Cruise ship barely squeezes under bridge

[Generic Other]

(CNN) -- It was a tight squeeze for a giant new cruise ship sailing from Europe to its home port in in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, over the weekend.

Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas passed under Denmark's Storebaelt Bridge with about a foot to spare, drawing applause from people on board the ship.

The captain called it "the great excitement of the day."

The normal height of the ship from the water level to the top is about 73 meters (240 feet), said Capt. Hernan Zini, but the vessel couldn't be higher than 65 meters (213 feet) in order to safely go under the bridge, the captain said.

To make that happen, the crew lowered the ship's retractable twin smokestacks, carefully adjusted the ballast so the ship wouldn't be too light (and therefore sitting too high in the water) and boosted its speed.




http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/01/cruise.ship.bridge/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Youtube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Cs0C8LkeU

cRAZY LOON for a Captain!

[Dappleganger]

1. Limbo!

[Generic Other]

10. LOL...It took me way too long to get this comment!

duh!!

:rofl:

[backscatter712]

2. Link please?

Don't want to violate copyright laws - when posting excerpts from a news story, you need to link to the source.

[Generic Other]

5. oops! Forgot the link

Thanks!

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. That ship is too damn big

:-)

[Incitatus]

18. No, the bridge is too damn small

:silly:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. I woulda just gunned it with the smoke-stacks upright.

That bridge looks like it has a lot of flexibility in it.

[gateley]

6. I would have been in the bar. nt

[Generic Other]

9. The Poseidon Adventure

I would be swimming out behind you!!!

[applegrove]

7. That ship doesn't look seaworthy to me. It looks like a highrise.

[Angry Dragon]

8. It has a twin sister ship already at port in the US

[Generic Other]

11. Are they going past any icebergs on the way across the Atlantic?

:scared:

[Angry Dragon]

14. Climate change

they already melted

[FailureToCommunicate]

12. Too big to fail...

[felix_numinous]

13. What is going to happen when the oceans rise

and these ships don't fit under the bridges anymore...makes me wonder

[progressoid]

19. That'll be the least of our problems at that point.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Fat ass ship barely squeezes past size XXXL bridge.

[Codeine]

16. "She'll hold together!

Hear that, baby? Hold together!"

[BlueCheese]

17. I remember them moving some giant cranes or something like that...

... under the San Francisco Bay Bridge once. It was also a come in at low tide, squeeze every inch out, clear it by a foot kind of things. Engineering at its most fun.

[progressoid]

20. retractable twin smokestacks

:wow:

[Quixote1818]

21. Looks like it cleared the bridge by about 50 feet

There was actually quite a bit of space there.

[Nostradammit]

22. 50 feet would be approximately 5 levels of rooms on the ship -

so I doubt it was anywhere close to that much space.

Regardless, the damn thing is way too frickin' big.

What kind of mileage does it get, I wonder?

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Remember to allow for perspective, in the photo

The highest point of the roadway is actually at the point where the supporting cable is at its lowest, and that's where the ship has steered - and there's not 50 feet above the highest point of the ship there (as Nostradammit says, that's 5 floors). It may look as though there's more headroom just ahead of that, but that is the photo at the tightest moment - a line that is level in real life would be angled up to the right because of perspective.

You get a head-on shot here, about 2 minutes into the video: http://www.etravelblackboard.com/article/110731/allure-of-the-seas-squeezes-under-store-belt-bridge

It was tight.

On edit: even better - the 'official' video from the ship is here, with a camera right next to the highest point as it goes under (again, about 2 minutes into the video): http://www.luxist.com/2010/11/01/worlds-biggest-cruise-ship-heads-for-home-port/

Yeah, it looks less than a metre clearance.