[potato3732842]

Nah, we definitely can.

Plan the bridge so any ship big enough to hurt it grounds before it gets that close. Don't put pilings in the channel. It's just money. But it's a lot of money so sometimes it's better to just have shipping not suck.

Alternatively, the Chunnel will almost certainly never get hit with a ship.

[jacquesm]

> Plan the bridge so any ship big enough to hurt it grounds before it gets that close.

Have a look at the trajectory chart that I posted upthread and tell me how in this particular case you would have arranged that.

[amelius]

Yet another idea: if a ship's motors fail, have a ship ready that can push it in the right direction, in time. Probably need 2x the amount of horsepowers to make up for lost time, but it's not impossible.

[jacquesm]

Yes, that's called a tug and in plenty of harbors a vessel of this size would not be permitted to do close quarters maneuvers without the mandatory assistance of one, or in this case more likely two, tug boats of a certain minimum size relative to the size of the vessel.