Shipping News, No. 4: Update
New York Harbor Region
Sunday, January 9, 2000

See also: Shipping News; Shipping News: Update; Shipping News, No. 2; Shipping News, No. 2: Update; Shipping News, No. 3; Shipping News, No. 3: Update; Shipping News, No. 4.

At approximately 0455 UTC on January 9 (approximately 11:55 PM EDT on January 8), two ships at anchor in New York Harbor's anchorage were directed by traffic command to immediately bring their engines on-line and move to avoid a collision.

One ship was directed to swing 180 degrees in order to move out of the swing circle of the ship to the south.

Ships dragging their anchors and thus requiring repositioning have been an apparent recurring problem of late in New York Harbor. This, combined with the post-rollover tightness of anchorage space may be the cause of today's near mishap, which mishap was avoided by the quick observations and response of traffic command.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 09, 2000

Answers

This is very scary, Harbor Guy! Hope this will not repeat itself! Thanks for the quick report- Swissrose.

-- Swissrose (cellier@azstarnet.com), January 09, 2000.

Swissrose: I am also impressed by this event. It had been postulated that Y2K would/could manifest its effects in strange (unforseen and indirect) ways, and this may represent one of those permutations.

I suppose, for the record, someone from the GICC could verify this event, and probe any relationship to Y2K.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 09, 2000.

LOL, what a permutation! :)

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 09, 2000.

Please tell me that no LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) tankers use that harbor. I'm less than 200 miles away and I don't want to have to replace blown-out windows if they fail to catch one of those babies before a colision happens.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 09, 2000.

I'd love for someone to point out how a ship dragging its anchor could be Y2K-related :-)

Or if anyone knows what that means (I do :-).

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 09, 2000.

Harbor Guy, thanks for your continued informative posts.

Pay no attention to John Crapinallthetime.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), January 09, 2000.

Wildweasel: I don't know, never heard of such.

Krempasky: Oh, wise guy, eh?

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 09, 2000.

At first I agreed with John Krempasky - dragging an anchor is not caused by computer glitches. However, the crowding in the harbor could be due to Y2K (too soon to say with certainty), so dragging an anchor is doubly or triply dangerous when there is no margin for error.

That's the problem with all of these little Y2K glitches - they further reduce the safety margin in a society that is set up for close tolerances. I like the statement "sand in the machine" from an earlier thread - a grain of sand is such a little thing, but in the wrong place it can bring operations to a halt.

This is now week 2 of the new year. Let's see if the harbormaster can jury-rig a workable schedule and perhaps shanghai more gas supplies. I will think good thoughts.

-- Margaret J (janssm@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Correction: The local time above should read EST, not EDT.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 12, 2000.