Suez Canal currently blocked (update - unblocked!)

They're blaming it on cross-winds, have re-opened old channel. But, that will only handle the 'smaller' ships, which must also be extricated from queue...
 
Wyvern said:
Was the Captain Ever Given instructions about how to sail through the Canal?


I'll see myself out...
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He will stay in history with Francesco "cretino" Schettino - and also Cpt Smith of Titanic fame. Also Leeroy Jenkins.

Good, air transportation laid in ruins, because COVID - now shipborne commerce will be wrecked by that idiot.
 
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Archibald said:
Wyvern said:
Was the Capain Ever Given instructions about how to sail through the Canal?


I'll see myself out...
Click to expand...

He will stay in history with Francesco "cretino" Schettino - and also Cpt Smith of Titanic fame. Also Leeroy Jenkins.

Good, air transportation laid in ruins, because COVID - now shipborne commerce will be wrecked by that idiot.
Click to expand...
Don't vessels transiting the Suez canal carry a pilot who controls the ship?
 
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To be honest - it's not their fault. A 40 kt wind seemingly pushed the ship sidewards, until it ran aground.
Still this begs the question of the viability of these monster contenairships, loaded to the roof with up to 20 000 contenairs. No surprise they are vulnerable to crosswinds when loaded ! And in narrow waterways like Suez... bad things can happen.
The bad news: seems like they will to remove most of the 20 000 contenairs for tugs to be able to move the ship away. And this will take weeks and force others similar ships to round Africa... playing havoc with deliveries times.
As if the world industry needed more chaos on top of COVID ! Damn this smells like 1968 again: Suez OUT and a global flu pandemic. Frack, 1957 too ! unbelievable coincidences when you think about it.
 
Archibald said:
To be honest - it's not their fault. A 40 kt wind seemingly pushed the ship sidewards, until it ran aground.
Still this begs the question of the viability of these monster contenairships, loaded to the roof with up to 20 000 contenairs. No surprise they are vulnerable to crosswinds when loaded ! And in narrow waterways like Suez... bad things can happen.
The bad news: seems like they will to remove most of the 20 000 contenairs for tugs to be able to move the ship away. And this will take weeks and force others similar ships to round Africa... playing havoc with deliveries times.
As if the world industry needed more chaos on top of COVID ! Damn this smells like 1968 again: Suez OUT and a global flu pandemic. Frack, 1957 too ! unbelievable coincidences when you think about it.
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Those container submarines are beginning to look more viable now :D
 
Archibald said:
Still this begs the question of the viability of these monster contenairships, loaded to the roof with up to 20 000 contenairs. No surprise they are vulnerable to crosswinds when loaded ! And in narrow waterways like Suez... bad things can happen.
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They are more efficient than small ones. Ships benefit a lot from square-cube law.
 
They are perfectly viable; the question is really weather the Suez is. perhaps Suezmax restrictions need to be amended to include considerations for cargo size and ship displacement; currently I think they concern beam, draft, height, and wetted area.
 
Dilandu said:
Archibald said:
Still this begs the question of the viability of these monster contenairships, loaded to the roof with up to 20 000 contenairs. No surprise they are vulnerable to crosswinds when loaded ! And in narrow waterways like Suez... bad things can happen.
Click to expand...
They are more efficient than small ones. Ships benefit a lot from square-cube law.
Click to expand...

That same law also indicates these large ships are less susceptible to side wind than smaller ships. The one factor not in favor of large ships is that the power-to-weight ratio tends to drop, so once it gets going, correcting with the rudder gets more difficult.
 
To me it is not the ship itself that is vulnerable to side winds - the oil tanker monsters of the 70's were even larger - but that huge mass of contenairs piled up all over it... in the shape of a massive brick.
 
Archibald said:
To me it is not the ship itself that is vulnerable to side winds - the oil tanker monsters of the 70's were even larger - but that huge mass of contenairs piled up all over it... in the shape of a massive brick.
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It becomes a massive sail especially at low speed
 
Wyvern said:
Hopefully this time they don't take seven years to unblock it.
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All they need is a large suction dredger and it's unstuck in a matter of a day or so. A large one can easily remove 2,000 + cubic yards of material an hour on its own. The other choice would be a hydraulic mining outfit. This would use a large water cannon to blast away the silt and bottom from under the ship freeing it. While a bit more messy, it too would work.

They're wasting their time with an excavator that moves maybe a cubic yard every minute or so.
 
There is at least one and maybe two suction dredgers there now. But there is a lot more earth to move than perhaps you are guessing. The eastern half of the channel isn't fully dredged, so the odds are the ship isn't just embedded by the bulbous bow that we can see but is actually aground along maybe a quarter of her length forward, and wedged aft as well. They basically need to dredge a turning basin for her, which is a sizable undertaking.
 
The ship could be structurally damaged if she rode up the bank as the bow penetrated it or the accident occured at high tide. I'd guess that in a protected waterway like the canal, you could just ignore the damage during removal even if the keel was broken but it might complicate things.
 
The tidal range is pretty small in the canal proper. They're getting a spring tide this weekend, which might amount to 18 inches of rise. Given the size of the ship, I'd expect regular flex in the hull to be nearly that much.
 
I'm a bit surprised they haven't attempted any offloading yet. A crane and barge alongside wouldn't be super swift, but every ton removed would help at this point.
 
TomS said:
The tidal range is pretty small in the canal proper. They're getting a spring tide this weekend, which might amount to 18 inches of rise. Given the size of the ship, I'd expect regular flex in the hull to be nearly that much.
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It might depend on how she was loaded. I'd guess that there'd be at least 18' of sag margin beyond the allowable load conditions.
 
Likely a lot of turf battles and buck passing going on right now, unfortunately.
 
Lc89 said:
Can't the Egyptian army sappers be sent to help out?
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To do what? There are professional ship salvors already on scene. Blowing the ship up is hardly going to help.


Here's an article on the state of the salvage effort thus far. As of yesterday, they had dredged 600,000 cubic feet of silt, against at least 2 million needed.

They are looking to lighten the ship by removing ballast. Taking off containers is apparently not feasible due to the height of the stack and the lack of sufficient cranes. No surprise. A dedicated set of container gantry cranes could take several days to offload a ship this size. Doing it without port facilities will take weeks. I doubt the suggestion that helicopters might be needed, though, since there are definitely dedicated crane ships that can do the job. Plus, sling loading containers with unknown mass distribution is a scary prospect, generally.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ws...-needed-to-refloat-the-ever-given-11616792192
 

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