Azteca has a little brush with the bridge in St.Maarten

Ouch.....

Looks like the lower rub rail was not made for rubbing against anything but a rubber tender..

Azteca

What was that water coming out the rubrail ? generator discharge? a/c cooling ?

What happened here? It looks like the wind is blowing in opposite direction than the movement of the ship (side that hits the bridge)?

Azteca

Apparently the other side is in worse shape....someone really messed up...

That fender wasn't set low enough. But, I don't get the other side being worse unless that boat (including fenders) just doesn't fit the bridge, as he was on the stbd. fenders all the way through.

just looks like way to big of a boat for the bridge, especially if several others have hit also

Measure twice, cut once....

ouch. It appears there was plenty of room, they were just too far over on the starboard side. Why were they departing with that much wind? The fenders are bouncing around like corkscrews. It also appears they were going through the bridge very fast, which might be to maintain steerage with all of the wind.

Meh...that'll buff right out.

The funny things is, the crew was told they would get fired if they posted any pictures on Facebook

Guess that cat's left the bag. Like anything can't be kept private today. Facebook, Ha! Youtube.

This is an inside pic of the mechanics operating that infamous bridge for Simpson Bay. I had made friends with the bridge engineer as he is giving me a tour here just the other month.

Did Azteca hit the bridge from both sides or only with starboard side?

Who told the crew not to send pictures on Facebook? Captain?

According to dennismc.

DK how that happened as they seemed to be riding down the stbd. side, but he seems to have seen something.

He's actually coming in to Simpson Bay, in which the wind will typically be coming at you slightly from port, and like you said, trying to steer in it. Keeping in mind as well, that opening is not all that wide. I cringed the first time we went through it in 8 meters of beam. Don't know the tide at the time of that video but that would also be a considerable factor. They don't open the bridge often, so at the intervals they do, you got one shot at it!

Would have been nice to see the fenders down a little further to have potentially saved some face.

Edit:

From IGY:

ref: http://www.igy-simpsonbay.com/marina/bridge-openings/

Man, it sure seems tighter than 16 meters!

That bridge is what, 55 feet wide? And Azteca has a beam of about 45'. Not a lot of room to spare when your that long and the breeze is blowing a beam.

More and lower fenders might have helped though. But then you run into the issue of how often do you need all those extra fenders you have to find storage room for?

Tough break for the captain in any event. I feel for him what with all those folks watching and video taping.

As an aside, didn't the owner of "Limitless" pay to have the wider bridge built?

Looks to be less than a foot off high tide. DK if incoming or outgoing.