Science & Engineering Shit

My Apple Watch and the current shirt I am wearing came to me via container ship. Each weighs less than a pound. How heavy can a ship that floats possibly be? A bridge, on the other hand, carries cars and big semis.

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No, there were not. The ship’s “Mayday” allowed traffic to be stopped both ways.

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Good news.

This will lead to changes in codes and regulations. The old adage “codes are written in blood” will apply to this case as well.

My guess at minimum is that over a certain size, bridge piers will be required to have impact barriers. Many, if not most, already have them.

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Another option, certainly in the short term, is to require tugs to be in attendance.

Could a tug actually move a fully-loaded container ship that’s doing 9 knots?

Absolutely. They’re powerful motherfuckers by design.

This guy’s channel: What Is Going On With Shipping, is all about the shipping industry. I don’t know how credible he is.

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Marine insurance contacts are telling me this is already looking like being the most expensive marine claim in history.

So the M/V “Dali” is entered into the Britannia P&I Club. P&I Clubs are the direct descendants of the shipowners’ pooling arrangements first struck in Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in the 17th century, in that all the members pay collectively for other members’ losses, based on the size of their “entry” (no, really).

The modern day iterations of these clubs are backstopped by commercial reinsurance - capping members’ out-of-pocket loss - but this is a bad event for the marine market as a whole, which has a worldwide capacity of about $3bn for P&I. “Dali” is going to challenge those limits because reinsurers of the Britannia will themselves have reinsurance - technically known as a “retrocession” - so a huge loss like this becomes a game of pass the parcel, with each reinsurer taking a piece and passing the rest on.

This means that the cost of reinsurance purchased by all direct P&I insurers is going to rise substantially. This means that every vessel owner - right down the those who winch their vessels down a boat ramp onto Lake Conroe - is going to see their insurance costs rise. It also means that the price of those vibrating anal beads you ordered from Taiwan is going to go up, too.

Expect to see a blame storm blow up, with fingers being pointed at the port authority for pilot error and maybe even a shipyard if the vessel was recently overhauled.

No one wants to be the one left with the “gift” once all the layers have been peeled off.

Just in time for the election. Aces.

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Almost every cent of the $3bn of P&I insurance/reinsurance renews on February 20. I mean, not your bass boat or small fleets of work boats and the like, but all the major clubs with the huge worldwide fleets entered, and all their reinsurance. So P&I premiums won’t go up until 2025.

And, yes, February 21 is one of the drunkest days in the City of London, putting it in the running one of the drunkest days worldwide.

Limey, Col.S already did it.

4.8 magnitude earthquake in the northeast.

Felt from PA to CT apparently.

I was really worried about missing the full eclipse but Angel Hernandez said Houston’s in the zone.

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Inevitable:

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Just like NYC to make itself the epicenter of attention.

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It was felt all across South-Central Pennsylvania, thus, giving new meaning to the Quaker State moniker

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Well, I guess no eclipse here. Shitfuck.