December 6, 2005:
Dropping the Grace span over Town Creek
Well I blew it - and managed to overwrite the initial 2 sec video of the blast
- sigh. But
Mickey and Randy saved the day. Jonathan Coultas also was part of the
rescue mission and worked his magic with the Advanced Blasting Services (ABS)
video to provide streaming
versions for QuickTime. Here are video segments from them and
a synthesized video from my still images.
The morning started well for me - an early morning (7:43)
view of the Grace over Town Creek
Alan Lynes captured an early morning view from the Sea Breeze
About an hour later from the Port. Note that the red crane in the background
will disappear later - after having lowered its giraffe neck to clear
the underside of the Grace. Below you see it stationed to the left of
the double-neck giraffe. The double-neck critter will do the work
of pulling the Grace segments from Town Creek this evening - (see
tonight's retrieval story Sparky and I put together).
The cranes for retrieval were all lined up at the starting line - (at least
that what it seemed like to me)
and Mickey making last minute checks of the equipment
Everything worked perfectly - and here is the proof:
Ignition from single video frames: T = 33 ms T = 67 ms
Initial downward movement
Continuing down -
Action from still frames - about 1 frame every 300 msec: T = 0 sec
T = 0.333 s
a close-up of the ignition process at T = 0.333 sec
A seagull watches from the left at T = 0.667 s
Here the seagull is clearly interested (above the right smoke) at T = 1.000 s
T = 1.333 s
T = 1.667 s
T = 2.000 s
T = 2.333 s
T = 2.667 s
T = 3.000 s
T = 3.333 s
T = 3.667 s
T = 4.000 s
Another group of seagulls flying from left to right at T = 4.333 s
T = 7 s
T = 10 s
T = 16 s
T = 149 s - You can see the white buoys floating in the water that mark
sections of the bridge.
Backup up a bit -
here is a part of the unseen story. To help locate the Grace span when
it is under water, white buoys are attached to the top by cords and
will mark the end points of each segment. See them resting on the top
of the bridge - at the end of each V
Before - note there are no buoys in the water (an experimentalist's
reference photo)
and after - white bobbing buoys