NavList:

David, many points in your observations make sense .

Nonetheless I would be surprised if the actual track on the mud followed by the ship was exactly the one aimed at.

Nobody would reasonably have attempted to finalize it so close from a building.

So its a probably some kind of an accident in the sense that the actual track canot be the intended one.

From the picture, it can be estimated that the ship bow was elevated by some 4 meters, while probably the stern was also elevated by almost the same quantity.

So, if we estimate that the ship was elevated by h = 4 meters in total (KEY PARAMETER HERE, from which all following results are derived) - a little less actually, but this difference would account for the energy wasted by scraping the mud - her initial speed was close to square root of ( 2 * g * h) , with g = 9.81 m/s/s .

Hence initial speed close to 8.86 m/s/s, in other words close to 16.5 kts.

If I were asked to beach her, I would not run her aground starting from more than 17 kts (speed on ground) in plain water. It might not be enough speed, but I am sure it will not - an it can not - result into some uncontrollable crashy outcome.

My best starting guess,

Kermit

PS : Jeremy, your advice here ?