My son worked on merchant vessels for 10 years. Remember the El Faro that sank and lost its entire crew back in Oct 2015? It was because it catastrophically lost all power in a hurricane and without power the ship was not able to steer causing the ship to turn sideways to the wind instead of heading into the wind. It rolled over and sank. My son was on the same model ship but in the pacific at the time and I watched the hurricane tracker every day after that incident. Those vessels take miles to make turns and if the current is strong against the turning direction it’s even harder. merchant ships are not like cars that can easily turn a corner and honestly knowing what I know based on his stories through the years I’m a bit shocked that there are not more incidents. Backup systems are not bulletproof.
My son worked on merchant vessels for 10 years. Remember the El Faro that sank and lost its entire crew back in Oct 2015? It was because it catastrophically lost all power in a hurricane and without power the ship was not able to steer causing the ship to turn sideways to the wind instead of heading into the wind. It rolled over and sank. My son was on the same model ship but in the pacific at the time and I watched the hurricane tracker every day after that incident. Those vessels take miles to make turns and if the current is strong against the turning direction it’s even harder. merchant ships are not like cars that can easily turn a corner and honestly knowing what I know based on his stories through the years I’m a bit shocked that there are not more incidents. Backup systems are not bulletproof.