Brooklyn Bridges previous crashes include one involving Nazi ship

Saturday’s tragic ship crash into the Brooklyn Bridge is far from the first time a boat has collided with the iconic East River crossing since it opened May 24, 1883.In February 1921, the schooner Edward J.Lawrence hit the bridge while it was being towed underneath it.As the six-masted ship was passing under the central span of the bridge, its steel mainmast struck the roadway on the north side.In October 1935, the Hamburg-American freighter the Tirpitz, an 8,000-ton vessel carrying fuel from Nazi Germany, also struck the bridge as it was heading to unload cargo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.The first three of the ship’s four steel masts struck a lower steel girder of the bridge structure and were bent backwards, similar to what happened with the Mexican ship the Cuauhtémoc on Saturday.The Tirpitz’s captain, Adolph Guthenks, said at the time that as its forward masts were 120 feet high, and the height of the bridge at mean high water is 135 feet, he expected the ship to easily clear the bridge.He said the tide must have been abnormally high at the time of the crash.The most recent significant crash came when the Hai Soo, a 520-foot South Korean vessel, collided with the bridge in April 1986.The ship, heading to Bridgeport, Conn., caught the bridge as it moved upriver after rounding Governors Island.As the ship passed underneath, it made “a scraping sound, and something seemed to fall to the deck,” witness Bill Epes told the New York Times at the time.The ship reportedly came out the other side with a large piece of rope netting stuck to its radar mast.Remarkably, the bridge was not damaged, although a piece of safety net used to protect workers was pulled off.One of the ship’s radars was put out of commission, although as it had a backup unite, it was kept safe to sail, Coast Guard spokesman Dennis Uhlenhopp told the Times....