Was the Evergreen incident really an accident?
The recorded track says "no".
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So if it can be manually pumped in the engine room then theoretically the ship's course could have been maintained and this was either ineptitude or done purposefully.
There is no way to pump it fast enough. Did you look at the size of the rudder? There are only 20-22 crew on a ship like that. Even if there was some kind of 20 man tweak pump handle (there isn't) they still couldn't correct fast enough.
I used to drive ships like that. You're constantly making corrections of a degree or two of rudder to maintain a steady course under the most ideal circumstances. Maybe, just maybe, in wide open ocean you could get the ship to go within 20 degrees of the desired course manually pumping. I doubt anyone had ever tried. It's insane.
Thanks I had no clue it was such a monumental effort to move the rudder on such a large ship. I suppose it makes sense, even with the buoyancy you're trying to move a giant piece of metal that ranges football field length and weighs thousands of tons... The math checks out...
You're welcome. I'm loving this, the news is finally in my wheelhouse! I should do an ama thread or something...
With ships that size you have to be minutes ahead of what's happening. When things go wrong in a carasst freeway speed, you have that second of adrenaline as you see what's about to happen before it's over. On a large vessel, it's minutes of powerless sheer terror watching it unfold in slow motion, too late to change it.
Compare it to driving down the freeway in a construction zone with barriers a couple feet from either side of your car. As you're gently correcting the steering to keep yourself centered, the steering wheel locks up tight. How long until you touch a side? Probably not long. At that point even if steering comes back it's already over.
Hey, for the ever given (much like the car) it could have simply been a moment of inattention while the helmsman made a booboo. Left instead of right. You'd be amazed how often it happens. Steering hundreds of thousands of tons with precision is exhausting for the man on the wheel. And we work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for months. At least.
All that said, this still looks fishy as hell. There will be excuses aplenty, and they'll be very plausible. But c'mon man, H3RC? The timing?