I'm going to apologize in advance, but some of this is getting my ire up.
As I sit here, living about three miles from the Oakland terminal where that ship is located, my boat is covered in oil. Crissie Field, where I used to go windsurfing daily, is an Effing Disaster.
I'm tired of the Liberal Bashing. Hell, yes. Let's follow Cheney and Company, and have Hands off business, because God Knows, they do a HELLUVA job being proactive, policing themselves. Whether we're talking shipping, or emissions, or Haliburton, or Blackwater, or Detroit, I am sick of this constant, full-court defense, this constant aversion to looking at things from the other side. At even considering options.
Hell no. It's long live the status quo. Oversight is lunacy. The Press asking questions, unpatriotic. Wrap yourself in the flag, make everything about 9/11, because apparently, only the GOP cares about Protecting America. What a joke, were it not such an insult.
I love this ahole who is our vp. "Conservation may be a personal virtue, but it has no place in our national energy policy." This is like the only knucklehead who can't figure out that energy independence would actually improve our national security. Of course, this is also the fine national defense team who squandered all the good will we built up on 9/12. Who blw off Bin Laden, to get us into Iraq. With no plans for the aftermath, and half the troops needed.
That kind of National Security, I do not need.
Back to the tree-hugging. To clear up some facts: the channel is over 2,000 feet wide. The ship, I think, is 130 feet wide.
I have a friend who's in the know, can't say where he works, says he's been on the bridge, many times, and all old school pilots and masters eschew GPSs (as it's more of a technological assumption....it thinks you are here, which means, the objects in front of you must be here...)
Radar is relied upon, but the containers on deck block the signal, preventing their effective use to between 3 and 9 miles. Not super useful, then.
The XO is placed on the bow, and reports back via radio. In dense fog, given the momentum, by the time they saw they were off course, they were doomed. Visibility was about 500'
That boat should never have left the dock. The Pilot blew it.
As did the coast guard, for opening their mouths with any facts, when it was almost certain that they would be wrong. I read it was 26 hours until the Pilot was screened. Perhaps that is wrong.
This mess was predictable. We get hundreds of ships a week in the bay. We should have the infrastructure in place to do a better job, when the inevitable struck.
I'm pissed. In 100 years, we've managed to really screw up this planet. I'm chagrinned to have to leave this, for my son.
btw, this isn't a Nimby thing. I'm disgusted with the US response to New Orleans. Disgusted.