Time, salt air takes its toll on Middle Thorofare Bridge
The captains of the big fishing trawlers heading out to the Atlantic from Lund’s and other fisheries face their first challenge almost immediately: passing under the drawbridge spanning Middle Thorofare. The channel has a 50-foot opening from upright to upright. The largest fishing vessels are about 145 feet long and 38 feet wide, leaving little room for error. “They’re getting banged up on anything other than a slack tide,” said Dale Foster, Cape May County’s engineer, in a recent interview, referring to when the tide is either all the way in or all the way out, and the water is still. Interviewed this month, Foster said a trawler crashed into the bridge in August, taking a good sized chunk out of a bridge section. The morning of the interview, he said, a sailboat had hit the bridge, but he said they were still looking for some sign of damage from that accident. Read the story here 14:13
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