With the recent tragedy on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, many people in the Bay Area are a bit nervous about what happens when ships pass under our bridges.
Because the Port of Oakland is so busy, ships passing under Bay Area bridges is something that happens multiple times per day. For almost a century, most of these crossings have gone off without a hitch.
Newer cargo ships, however, push the limits of what the Bay Area’s bridges can accommodate.
A perfect example is the Benjamin Franklin, a massive container ship that is over 1,300 feet long and almost 200 feet tall from the waterline. This gigantic ship first visited the Bay Area in 2015 and commonly delivers large containers to our ports.
The ship is amazing in part because it can bring 18,000 containers to the Bay Area. But when the ship needs to go under the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s an incredibly tight squeeze!
The span of the Golden Gate Bridge is about 245 feet above the water. Depending on the tide, it can get closer or further.
That only leaves about 40 feet of clearance between the top of the Ben Franklin and the bridge itself under the best conditions. If the ship isn’t fully loaded, or the tide is very high, that clearance gts a lot lower.
In fact, it often drops to as little as 15 feet!
That makes every visit from the Ben Franklin a bit nerve-racking. The ship has to essentially slide under the bridge with perfect placement. If an adult giraffe or a largish Christmas tree were standing atop the ship during the maneuver, it would smash into the Golden Gate.
Here’s a video of a recent passing of the ship:
So far, nothing bad has happened, and the Ben Franklin has pulled off this feat of large-scale limbo.
It’s a reminder, though, that as ships get bigger and bigger, older infrastructure like the Golden Gate Bridge will increasingly be pushed to its limits.
You really couldn’t build a bigger ship and still squeeze it under the bridge. If you ever see the Benjamin Franklin or another massive container ship going under the Golden Gate Bridge, take a moment to appreciate the incredibly tight tolerances and the skill of the crew and builders of these massive ships.
Squeezing a vessel that’s larger than the Empire State Building through a space where you only have a few feet of clearance is quite a remarkable thing to do.
