Before anybody reads too much into this, especially without all the facts, the ship was under the control of not one but TWO port of Baltimore pilots. There are reports of the ship going "black" minutes before the collision. What that is an indicator of is the ship probably had a catastrophic/cascading power failure and not only lost way, but steerage as well and in that case, they would not even had the means to even drop anchor. If the ship lost way, even at four of five knots, it would take a lot of time to stop. The channel there is but 150yrds wide, so lost of steerage and power, what happened is very much a probability.

Jorge (USN, RET)

A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”