Originally Posted by Teal
Originally Posted by Valsdad
Originally Posted by Teal
Next bridge will be built with dolphins and I bet they review all others and require them for old bridges without.
You think dolphins would have helped that crash? Honest question.

Assuming they hit the dolphin the same was as they did the support - maybe. I could see it hitting one, pinwheeling the ship sideways and getting stuck, either on the 2 dolphins (adjacent supports) or into another support. That's one big boat with a ton of weight. Wedged sideways with the currents... be a bad deal.

I don't know that it prevents the bridge failure - we're talking a really unfortunate event.

Maybe a dolphin buys time to get power/steering or at least, slow enough to get bow thrusters to work.

But absent zero bridges, I think dolphins will be the solution selected for this.
Oh, that's not a pretty picture in my mind. A 1000' vessel caught up on the dolphins, sideways to traffic and the current, upstream of a bridge. Yikes.

As you say though, they might buy some time. Maybe for the tide to change and push it back off the dolphins even?

But damn, if it sat there for awhile, all that tonnage pushing on them, hoping they held. Gives me shivers thinking about it.

The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men.
In it is contentment
In it is death and all you seek
(Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)

member of the cabal of dysfunctional squirrels?