Mexican Tall Ship Hits Brooklyn Bridge Leaving Two Dead
On Saturday, May 17, at about 8:30 p.m. New York time, the Mexican tall ship Cuauhtémoc drifted backward under the Brooklyn Bridge, snapping off all three of her topmasts and killing two crew, including a 20-year-old female cadet. Twenty-two other people were injured, about half of them critically. Some 277 crew and cadets were aboard at the time.
The ship was departing New York after a goodwill visit when the accident happened. As with many tall ship visits to ports all over the world, she was festooned with flags and lights, and with crew stationed on the yardarms.
According to reports, the cause of the accident was a loss of engine power shortly after Cuauhtémoc pulled away from Pier 17 in Manhattan. The current in the East River then drove the ship backward under the bridge, breaking off her topmasts sequentially from mizzen to foremast.
The accident was videotaped by dozens of cell phones from shore and from the bridge. It’s literally everywhere online and was the lead story on almost every TV newscast over the weekend.
The ship’s next stop was to be Iceland, but she will remain in New York until the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completes their investigation. The Mexican navy, which owns and operates the ship, has pledged full cooperation and transparency, and is conducting its own internal review in coordination with US authorities.
As you might imagine, speculation is rampant over this incident, with most commentary centered on the actions, and perceived inaction, of the captain, pilot, and a tugboat that appeared to be right alongside the ship. We’ll let you know what the NTSB report says when it’s released.
Cuauhtémoc — known as the “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas,” and named for the last Aztec emperor to fight against the Spanish — was built as a cadet-training and goodwill ambassador ship in Spain in 1981–82. She is 296-ft (sparred length) long, 39-ft in beam, and displaces 1,800 tons. Her tallest masts are 147 feet.
In the 43 years since, she has sailed over 400,000 miles, visiting ports all over the world, including San Francisco in 2005 and 2009. According to abc57, the ship was on its training tour for the graduating class of 2025.
Numerous videos and photos of the incident are circling the internet. The two below show the tragedy unfolding from different angles. Warning: The scenes may be distressing to some readers.
Our condolences go to the captain and crew of Cuauhtémoc and their families.
I believe her engine was in reverse. In some of the videos you can see prop wash going forward as you would see from a boat in reverse. The speed she is moving backwards seems to be faster than the current would carry her. So my semi-educated guess is that the engine was stuck in reverse. If that were the case it would seem the engine could have been shut down, but who knows. It’s a very sad situation and we will all look forward to finding out what actually happened.
Sterling Hayden’s First Mate, Spike Africa, is famous for having said, “Any fool can make a sailboat go. It takes a real sailor to stop one.” My first command as Captain, when I became aware of what was happening, would have been “DEPLOY ANCHORS!”
Like. Not sure of time, but dropping anchors comes to mind.
A distress call?
And the tug? I wasn’t there, but am curious.
Regardless it’s a tragedy I can’t imagine what their going through.
It’s early days but I suspect a controllable pitch propeller problem. Probably the pitch was set astern when she was backing out from the pier into the stream and, when they shifted the pitch to ahead as the tug pushed her bow to head out, the propeller blades didn’t move. Consequently the engine was actually running the ship with astern thrust at that moment and it probably took a few moments thereafter for the pilot or captain to realize that the pitch ordered was not what he was getting. Being so close to the bridge, with both the tide and wind working against them, and the tug not made up, things happened very very quickly. They were counting on ahead thrust when they needed it and got astern thrust instead. Mechanically there are typically two concentric tubes running down the propeller shaft, and the system pressurizes one or the other to move the piston in the hub that rotates the blades ahead or astern. The non-pressurized tube serves as the return. If the hydraulic pump failed at the wrong moment, or maybe a shuttle or servo valve stuck due to contamination of the oil, so that it was impossible to pressurize the tube that needed to be pressurized, that could have done it. Presumably we will find out soon. Terrible tragedy for a proud and beautiful vessel. So sorry to hear about it.
This was a seriously unfortunate accident, both in human terms (I’m sure we all feel sympathy for the families of those two crew members who perished, as well as the others who suffered significant injuries) and in terms of the damage to that remarkable vessel. Many of us will be looking for the NTSB evaluation, but it’s already clear that some of the initial news reports got things quite wrong.
It’s evident from multiple videos that the ship was still under power but was still motoring rearward, producing a significant wake, so reports that it had lost power and was drifting are inaccurate. Furthermore, this happened just minutes after slack water at the bridge according to NOAA, so there’s no way the ship was “drifting” that rapidly even with the light breeze (judging by the waving flag) which was also setting northward. Yes, we can see that it was drifting to starboard, despite the tug that was trying to push the bow to port, but as it approached the bridge abutment it was moving a lot faster in reverse. Evidently there was a control issue that prevented it from reversing power, not a loss of power. The Captain had, understandably, expected that a single tug would have provided sufficient assistance to simply turn the boat to the south, but by not tethering that tug to his ship it was unable to counter the progress of the ship as it continued motoring aftward. And, as it became evident that he was unable to shift the running gear into forward, he didn’t have enough time (or presence of mind) to even drop the hook. Such a mechanical control issue was probably not likely to have been anticipated, but I’ll bet in the future they don’t rely on a single tug again.
Now that its masts have been trimmed by the lowest bridge on the East River, they can take the ship to any of a number of shipyards in the NYC area or up on Long Island Sound, so I’m hoping that Mexico can get the damage repaired and then sail (or motor) the ship home instead of ignominiously towing her home.
Please keep us updated on this, Lat. 38. Thanks.
In most of these incidents there are several contributing factors. I’m thinking that current may have played a bigger role than many think. I personally have struggled with currents in the Bay Area and elsewhere. The East River where the incident took place is not a river at all but an estuary connecting two tidal bodies of water thus leading to tricky though predictable currents.