Thanks for the better pictures, ETMN! I was having a hard time making out the outline of the ship in previous pictures I'd seen. I see now why. They've dragged all sorts of blue tarps over the top of the floating portion to disguise its outline from satellites.
One interesting thing I noticed is in the top picture(s). You can see the barge crane has a tremendous lateral load on it (like WOW!). At first I thought this was just distortion due to the satellite not being directly overhead, but if that was the case you'd see the same distortion on the gantry cranes both fore and aft of the ship. You don't see similar angular distortion with those objects. So, they must have that crane loaded to 150% of it's maximum capacity. You don't load a crane like that...ever.
I mean, I get it that they're probably panicking (big time), but still; if you dump your heavy lift crane you've got just that much more to salvage. Surely they didn't think they'd be able to lift the bow of that destroyer off the pier...did they?
They're really in a helluva predicament with this ship with where it's sitting. There's no way they're going to use tugs to drag it off the pier, and even if they did it'll probably sink. It's way too big to pick up. They might be able to jack up the bow and then roll it off...maybe. But other than that, about the only other option is to blast the pier away until they can get the whole thing in the water and then try to move it.
I love logistics problems like this. I usually get dragged into them at work when stuff goes really sideways.
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I read an interesting article which pointed out something I hadn't noticed in the top photograph. It questioned why the blue tarps were covering large portions of the slipway where the ship was sitting. The initial speculation is that pieces of the ship's hull are covered by these tarps. If true, then there is far more damage to the ship than originally thought. The current thinking is that the bogies under the forward portion of the ship did not move, or did not move enough. This would have put the ship in a twisting bind, possibly ripping the bottom of the forward portion of the hull apart.
I can hear the antiaircraft guns exploding worker's heads from here. Poor bastages!
Updated Article
One interesting thing I noticed is in the top picture(s). You can see the barge crane has a tremendous lateral load on it (like WOW!). At first I thought this was just distortion due to the satellite not being directly overhead, but if that was the case you'd see the same distortion on the gantry cranes both fore and aft of the ship. You don't see similar angular distortion with those objects. So, they must have that crane loaded to 150% of it's maximum capacity. You don't load a crane like that...ever.
I mean, I get it that they're probably panicking (big time), but still; if you dump your heavy lift crane you've got just that much more to salvage. Surely they didn't think they'd be able to lift the bow of that destroyer off the pier...did they?
They're really in a helluva predicament with this ship with where it's sitting. There's no way they're going to use tugs to drag it off the pier, and even if they did it'll probably sink. It's way too big to pick up. They might be able to jack up the bow and then roll it off...maybe. But other than that, about the only other option is to blast the pier away until they can get the whole thing in the water and then try to move it.
I love logistics problems like this. I usually get dragged into them at work when stuff goes really sideways.
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I read an interesting article which pointed out something I hadn't noticed in the top photograph. It questioned why the blue tarps were covering large portions of the slipway where the ship was sitting. The initial speculation is that pieces of the ship's hull are covered by these tarps. If true, then there is far more damage to the ship than originally thought. The current thinking is that the bogies under the forward portion of the ship did not move, or did not move enough. This would have put the ship in a twisting bind, possibly ripping the bottom of the forward portion of the hull apart.
I can hear the antiaircraft guns exploding worker's heads from here. Poor bastages!
Updated Article