago
Maritime shipping is a business where shaving every penny rules the day. Most ships use flags of convenience, so the regulatory structure is pretty much nothing.

myself248 3y ago

All valid points. Tugs are quite a reasonable option.