ICW Masthead Bridge Videos

[Captain Larry-DH]

Just being honest - watching some of those videos - I'm not sure I'd feel more confident or less confident using that camera. You have to be pretty close to the bridge before you can see clearly if you have enough clearance. Very cool videos for sure. But I was sitting here watching and could feel the pucker factor coming on... I guess you get accustomed to what your camera is seeing as you use it, but first time watching - I'm not sure if I'd be less or more nervous having that up there!

dj

There were 2 things I was looking for.
1- The bridge deck supports on the far side of the bridge: I wanted to see the entire height of the furthest one. They were silhouetted in daylight, so that was a clear indicator even if I couldn't see other details beneath the bridge deck.
2 - Shadow beneath the closest bridge girder. As we got closer I wanted to see more detail. If there was no shadow or detail it was no-go. Shadow is clearly visible in the 2nd image.
I circled these in the first 2 images below of the Addison Point NASA Causeway bridge. The 3rd image has an arrow showing under-bridge detail of the bridge, but at that point we were VERY close - and reversing would have required strong reverse-throttle to avoid going under (even though we were going slow).
The thing is, without this perspective we would have relied entirely on tide tables and/or tide boards (in many cases missing). This was a reassuring verification of other information and in many cases it was the only high-certainty (reliable) information.
Edit: The 3rd thing I looked for was a curved bridge, which would likely be banked for the curve and render those other indicators invalid (unless it was curved toward the closer side). Fortunately not a factor I encountered, but an exception was the antenna didn't strike the bridge until the final 2 girders of the Dismal Swamp bridge (you can hear it in the video).

 

[dLj]

There were 2 things I was looking for.
1- The bridge deck supports on the far side of the bridge: I wanted to see the entire height of the furthest one. They were silhouetted in daylight, so that was a clear indicator even if I couldn't see other details beneath the bridge deck.
2 - Shadow beneath the closest bridge girder. As we got closer I wanted to see more detail. If there was no shadow or detail it was no-go. Shadow is clearly visible in the 2nd image.
I circled these in the first 2 images below of the Addison Point NASA Causeway bridge. The 3rd image has an arrow showing under-bridge detail of the bridge, but at that point we were VERY close - and reversing would have required strong reverse-throttle to avoid going under (even though we were going slow).
The thing is, without this perspective we would have relied entirely on tide tables and/or tide boards (in many cases missing). This was a reassuring verification of other information and in many cases it was the only high-certainty (reliable) information.
Edit: The 3rd thing I looked for was a curved bridge, which would likely be banked for the curve and render those other indicators invalid (unless it was curved toward the closer side). Fortunately not a factor I encountered, but an exception was the antenna didn't strike the bridge until the final 2 girders of the Dismal Swamp bridge (you can hear it in the video).
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Brilliant!

dj