The Car Carrier cargo ship MV Golden Ray flipped on its side back in September of 2019 just off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia. It made for some pretty badass vacation photos, and an even more badass clean up operation that involved slicing the car carrier into sections via a giant chain. But what exactly happened to cause the MV Golden Ray to flip like this?
I’ve always been fascinated by shipwrecks and 2019 was a big year for bad shipping stories; the Golden Ray and the Ever Given both happened a few months apart during the height of lockdown-addled boredom. YouTuber Brick Immortar just came out with an excruciatingly detailed video not just on what happened to the Golden Ray, but the history of transporting cars in general.
The MV Golden Ray was a form of dedicated car carrier known as a roll-on, roll-off cargo ship, though sometimes derisively called a roll-on, roll-over. These ships are essentially 15-deck parking garages on boats, and they’re incredibly difficult to keep balanced on the ocean. It required constant calculations and weight redistribution via ballast water. Brick Immortar doesn’t dumb down a single detail, but he does make everything from the history of car transportation by cargo ship to the complex real world physics behind the Golden Ray’s roll over accessible to those of us who are merely transit and logistics curious.
The entire process of pulling the Golden Ray out of the ocean is just as fascinating as how it came to be flopped on its side. The Golden Ray was carrying just over 4,000 Hyundais when it flipped on its side on the coast of Brunswick, Georgia, on it’s way to Baltimore. It sat there for over a year, polluting the surrounding waters and making vacation photos look ominous before a recovery effort sliced the ship into pieces like a cake.
