A Collision in the Welland Canal

I started adding this info to my Welland Canal notes, but it became large enough that I moved it to its own notes.

Niagara_411 posted four photos with the comment:

Two ships collided earlier today in the Welland canal just north of the Welland docks.
No injuries reported.
Both vessels appear to have sustained serious damage.
The post I had originally shared seems to have been removed by the original poster so it disappeared from my page as well.
UPDATE- Red freighter allegedly lost steering. Both pilots were communicating.
Location - Port Robinson. Wharf 10 between lock 7 & 8. [Some comments dispute this location.  Joel Grahm provided the most specific information, "behind Eastdale school," other than the "behind my house" type of comments.]

[I had to sort through a lot of noise comments like "were they texting?" to find some useful information.]
Linda Passfield-Thomas Apparently both boats were communicating with each other and because one ship lost its steering they decided to do this rather than have a bigger problem later. One helping the other out!! Saved probably a lot of money.
[I believe this means that the black ship used its functional steering to do a hard port turn to transform the collision into a glancing blow rather than a head-on collision. Another comment indicates the black ship did this to stop the broken red ship so that it did not allide with a bridge or something along the side of the canal. But it looks like the red ship could stop with full astern. Or was that the black ship pushing it backwards?]
Tom Drozd Jim Simpson apparently full astern wasn’t employed.
Shannon Lewis-Vary Tom Drozd it not like that can happen instantly.
[I noticed after a delay that the red ship did go backwards.]
Lon F Caselton Ships are impossible to stop on a dime..slow motion crashes are not unusual..
Tanya Cullen Lon F Caselton so true . Depending on size of ship , cargo and speed , it can take 20 minutes to stop if ship going only 15 knots.
Rhonda Sernick In a way good thing for communication and probably planned on this to stop the boat to help.
Dalton Miller Mary Veres a simple mechanical failure such as a hydraulic failure is all you need for this to happen. No hydraulics = no rudder. [I would think they would have redundant hydraulic controls like airplanes do.]

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Jax Sixstring commented on 411's post

Happened directly behind our house in Welland, not Port Robinson. One of the vessels was listing.

[Judging from the stripes, this was the black one.]

Kevin Harris Lisa Chandler Being The Red Ship Has a Bulbous front End and the Black Ship doesn't, It has most definitely tore and buckled plates and water is coming in On the black ship Known As Listing or Sinking.

Zachary Kindy commented on 411's post
[This has audio so that you can hear the "crunch."]
[There are lots of posts of this video.  E.g. post. Hopefully the lawyers won't bother trying to erase reality and these will remain viewable.]

Dave Hennigar commented on 411's post

Jennifer Best commented on 411's post

(new window) We can start the timer as to how long it will take the lawyers to get rid of this video.
Stop watching after the crash to avoid hearing the F-word. At least he waited until after the sound of the crunch before saying it. Alex Stewart's original post. And his Facebook video.

Screenshot @ -0:14, cropped

411's post of the video without audio.

Paulina Batorek There’s so many idiot people that don’t read the article that goes with the photo or video...

Guys. The ship lost steering. They communicated with the other ship. A few scratches or a torn metal side plate of the boat costs less that replacing a bridge or port or anything else.

Yes they saw each other. There is no conspiracy 😂
My friend works on the boat that helped the other boat stop. This was planned to help.

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ read the articles.

William Wasiloff III shared Alex's post.
Doug Covey One [black] is McKeil’s Florence Spirit, a regular canal user. The other [red], a salty, had a pilot on board.

Carla Hamlyn commented on 411's video, cropped
Docked near lock 7

Comments on 411's video
[I quit looking after 52 of the 171 comments.]

safe_image for Officials investigating after 'rare' collision between ships in Welland Canal
[The red boat was upbound to Duluth and these comments say the black ship lost steering.]

Bill Moran posted four photos with the comment:

FLORENCE SPIRIT upbound at Sarnia on Monday morning, headed to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin for repairs after her collision with ALANIS in the Welland Canal just over two weeks ago.
She may have made it through the rivers in darkness, but was held up a little with other ship traffic, and they were managing issues with the current.
ALANIS is being repaired by Heddle Marine at Port Weller and will delivery her cargo to Duluth after she is fixed. (Bill Moran photos)

Andrew Haenish shared 

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FLORENCE SPIRIT at Sarnia on July 27 2020. She's sporting damaged from her collision in the Welland Canal on July 11 mid-afternoon (Bill Moran photo)

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(Bill Moran photo)

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The damage to the starboard side was mostly caused by the bulbous bow on the ALANIS. There is a lot of frame work to be repaired. The Sturgeon Bay shipyard will figure it out (Bill Moran photo)

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The ship was built in Japan in 2004 as ARKLOW WILLOW, under Irish registry. She was sold Canadian and renamed FLORENCE SPIRIT in 2016. (Bill Moran photo)

14 photos of the ships after the collision

Janey Anderson: Impressive shots indeed - hard to comprehend how mangled she was and repaired fairly quickly if I remember correctly. Occurred 2020-07-12 and Marine Transport has STILL not issued a report and no date posted.