Great lake boats, a good video

   / Great lake boats, a good video #464  
When the Whitefish bay rolled a fishing boat over in 2013. I posted this earlier but its really a cool video to see. On its maiden voyage of the newest addition to Canadian Steam Ship Lines Great Lakes Fleet, the Whitefish Bay encounters a fishing boat with engine trouble. The freighter wins.

The guys jumped out of the little boat right before it hit the wake. If they'd have stayed in the boat, they'd have ridden it out. There was, of course, no way for them to know that in advance. (they were reportedly rescued by other boaters later, which is amazing).

So put that in your mental tool box... the next time you're about to get run over by a great lakes freighter, stay in your boat.
 
   / Great lake boats, a good video #465  
On the collision:

It's not clear from the video but does the ship stop afterwards? Are they even aware of the collision? Are they required to stop? Logistics of an emergency stop must be complicated. Is there an investigation?

Just curious...
 
   / Great lake boats, a good video
  • Thread Starter
#466  
On the collision:

It's not clear from the video but does the ship stop afterwards? Are they even aware of the collision? Are they required to stop? Logistics of an emergency stop must be complicated. Is there an investigation?

Just curious...
Rob, I assume you asking about the Whitefish bay? They can not stop very quickly so the lake freighters get the right of way, nor can they turn around. If the lake or river bottom is shallow, they then can drop anchors to help them slow more quickly. Boats need to reverse there main props* thrust to stop. In this video the Paul Tregurtha does a crash stop test (no anchor drop) and just about shakes the boat apart. It takes them more than 1/2 a mile to stop. Since the Whitefish bay reported the incident, I doubt they needed to stop.

* some reverse there engines.


 
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   / Great lake boats, a good video
  • Thread Starter
#467  
Here is the audio of the captain of the Whitefish bay reporting to the Canadian CG the incident. They knew what happened and had dropped a smoke bouye for the newly swimming fishermen.

 
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   / Great lake boats, a good video #470  
Kinda reminds me of the opening scene of "Always", with the PBY air tanker and the two guys in the fishing boat.

 
 
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