Originally published at: Shetland Drift: ferry does "handbrake turn" into Scottish port | Boing Boing
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The closer it gets, the Bigga it looks.
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You know, Rob is absolutely right! It is so much faster using YouTube’s 2x speed feature. 
Thank goodness for capitalism, for providing this feature so that I could more efficiently allocate my time resources.
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Here’s one that is impressive at regular speed. Late ferry arriving at Mykines in the Faroe Islands. Mykines Ferry Arrives - YouTube
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If anyone is curious how this is done, it is all about directional thrusters. Small to medium modern ships, especially ferries and similar applications, don’t use screws and rudders anymore. They have little thruster “pods” under them that can spin and provide vectored thrust. There’s also typically a transverse-mounted bow thruster, though sometimes that one is directional as well.
These ships can move sideways, reverse on a dime, and glide graceful arcs into a dock as shown on this video.
The best part? With all the automated technology on display here, the guy still has to go open the little gate on the road by hand at the end. 
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I don’t think my dad ever did that, but he was working on the Isle of Skye ferries.
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….which are a type of directional thruster. I didn’t say azipods.
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Even Jim Rockford would be impressed.
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I was going to say “the wet and the furious” but it just sounds like my wife when she gets home and it had been raining.
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I grew up on Unst so know this journey well. The Bigga definitely has bow thrusters which help with that. Some of the older boats no longer in service did not have thrusters but the expert skippers still managed some pretty nifty manoeuvres getting into the link spans. I was highly amused to see this come up in today’s BoingBoing email!
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Did that ferry steal the tram’s tracks?
(I have no idea WTF happened there.)
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Not terribly surprised. Like many other things, a skilled operator can make large machinery do some surprising things and make it look casual and effortless. See also: using the boom on a backhoe to load itself onto a truck.
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Or the Blues Brothers.
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Track quality on the Kharkiv tramway is notoriously bad, so it is not difficult for trams to derail.
Sometimes a tram will go through points and end up with one bogie on one track and the other bogie on the other.
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Welcome to BoingBoing and thanks for sharing your experience! Ferries are super cool machines. Way under-appreciated by most who use them.
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or using an excavator to do some very delicate things… like making a hot dog.
(sadly, I couldn’t quite dredge up the brazillian(?) video of an operator disrobing an attractive lady’s coat, hat, and scarf, but It’s likely out there somewhere…)
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