A cruise ship suffered a blackout in Sydney Harbour, just weeks before a similar scenario in the US led to the collapse of the deadly Baltimore Bridge.
The MS Borealis, a 238 meter long cruise ship, departed from the White Bay Cruise Terminal in Rozelle in Sydney on February 28.
The ship lost power about 50 minutes after passing under the Sydney Harbor Bridge as it navigated the Western Channel near South Head late at night.
The Fred. The Olsen Cruise Lines ship then drifted “a mile … under pilotage” before being anchored for several hours as power was restored, a source with knowledge of the port authority’s report on the incident said. The Sydney Morning Herald.
The MS Dali crashed when it suffered a similar power failure on Tuesday shortly after departing from the Port of Baltimore in the US, causing the cargo ship to lose steering and drift into a concrete support pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Much of the 1.6-mile-long bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River. Six maintenance workers who were on the bridge are missing and presumed dead.
Cruise ship MS Borealis (photo) suffered a similar power outage in Sydney Harbor in February
Police dive boats are working around part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship struck the bridge on Wednesday
Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines has since confirmed the incident in Sydney.
“Shortly after leaving Sydney, Australia, at 11:50 pm (AEDT) on February 28, our vessel Borealis briefly lost power,” a spokesperson said.
“Our onboard technical team has been working hard to determine the cause and quickly restore all systems. The ship returned to full operational power and continued its further world cruise itinerary as planned.”
It is understood a tugboat that had guided the ship through Sydney Harbor was unable to re-attach the cable after the cruise ship was hit by the blackout.
The risk that what happened to the Francis Scott Key Bridge will happen to the Sydney Harbor Bridge is very unlikely as the bridge structures are vastly different.
The Sydney Bridge has two supporting piers on either side of the harbour, unlike the Baltimore Bridge, which had piers in the water.
Professor Wije ‘Ari’ Ariyaratne, who was director of bridges and structures at NSW between 2000 and 2019, told the newspaper that Sydney Harbor Bridge engineer John Bradfield had used a “double-pillar arch” to remove structures in the water to avoid.
“We have very strong sandstone anchoring the bridge,” he said.
White Bay Cruise Terminal opened in 2013 to accommodate smaller cruise ships and replace Darling Habour’s Wharf 8, which was closed due to the redevelopment of Barangaroo.
Larger cruise ships dock at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay.
There is a bridge with a clearance of 49 meters above White Bay that could pose a hazard if larger ships tried to dock there.
The Borealis suffered an electrical fault while passing under the Sydney Harbor Bridge for an hour
At each end of the Sydney Harbor Bridge are two pairs of 89-metre-tall towers that were not part of the original design. The granite blocks were added later to reassure the public that it would not fall. The Sydney Harbor Bridge is pictured under construction in 1930
A spokesperson for the NSW Transport Minister said the state’s commercial waterways had “some of the most robust procedures in the world”, which were supported in Sydney Harbor by experienced tugboat operators.
Risk management company DNV found in a 2022 report that there were 12 blackout incidents reported on cruise ships worldwide in 2019, which is rare considering the thousands of ships in operation.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines for comment.
In the US, the Port of Baltimore’s main operations remain suspended.
Supply chain experts say there are other ports along the East Coast as well will likely absorb much of Baltimore’s traffic, avoiding a crisis. But not without some longer delivery times and unrest.
“Ultimately, most trade through Baltimore will find a new homeport,” Moody’s Analytics economist Harry Murphy Cruise wrote in a blog post.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg reiterated this on Wednesday that it was too early to estimate how long it would take to clear the partial bridge structure from the 50-foot-deep Patapsco River channel, which leads to the port’s main terminal.
The port’s location makes it an important destination for freight. The Maryland Port Administration says two-thirds of the U.S. population can reach the facility at night, and it is closer to the Midwest than any other port on the East Coast.
The Singaporean-flagged MS Dali was sailing down the Patapsco River en route to Sri Lanka when the power went out and the lights went out.
Three minutes later, the container ship hit a pylon on the bridge, causing almost the entire structure to fall into the water.
The bridge was in good condition and there were no known structural problems, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.
The nearly 300-meter-long cargo ship Dali sailed from the port of Baltimore to Sri Lanka
The metal truss bridge has a hanging deck, a design that contributed to its collapse, engineers say. The ship appeared to have struck a main concrete pier, which rests on the ground underwater and is part of the foundation.
The ship, owned by Grace Ocean Pte Ltd, LSEG, measured 289 meters and was stacked high with containers, but could carry twice as much cargo.
Safety investigators recovered the ship’s black box, which can tell them its position, speed, heading, radar, bridge audio and radio communications, as well as alarms.