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In article ,
says...
On 15 Oct 2003 23:29:26 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

Control failure?

Helmsman having heart attack?

Wow.

Couda shouda warned the passengers.

How awful. :-(
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Bad accident, probably no time for warnings. It's hard to say what
went wrong at this point but wind almost certainly played a factor.
We had a big gusty nor' wester blowing all day here, gusting to 50 kts
at times. There were big white caps on the Hudson river easily
visible from my office window half a mile away.

The ferry was going south into Staten Island with a tail wind/cross
wind situation. The docks are on the north end of the island where
there are also some tricky cross currents. My guess is that the ferry
may have been coming in a bit faster than normal because of the wind,
and ended up too far to starboard at the last second because of some
misjudgement of conditions. It has got to be very tricky timing your
sideways drift with boat speed on the approach. The boats are over
300 feet long and have a lot of windage due to the high super
structure.

Normal SOP is for the ferry to head straight in between the rows of
pilings at good speed and hit reverse hard with about 150 feet left to
go. In a cross wind or cross current situation they usually come in
faster than normal and reverse even harder.

No Heart attack.. Guy left scene and went home and slit his wrists..
He is in critical condition..That is the latest here..