May 20/2025: Early assessments of the apparently botched departure of the Mexican Navy tall-ship Cuauhtémoc from a Manhattan pier, leading to a fateful collision with the Brooklyn Bridge this past Saturday evening, had it as just a dope-slap nav problem. As in: those dopes should have waited until the tide and current were in their favor. So said myself and many other armchair admirals immediately after the incident.
But no, if you watch the relevant videos, it is very apparent the enormous square-rigged ship was not just pulled into the bridge by tidal current, but was actually motoring into the bridge in reverse. According the latest intel, Cuauhtémoc was moving at about 2.3 knots as it pulled away from its berth in lower Manhattan, with help from a tugboat. Less than five minutes later, the ship’s speed had increased to six knots in reverse. The flood-tide current at the time, meanwhile, was just a third of a knot.
Watch a viddy and you can clearly see the ship was throwing off a significant wake when it collided with the bridge.
If you ask me, this obviously was a deliberate assault against the bridge and the United States, no doubt in retaliation for our renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
Not to mention all the tariffs and anti-immigrant policies of the current administration in Washington.
No wonder the Mexican Navy so far has not allowed NTSB officials to board the vessel to begin an investigation.
The only question in my mind now: when will the Tangerine Emperor launch our counterattack??? And what form will it take???
I wait with bated breath.
A tug boat was pulling the sailboat out of dock location, and I think in some video I saw, continued pulling under the bridge & beyond. Please confirm. Tug captain could be partly at fault.
Per the videos I watched, the tug helped them get off the dock, but did not have a line on after that. Latest speculation is that they had a problem with the variable pitch prop.