Cuauhtemoc Voyage: South Street to the Brooklyn Bridge | Did the Controllable Pitch Propeller Fail?

With wind and current plus tug not sure why you would even need to engage reverse, especially given very limited room for manoeuvre

Kwa Tay Mock? 😂😂😂

military issued low-top white converses, incredible

sad story, awesome coverage. thanks.

Juan Blanco is the GOAT of air flight related accidents...good to be recognized because Juan is too humble to say it.

My gosh I hope this isn't another training deficiency. That would put it in a similar note to the NZ navy issue. I'd rather hear it was the throttle unit and just happened to be in a tight space. Serious stuff with loss of life.

Seems like it might be worth pointing out that having the sailors standing ON the yard is unusual; aboard Cuauhtemoc, they do it as a part of their arrival and departure process -- sort of like an honor guard, I suppose. When actually setting or furling the sails attached to those yards, the sailors stand on footropes, hanging several feet below the yard, and rest their bellies against the yard. In that position they can grab and collect the sail as it's being hauled up to be stored atop the yard, or hanging just below it. I believe a very few navies do this bit where the sailors are standing on the yard, but it's all for effect. I doubt sailors on USCGC Eagle would ever stand up on the yard.

Just a note that this is unusual and unnecessary behavior for actually sailing the ship. (Which, of course, they weren't doing at the time, since they were under diesel power.) Peter McC

It isn’t fore-sail, it is fore’s’le.

I drove tugboats in NY Harbour for 7 years; for 5 years previous to that I sailed SSSM's schooner PIONEER and the two Seaport Line replica excursion boats out of Pier 17. I know the currents off that dock a lot better than you seem to.

I have never heard such a pile of self-serving BS. The CHARLES D. McALLISTER is an 1800hp twin-screw Jacksonville Shipbuilding tug built in 1967; it has enough HP to get that ship safely away from Pier 17 at slack water but no one in their right mind would try to do that with one tug after the current started making eastbound towards Hell Gate. Apparantly, somebody can't interpret the tide and current tables for the East River....

Thanks!

Reports state that the two fatalities were Midshipmen that fell from the tops and impacted the deck.

That suggests that those two unhooked their safety lines in a last-minute attempt to escape the impact.

If so, that's doubly tragic, in that they were clearly not briefed or trained for the possibility of an allision with an elevated structure, like the Brooklyn Bridge.

More clear I don’t think so! Every Mexican video or most of them blames the American pilot but with this video I understand the American pilot just gives orders and doesn’t touch the controls is that correct?

New subscriber here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and explaining what could have happened

And I get arrested for standing on the hood of my car when leaving my driveway

The Mexican narco government navy secretary, is blaming the pilot, As if here in MX were so careful with maintenance in every aspect of our machines elsewhere, but at the end,the truth will come out, and G'd will be the judge

are there radio communications between the vessels on the marine channels similar to what we get with the ATC comms? Could be revealing . .

LOVE Juan Brown!

I had to look up allision. Thanks for teaching me a new word, as well as all the info on shipping.

Captain, the bridge was too low. 😆

I sincerely hope the ship can be repaired, the injured recover & whatever went wrong with the drive system is fixed on this ship and its sisters. Thanks the informative update as always. Hope also that the friends & family of those lost can find strength and peace.

Sal you do just as good for marine incidents and Juan does for aviations both of you are professionals in you fields

still NOBODY KNOWS what happened

Here's a hypothetical situation that the rearward propulsion might have prevented: alliding with the bridge while the boat was parallel with the bridge.

The ship's propeller was pulling the back of the ship towards the bridge, so the stern side of the masts impacted the bridge.

But if the ship had lost all propulsion, it would have slowed down to the speed of the river current. It's now floating adrift, with no water flowing past the keel and rudder to keep the ship in line with the current.

If some eddy, or the wind, turned the ship crossways to the current (say, with the bow pointing towards Manhattan), then the starboard side of the mast would have impacted the bridge. The current would have continued dragging the keel sideways under the bridge. If the masts were strong enough, then instead of them breaking, the boat would start listing, with the masts tilting towards the pier they had just departed from.

This would likely knock the sailors off the slanted yardarms, hanging by their safety lines, but could have caused more mayhem and resulting injuries on and below decks, if the tilt became steep enough.

Does anyone have an idea how long/how many ship lengths it might take for this type of ship to lose its velocity relative to the current, and be subject to the current/wind turning it crossways to the current? (Let's pretend no tugs were available.) I assume this all would take much more time/distance than their distance to the bridge, but it's an interesting thought exercise. Losing rearward propulsion would help with the problem they faced, but floating adrift introduces a new dynamic.

And man landed on the moon with a Vic-20. Wake up.

Thanks Sal.

Come on people....try to connect the dots, we just had a military helicopter fly into a civil av, plane,killing 79 people, we had a Chinese freighter just ram a bridge in a critical harbor in Boston, and the sheer number of weird "accidents" apparently just get explained away.

First off My sympathies to the injured and Families. Thank You for the video and possible cause. The only other video I saw was a 5 second clip that made it look like they just steered into the Bridge(Bow On) with the Talking Head implying that it was the crews fault, He even stressed the label "Mexican", Dumb S**t.

Still, the mass was too high to go under that bridge, even if it had a mechanical breakdown.

I thought it was a gay cruze ship😂😂😂

Can the top masts be folded down on this type of newer ship for passing under bridges?

Not thoroughly versed in Aztec (Nahuatl), but I think the ship is pronounced 'coo wha tay mok' more or less.

The CCP on my ship lost pitch a few times. Luckily it wasn't during a restricted manuvering situation. It was usually an issue with the ships control console or the local operating console in the engine room.

I dont believe that they use a lie at all with the tug.

When I heard the Juan Browne reference, I immediately subscribed to you!

DON'T BE A LIAR, at no point did the Mexican government blame US personnel. The report they gave is that the ship was complying with international standards. The president of that country said she wouldn't speculate until the American authorities had fully analyzed what happened. That's a far cry from the regrettable comment you made!

Did u forget to mention a Gringo was the PILOT

Great call out to @blancolirio! Juan's got great content!

Should the McAllister tub remained tied off until the ship was able to get underway on its own propulsion?

Would a couple of modern tugs (ASD tugs) prevented this tragedy? A complicated ship is not a routine job for a tug...The pilot must have realized that......

Cuauhtemoc meaning

Cuauhtémoc is a name that means "descending eagle" in Nahuatl, derived from cuāuhtli meaning "eagle" and temo meaning "descend".25 This name implies aggressiveness and determination, as it refers to the moment when an eagle folds its wings and plummets down to strike its prey.

Tug have had been attached and disconnect only when the ship was under way . Pilots fault regardless of any ship's controll failure .

No need for crew members to be up there at all in that situation. It is reckless.

Guy your channel is living the dream. What a wild shipping year

They should've stayed tied to the tug until they got out of the canal. 😢

I would not have had the tug let loose till the ship was moving forward, and you knew the ship had power in the right direction for safety.

Thank you for posting this video, this is the clearest explanation and description of what happened ive seen covering this accident. Keep up the good work 👍

Was not an unnecessary risk to dock the vessel in pier 17 in the first place?, I mean given the characteristics of this vessel? I know is great for the pics, landscape, etc. But what about the safety conditions?