jaxson60

Spot on.

To your point, it is mass. Most people don't understand mass on water. At 1 knot the ship would do the exact same damage, topple the support and drop the bridge.

Bridges were not designed for being hit. They were designed to span. If those designing and engineering it had considered an impact, the design would not be catastrophic but rather sectional. If sectional, each span would remain standing rather than collapse like dominoes. It takes 3 miles to stop a 100k ton stacked container ship. The things nobody has mentioned are: Current direction and speed. Wind direction and speed. The entry of the vessel in relation to the bridge. The fact that dragging anchor would have on the starboard side pulled the bow right into the pilon, the worst case.