you know the thing that I love about looking at all these original Spaldings that Alaska still operate, is they all have the same livery I have been acustomed to all my adult life, and they haven't rebranded every time political winds happen! now why couldn't we have kept some of our heritage as our southern and northern neighbours have? mrdot.
Here's a shot of the Matanuska in Haines around 2003.
A little History. I grew up in Skagway, so I've ridden all the AMHS ferries many, many times, including the little old Chilkat way back in the day.
By far my favorite - because of fond memories - is the Matanuska. The family would take the Mat south in the mid-late 60s on our annual month long vacation Outside. My Father knew both Captains Johnson so it made the trip more memorable. Have stood on the bridge, have been given a tour of the bowels, etc.
Does three or four knots really matter . . . I'm a pilot - airplane pilot that would be - not a ship pilot. And surely this isn't the Captain's first day at Petersburg? Just asking cause I dunno, but sure looks like a bit more than a simple "grazing the dock" in Petersburg.
Let's play the oversimplification game. The Mat is 408 feet long, and draws 16 feet. 6528 square feet on a side below the water line. I don't know where to begin to guess at her true dimensions, so let's make that 6,000 square feet.
Sea water is about 1,000 kg per cubic meter. 3 knots of current equal around 1.5 meters a second If I am not completely off my rocker (which I could well be), from that we get 1,125 Pascels of pressure [(1,000(1.5*1.5))/2=1,125] which translates to something like 0.16 psi.
6,000 square feet becomes 864,000 square inches * 0.16 PSI = (I think) 138,240 pounds of pressure exerted on the hull, in the neighborhood of 69 tons of pressure.
Obviously there are a lot of other forces at play, such as the water on the other side of the vessel, and most importantly the fact that this is not a closed system (I haven't a clue how that affects the math), but it is a Saturday morning, and I am hoping that someone who knows fluid dynamics will rip my math apart and teach me how it's really done.
Well that seemed like a relatively soft landing, considering. Try being on a Ferry that's going at least 5 knots into the dock.
Seriously though, that's quite the tight little spot to try and dock a ferry. That would have been around the time of the super tides/super moon, wouldn't it? I'm guessing that might have played a bit of a factor?
Also, Karl, you'd be surprised at how easy it is for a ship to lose control. With single enders, choosing the wrong shaft to go astern with to compensate for the tide can really make things go sideways in a hurry. Pun intended, if you catch my drift. Also, when you're trying to slow down with one shaft, you're steerage is greatly reduced, and the tide or wind can be tricky to contend with. Plus, that's assuming there was nothing mechanically wrong with the vessel at the time. Judging by how fast it resumed service, it doesn't really appear that anything was really wrong with the vessel?
Last Edit: May 19, 2012 9:29:02 GMT -8 by Ferryman
That's assuming there was nothing mechanically wrong with the vessel at the time. Judging by how fast it resumed service, it doesn't really appear that anything was really wrong with the vessel?
Sorry, I have been remiss...
"The U-S Coast Guard says Monday’s ferry accident in Petersburg was not caused by a mechanical problem. What did cause the Matanuska to run bow-first into the Ocean Beauty Seafoods dock was still under investigation as of Thursday morning, according to Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Ryan Erickson."
The captain of an Alaska state ferry made a maneuvering error in strong currents while approaching Petersburg, and it couldn't be corrected before the ship slammed into a seafood company's dock. . . . . .
Some pics of Matanuska at Petersburg - 01-Aug-2012:
FYI - we went by Ocean Beauty Seafoods, the dock that Matanuska creamed earlier this year, and it still shows most, or all, of the damage caused by the ferry. They haven't fixed it yet, and the locals say this incident shut down that facility for the rest of the year. Some think it's so Ocean Beauty can claim damage/loss of profit on their insurance, or perhaps in a lawsuit. Hard to say, for sure. As an aside, the pier Matanuska hit really isn't all that close to the ferry terminal. They were quite a bit off course when they hit it. It wouldn't even be in their normal approach to the terminal, so it makes me wonder how, and why, they were that far off. The article talked about the strong currents in the harbor, which there are, but something still doesn't seem quite right to me now that I've seen the location.
