10 Ship Launches That Went Horribly Wrong 

Better learn the difference between the BOW (front) and the STERN (rear) of a ship.

Thanks for showing them in 18 seconds. It saves people a lot of time.

In example 4 you describe the launch as going bow first, it was stern first. Also the ship capsized to its starboard side not port side.

In No1 I used to work in the building behind the bridge. I'd often sit and have lunch on the bank where you see the people. Pity I missed this, it would have livened the day up!

Um ... hate to burst your bubble, but look up "bow" and "stern". By 7:30, twice you say "the bow" plunged into the water, when it was clearly the stern.

One of my favourite failed launches has to be the Sept 1907 launch of the Italian ocean liner _Principessa Jolanda_ . In those days it was apparently common to launch ships fully equipped and completed, however someone must have misjudged her balance and how she would sit on the water once she came, too quickly, off the slipway, because she began to slow list to her port side side. And kept going. And going. Until she was resting, completely submerged, on her side. It can't have helped if there were loose fittings and furniture, which would have all slid to the same side, as well as open or incomplete portholes. She also didn't have any coal aboard or ballast to balance out being top-heavy. The ship was scrapped from right where it was, and her sister ship was redesigned to be less top-heavy. She was gone in about 20 minutes, and never actually sailed. The sister lasted about three days before being sunk. When you look at the way liners were built, at least by the more famous British shipwrights, the hull and main boat decks would be completed, as well as at least some of the superstructure, however a significant portion of the ship would be completed after it was solidly in the water, tied again to a special portion of the dock while everything was finished. This way you knew how the ship would sit on the water.

The ship: capsizes to starboard Underworld: THE SHIP CAPSIZES TO THE PORT SIDE

The container is a Caterpillar generator set with a locomotive sized diesel engine which is why it was so heavy , given the loss of the crane , generator and ship I'm guessing it was a huge insurance claim

Re #8. I don't think the boat was too heavy for the cranes. Problem is that one of the straps broke, putting all the mass of the boat onto the one remaining crane. In fact, either the straps were overloaded, or imperfect due to wear.

That crane driver lifting the container on to the diesel laiden boat. He was literally hanging out the top of the upturned cabins' roof. Must've been scared absolutely shit-less

showing 4 in the first 10 seconds was a real time saver!

When that one ship launched backwards & promptly rolled starboard, I thought: "OK, who installed all the equipment on that side of the ship?"

#6 (Sarawak) has the appearance of the ship being launched with insufficient equipment or dead weight low in the hull, so it was top-heavy.

Launch 5, in South Africa - this is actually a very common launch method in that part of South Africa. There is a lack of slipways along the coast, so beach surf launches (of both hard boats and RIB's) are the only way. The method used is also correct - speed up so when the car brakes the boat is pushed off the trailer because of its momentum and into the sea - the outboards are lifted up at that stage. Slow and steady actually doesn't work at all in this kind of launch - you need that speed and sudden stop. What went wrong here is that there must have been a shallow ridge just beyond the shore line which the stern of the boat hit. Most of the time such a shallow ridge is not present, so most launches like this actually work really well. Once the boat is afloat the outboards are lowered and the boat is turned towards the sea. Getting from there through the waves is where the real fun begins, and skippers must be experienced and knowledgeable to dodge the waves as they slowly weave through them to open sea. Recovery is usually by driving the boat up the beach and using a break-neck trailer. The 4x4 is a version of the original Toyota Land Cruiser - a real capable work-horse.

Amazing

Thanks for sharing your work @Underworld some interesting videos! The ship at 6:20 didn't seem to have too much of a list to warrant it capsizing. It's probably a good thing it done it on launch rather than at sea with a full crew.

The moral in most of these cases seems to be 1) always check your cables and fittings for wear and corrosion, and 2) if in doubt, use a stronger cable!

On nr 2 it was the hook on the life boat that failed due to human error. If the hook is not reset properly that happens. There has gone countless life's because of that, so one can say the lifeboat has actually "indirectly" killed more people than it has saved sadly.

those lifeboats are so tough that they can survive all that and roll right back over right side up, but ya gotta be buckeled in

There's a mighty thin line between those who launch boats, and those who jaunty slap on a captain's cap and proceed towards mayhem. . . .

Marine architects are under rated. Those trailer launches can be solved by a tongue extension.

NGL watching Millionaires and Billionaires Yachts plunge in the water and break put a smile on my face

The one @7:40 ... The *STERN* (the back end) plunged into the water (the *BOW* ... the front end ... followed later) AND you say she capsized "port-side" (port = left) when she is clearly on her starboard side (starboard = right). Or didn't you know she was launched stern-first?

#3 good job of the guy on the dock keeping an eye on the crane operator, he even took off his gear and got ready to dive in for him

3:22 Ironic, the crane on which the cable broke was not damaged at all - but because of its accident, the second crane was fcuked up. Imagine what a flow of swears operator of the first crane heard from his colleague.

Q: What did the owner say when the boat launch failed? A: AWW SHIP!

I like this channel. No stupid ass sponsor. No clickbait. Good content.

#5 is done all the time at Deep Creek Alaska, they give you a number and a tractor or truck backs you into the surf, you lower and start your motor and away you go. They park your trailer on shore and you show them your number upon returning from halibut or salmon fishing. You time out the waves and land on your trailer where a brave fellow hooks the winch line to the front and they pull you out.

I love videos like this. 👍👍

Number 3 was a generator being put on the boat. Not a barge full of diesel. You dont usually transport them full of diesel

Oh, this just made my day.

I can't help feeling that water had some part to play in all of these mishaps.

As for that lifeboat, the rear cable latch failed. It was obvious. Shouldn't have happened. I work on an offshore platform where we used to practice lowering down to the water with a small crew in the lifeboats. Unfortunately, several years ago, a similar lifeboat incident occured where several crew members died. Now we don't do live practice runs. And lowering the boats for drills happens very rarely.

4:16 I don't think the lifting cable broke, I think that whatever they hooked onto on the boat broke.

That's starboard not port in the sideways tip ... I always remember "starboard shines green and port is glowing red" and I remember that port and left both have four letters ...

"This should work." Famous last words.

Biggest issue with most of these situations is based on their country. Rules like chain grade and how that relates to static vs dynamic weight is huge in all these situations. Maybe the tug boat was 5000lbs lighter than the static weight limit of the chain, but it was probably 2-3x too heavy if you calculated the dynamic weight, since it was swinging. And #1, the yacht, all they needed was a docking pole. One of the most overlooked but incredibly important personal boating accessories. Being able to stop yourself in flowing water is super simple but this guy must've bought it from someone who'd never sailed before.

13:30 The cables don't break; the slip mechanism operates and releases the cables. Just like it should but at the proper stage in the launching.

Actually that's the way they launch dory's into the surf on the coast of Oregon, and yes occasionally some poor soul gets his vehicle stuck, that's why at the launch sites they usually have a tow truck to pull the guys rig out of the surf. It works most of the time.

That is why physics should be mandatory in all fields of work.

#6 was launched pretty much as it should. But they forgot to ballast the boat properly, she was riding way too high in the water.

13:12 This is why some people think that lifeboats may have killed more than they have saved...

If you have enough money for a multi-million dollar yacht, then you get absolutely so sympathy when that yacht sinks

FYI - the 'bow' is a the front of a vessel and 'stern' at the rear.

You know, the whole point of video is that it doesn't require a narrator to tell us what we're seeing.

in south africa we launch like that all the time but it takes experience that was just a poorly timed launch , our waves are to aggresive for slow n steady so we have to do it like that in most of the surfs

Силу тяжести не обманешь ☝

Really sad for a lot of these people who are very dependent on the ocean.

6:35 it looks like that ship was totally missing some ballast

14:38 Beavis and Butt-Head were watching this

The container going to San Cristobal being hoisted onto the boat was a Caterpillar Generator. It probably had 600 gallons of diesel but that was just the fuel tank for the generator in the container.

Bow is front stern is back. Also if you can't remember port and starboard remember they're both in alphabetical order. Port=Left Starboard=Right. See in order. P before S and L before R

Someone forgot to fill the ballast tanks before launching that one ship.

OMG very huge loss on 10 Ship Launches That Went Horribly Wrong

6:50 2 minutes silence for those people who try to be Jack ( Leonardo Decaprio, Titanic ) ☠️💀

FYI the Bow is the pointy end in front and the stern is the rounder squared end at the back, ships and boats when launched down a ramp are most stable when the stern enters the water first, at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_5y_IKATccE.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_5y_IKATccE.html it was said they sunk by the bow, but it was actually the stern.

Lesson at 7:00 Always ensure the tide is in before attempting to launch the large vessel.

Thanks for sharing.

Shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortune, but #3 was just too funny cause they destroyed 3 things at once!

As per your 6th failed launch, vessel capsized to Stb side and not portside as you indicated.

The 4th launch appears someone forgot that a ship that big needs ballast.

Impressed that the crew in Sarawak knew some RU-vid bleep-able words...

@ 7:22 the ship in Indonesia - It is stern first then she heeled over. Also, it is on the Starboard (Stbd) side, not Port Side as you mentioned in the video.

The first launch actually seemed successful... for the boat

I don’t know what’s funnier, the incompetence or the narrator getting the nautical terms wrong 😂

The ragdoll physics for number 5 tickled me a little much!

Half the crane fails were just people errors, not knowing the weight limits of the cranes, using straps/cables that didn't have the correct tensile strength for the job and the main one i noticed, lifting huge loads without load spreaders. The life boat one was a linkage failure on one end, so likely it wasn't strong enough or poorly maintained.

I just came here for the shaming of inaccurate maritime lexicon.

7:40 My guess; They didn't realize that launching almost parallel to the shoreline might be a problem.

Yeah, I really am happy that rich person's boat wasn't too banged up.

7:57 the fact that you pronounce the name right as South-African makes me proud really love this channel

This is what happens when you don't do the math correctly, objects too heavy for the crane's ability.

What caused these accidents is GREED. Profit over safety.

That yacht falling off the sling is a common problem, just becouse it's good hydrodynamically does mean it's stable in the sling.

@ 11:00 one you said "Barge" it looked like a 4 crane cargo ship to me like a bulk carrier not a barge, so they should of used two cranes instead of one for stability.

The launch of the Swedish warship Vasa back in 1627 also went a tiny bit wrong.

I love your vids

6:23) WW II. US Army Air Corps Captain Murphy was talking about a squadron mechanic when he said "If a part can be put in backwards, he will do it." 7:36)The ship fell on the STARBOARD side.

Is it just me, or when hauling out by Crane, do they all seem to go with cables with a failure rate of about 5% of the weight of the vessel?

The first video had no business in this video. That was just “Boat launches gone incredibly redneck.”

UK Boat Captain : If you fail once ,try to do it again. He was persastant to fail again.

1st one is repeated every summer day somewhere!!!!

In failure number two, the final comment is it seems to be a "classic issue of counter weight" more accurately this was a classic issue of incompetence. In most of these I would say incompetence in engineering was the failure mode.

Just a minor correction for you. You say "Bow" a lot when you really mean "Hull" . The hull is the water-tight structure that the rest of the boat mounts to and floats on. The bow of the ship is at the front. Great video though!

Humorous narration.

In watching these screw ups the phrase "monkeys with a football" keeps coming to mind.

8:24 What the hell happened to that driver... 😂😂😂

Bow is the front of the boat. Stern is the back. Get it right.

I love how he explains what we're about to watch, and then he shows the clip, and then proceeds to explain what we just watched. What a joke

Next upload: 10 shop lunches that go horribly wrong

The thing with watching Russian videos where things go wrong, you are guaranteed to get your video dose of Bl’yad. Always good! 😆

It would be nice if the narrator knew the difference between a bow and a stern.

That very first scream heard @ 06:58/59 is hilarious.!!!!

15:08 bro is searching for reverse gear 😂

7:27 a prime example of how not to do your weight calculations when designing a ship.

question, number 9, i am ignorant when it comes to boats/marinas etc, but can see this type of launch with two straps under the boat is pretty common, why dont the boats itself have like a place on its sides to pass those straps in so they will not move back and forth or both straps are not secure between and in front and back of the boat like a full harness?.looks pretty simple and obvious to me, but, what the f.do i know!

It should be called How to Sink a Ship in 10 Seconds !!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

So In love with the narrator's voice😍😍😍😍

Yeah, you can tell that one crane was already tilting upward and the load was too heavy even with the other one still attached.

I had to laugh at the Jeep gunning the boat towards the water. How do anyone think that was a good idea? I couldn't tell if the crane operator jumped out as it was going into the water in the San Cristobal clip. It looked like a crew member was still onboard the boat deck as well.