It could have been a lot worse.
Last week, on the Elbe River near Hamburg, Germany, a 121-foot long, 136-year-old schooner—the oldest wooden ship still operating in the city of Hamburg—collided with a 492-foot, Cyprus-flagged containership. The collision injured nine people and resulted in the partial sinking of the schooner, named No. 5 Elbe.
Video appeared online over the last few days that shows what appears to be mass confusion among the schooner’s skipper and crew before the containership mowed them down. “What were they thinking?!” was a common response from the social media keyboard brigade, many wondering why the skipper waited so long to try to turn the schooner out of the container ship’s way.
This video shows the panicked moments just before the collision occurred:
You can read more about the incident here.
