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This ship , which was in dry dock, has come a cropper . Very windy in the Edinburgh area today , which I assume is reason it has toppled . 

Don't know much more about it , other than their are sadly some casualties . Here's hoping they are not to severe ,but that is a dangerous load to move .

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I really don't want to make light of a very sad and serious situation, but on a lighter note , this is a quote.from someone interviewed at the scene . Only in Scotland would you get this quote 😂........

 

"It's very scary - it just makes you evaluate everything," he said. "No one goes to work to be involved in any kind of accident.

"We all want to go home for our mince and tatties to our wife and kids so I feel for anyone who is injured, and their family."

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15 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

I bet the dock manager is sweating more than a Royal Marine doing a maths test 

Griff

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one get such a large vessel into a dry dock?

Do you sail it in, then drain it ? A bit like the lock system in a canal?

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Complete speculation.

It seems like the ship missed it's keel blocks.

On small ships like this the ship ( 74m I believe) the keel has to land on the keel blocks and then is propped up from the side of the dock as the water is pumped out. Yes just the same as in a canal lock.

When entering the dock control over the ship is given over to the dock workers and basically bow and stern lines are passed from either bow and quarters (stern) . The ship is then winched into position and located on the blocks by laser measurements and then the dock is pumped out.

Very important for the ships officers is that the trim is correct as determined by the dry dock ( usually a small trim by the stern.

If this trim is incorrect then the ship will take the aft blocks and as the ship becomes progressively more unstable could potentially slip off the blocks and something like the article happens.

Or the dry dock got it's measurements wrong and it missed the keel blocks.

In all fairness I have never seen or heard of this happening .

Larger ships land on a series of keel blocks and require no propping up from the side. It still has to be right though.

The stability of any vessel on taking the bottom is complicated and is more so in a controlled bottoming out such as a dry docking 

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Looking at the latest (Good) photo, I'd say it has been in dry dock sometime as there is fresh anti foul and a proper clean hull below waterline.  Therefor I'm deducing it had been sat on the keel blocks just fine, the port n stbd legs from the dock walls to the ships hull - I think the problem was with them, maybe they were removing some prior to flooding the dock and removed one to many!

Griff

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Looking at your picture Mikey it does look like inadequate intact stability let alone reserve stability.

Pure speculation of course.😥

From other sources, The vessel belonged to Paul Allen a co founder of Microsoft and was used as a deep sea research vessel and was instrumental in locating many deeply sunk historical ships , I think the most famous of all for us Brits was recovering the bell from HMS Good.

She had been laid up after the Pandemic but had now been sold to new owners maybe hence the drydocking.

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1 minute ago, BroadAmbition said:

Looking at the latest (Good) photo, I'd say it has been in dry dock sometime as there is fresh anti foul and a proper clean hull below waterline.  Therefor I'm deducing it had been sat on the keel blocks just fine, the port n stbd legs from the dock walls to the ships hull - I think the problem was with them, maybe they were removing some prior to flooding the dock and removed one to many!

Griff

Maybe 👍

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2 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Looking at the latest (Good) photo, I'd say it has been in dry dock sometime as there is fresh anti foul and a proper clean hull below waterline.  Therefor I'm deducing it had been sat on the keel blocks just fine, the port n stbd legs from the dock walls to the ships hull - I think the problem was with them, maybe they were removing some prior to flooding the dock and removed one to many!

Griff

I had missed that Griff 

We as ships officers do spend a lot of time focusing on ensuring stability on entering dry dock.

It is much more simple leaving dry dock as you ensure the tankage is the same as on arrival. All entered in the OLB ( Official Log Book) or as near to what you see in fiction as The Ships Log.

It is quite possible as you say that the tankage of the ship was different to her arrival and she became unstable on departure. Even on a small ship such as this the difference could be some thousands of tonnes. 

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Having a better look at the good photo this morning it seems that my speculation about stability was incorrect.😞

The dock looks dry and the safety netting was rigged. There are still some items on the dock floor and the gangway,or in this case more correctly, Brow is laying on the Dock floor.

I think you can see the port side props laying along the dock wall.

There is talk if high winds but unless there was some miscalculation it seems unlikely to me to be a factor.

But then I have been known to be wrong before 😥

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