You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Anyone interested in causing complete chaos will be adding "sink ship in Suez canal" to their ToDo list.
That would be a "very bad" thing.
That has previously been "simulated" by the South Park team I believe!
How long does it take to go around the cape? And what is the refueling situation like?
Is it a viable detour from a logistics point of view, and is anyone trying it?
Almost forty years after Knight Rider first aired and turbo boost is still not a thing for boats. So very disappoint.
How long does it take to go around the cape? And what is the refueling situation like?
Is it a viable detour from a logistics point of view, and is anyone trying it?
About 12 days added on - people are starting to head that way
How long does it take to go around the cape? And what is the refueling situation like?
Is it a viable detour from a logistics point of view, and is anyone trying it?
It adds 3000 miles to the journey. Roughly.
A fast ship at 20kts, about 6 days.
Considering how vital a trade route it is globally and how much money goes through it, you’d think they’d have precautions for this sort of thing, considering how narrow/shallow it is in places.
Governments from around the world who benefit from this route should really chip in and get it made wider and dredged deeper for the huge container ships that you get these days. Might prevent this sort of thing happening again.
Possibly, but as the 'average' cost of travelling the canal is $250k according to Google, Ever Given would have paid a lot more, and brings and annual income of over $5bn a year for Egypt you'd think they'd have enough already.
Given the huge significance this has on European trade, I'm surprised that European military assistance isn't visibly on the ground by now, rather than just the few local chaps with their diggers.
Anyone interested in causing complete chaos will be adding “sink ship in Suez canal” to their ToDo list.
That would be a “very bad” thing.
Often wondered why the Faslane peace protestors didn't do this at Rhu narrows. It would be a doddle to block the Gareloch while a sub or two is in.
I’m surprised that European military assistance isn’t visibly on the ground by now, rather than just the few local chaps with their diggers.
Its not Europe? Your point is understood but few countries like having to be 'assisted' by others 🙁
Last Light and Afterlight.
Ships sunk in the Suez and Panama canals, couple of key refineries sabotaged... global collapse.
Just sayin,' like...
...following on from @montgomery 's post;
Then we find out the key raw materials for vaccine and vials production, are stuck on the ship, and then..
It's all OK.
A right wing nutjob on Youtube has just explained that it was some white hat Seal Team that took the ship out.
Evergreen is the name of an aircraft operator who had a contract with the CIA.
Evergreen is also the code name for Hilary Clinton and the whole thing is a message to the Peado-Satanist-Blood Drinkers that they are after them and will be bringing them down once Trump comes back to overturn the crooked election.
I’m surprised that European military assistance isn’t visibly on the ground by now,
The Dutch marine salvage team have far greater expertise and access to the equipment needed for this job than military engineers. Plus what Leffeboy said.
Governments from around the world who benefit from this route should really chip in
Er don’t mention the war 🙂
On July 26, 1956, Nasser nationalised the canal, which prior to that was owned primarily by Britain and France. On 29 October, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai. Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was ignored. On 5 November, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. While the Egyptian forces were defeated, they had blocked the canal to all shipping. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan out the invasion. The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the canal was useless. Heavy political pressure from the United States and the USSR led to a withdrawal. U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the US government's pound sterling bonds. Historians conclude the crisis "signified the end of Great Britain's role as one of the world's major
Surely one of those containers has birthday balloons and helium in it? Just inflate the balloons and turn it into a flying ship?
Pffff who needs European armies or Dutch salvage engineers, I've got it sorted lads.
It still amazes me the size.of ships we can make. Watching science fiction and seeing 3 or 400m long spaceships thinking how could we buld that then you realise just how big some of the big, big tankers are.
How long do we think they'll stick to the power cut story before it turns out they were playing chicken with a boat coming the opposite way?
There is a specialist dredger called the Sospan Dow. It is able to drege the seabed up imto its cargo hold, then rainbow the sand and shimgle out through a great big cannon on its fore deck
It shifts tons of aggregate an hour
They need to moor this boat up at the poimty end and suck the gravel out from under the bows
Then discharge the bilges so it sits higher in water and get some tugs involved. Probably blowing compressed air into the sand around the bulb would change its density too, then im out of ideas.
Every tank in the Egyptian army and alor of string?
David Blane?
On the plus side the locals can enjoy a temporary bridge across the canal while the ship's stuck!
I was thinking they just need cables attached to all the ships behind it then put them in reverse
I've been wondering how you steer something that big. Does it need to move at a minimum speed of some sort
ooh dear, the ship will have been under the command of a Egyptian Pilot, just to make sure that this sort of thing won't happen.....doh
Leffeboy, the ship is steered by a rudder at the stern, just a very large one!
As you state the ship needs to be moving for the rudder to work typically 2 or 3 knots minimum but faster is better.
I’ve been wondering how you steer something that big.
They'll have thrusters at the bow which will be used at low speeds to push the bow side to side.
Which makes me wonder if there was some power issue at the wrong moment.
The obvious solution would be to hammer frozen sausages along the canal bank. You could then use a pair of bombers to lever the vessel free, oh and pee in the captains shoes as punishment...
They’ll have thrusters at the bow which will be used at low speeds to push the bow side to side.
With the added assistance of tugs though
Remember the MSC Napoli that was beached in Lyme Bay?
Remember? I worked for those clowns. Well, I was a cadet but still. I sailed with one of the deck cadets who had to abandon the Napoli, some of the other guys in my class previously sailed on it. Proper heap it was too. Go team Z!
They’ll have thrusters at the bow which will be used at low speeds to push the bow side to side.
Which makes me wonder if there was some power issue at the wrong moment.
That's not how you use bow thrusters, they are only used for port manouvering, never when under way. I'm pretty sure it says they suffered a power failure, specifically what is the question since they should have had a reserve generator running and no testing on switchboards during transit. In theory. I've experienced a switchboard related failure before, I managed to get up 2 decks from the bottom plates (so roughly around where the turbos were) before the lights came back on and generators restarted. Main engine was gone by that point so if it drifted then its entirely possible it could have lost propulsion and just hit the bank before anyone could do anything.
Heard Chris Grayling's got a new job. Ship's pilot in Egypt of all places. Wonder how he's doing. He did own some ferries apparently, so got some experience.
I think Ive pretty much sorted it- those massive pumps they use to unflood towns. Rig them up shooting water down and around the front end would wash the sand out from the front and under it.
I emailed the Suez Canal people yesterday, not had a reply though.
Interesting looking canal genuinely thought it would be like a huge version of one of our canals, whereas they appear to have just dug the ground a bit. Probably needs some investment considering how much it brings in, although looking at the countries that line the Red Sea think id always take the long route, it’s like a who’s who of don’t visit countries from the last 20 years.
Can’t it be nudged with another massive ship, appreciate it’d be an expensive repair job but sounds a bit spendy anyway.
What’s the Panama Canal like, just as shallow?
That’s not how you use bow thrusters, they are only used for port manouvering
I was actually talking about manoeuvring whilst in the canal - for example when the bow starts heading off towards the bank due to a strong side wind.
Edit: actually the use of thrusters within the canal is forbidden except in exceptional circumstances..... Although I guess this would have qualified!
Panama canal is smaller, more like a traditional canal, (though not THAT small) There's a class of ships called Panamax that are sized to be able to just squeeze through.
It's a canal. They obviously hit a few shopping trolleys and an old bike or two. Theres probably only the one digger as the fishermen have their rods laying across the tow path.
And another thing!!!
Why do people claim the queue of ships is growing exponentially? Is there a sudden huge growth in the daily number of boats wanting to use the canal?
Why do people claim the queue of ships is growing exponentially?
This puzzled me too. Perhaps the ships, bored with floating around aimlessly, have started breeding?
You know what’s it like when you learn a new word and want to use it everywhere...
They say it's growing exponentially because they don't know what exponentially means.
You know what’s it like when you learn a word with more than two sylla, err cilla, err bits(!), and want to use it all the time…
FTFY
Re. the question "What’s the Panama Canal like, just as shallow?",
I'd hardly describe a 20m draught as shallow...
For comparison, Panamax draught is 12m
It’s funny, after I posted a photo of a Skycrane helicopter, which is perfectly capable of lifting the biggest container on the ship, and there are quite a few around, civvi and military, people are still talking about land or water based cranes!
Apparently the incident was caused by a power-failure combined with a very strong side wind that forced the ship across the canal, just an unfortunate set of circumstances at the wrong time.
Some have mentioned winching it; well, an American off-roader with lots of experience winching large trucks out of awkward situations in places like Moab has suggested just that, using a couple of the biggest winches available - the ship’s own.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35954476/stuck-ship-suez-canal-how-to-free/
I assume the pirates on the east coast of Africa are now in for a bumper Easter as the traffic gets rerouted.
So my conspiracy theory* is the private security companies who guard the ships caused the blockade to push up their prices. Not enough war going on right now for them to make money.
*Other conspiracy theory’s are available!
It’s funny, after I posted a photo of a Skycrane helicopter, which is perfectly capable of lifting the biggest container on the ship, and there are quite a few around, civvi and military, people are still talking about land or water based cranes!
Can a Skycrane lift 30 tonnes?
According to Wiki it has a max take off weight of 19 tonnes?
Some have mentioned winching it; well, an American off-roader with lots of experience winching large trucks out of awkward situations in places like Moab has suggested just that, using a couple of the biggest winches available – the ship’s own.
They are nowhere near the biggest winches available.
So he knows the ground is strong enough to hold an anchor to move the ship?
What's the ground reaction that you need to overcome? It could easily be thousands of tonnes. They have been pulling with tugs with a total bollard pull of around 1000t and it still hasn't moved.
A 1000t would part the anchor cable and rip the windlass off the deck.
The problem is it's not just touched the bottom, it's run up the slope and lifted itself. Assuming (since they travel in convoy) that it was travelling at the speed limit for the canal of 16km/hr (and like a bike, in a crosswind speed is your friend as the rudder works) it had enough kinetic energy to lift the whole ship 1m. So the bow would have lifted more than that. The photos suggest the nominal waterline is raised by about 2 containers height, so 4m, but the tide may have dropped since it went aground.
All the evergreen ships are called Ever G___ , so perhaps it will be known for the rest of its life as Ever Grounded
Ever Greed.
Some have mentioned winching it; well, an American off-roader with lots of experience winching large trucks out of awkward situations in places like Moab has suggested just that, using a couple of the biggest winches available – the ship’s own.
As gobuchul says those windlasses are nowhere near strong enough. Quite apart from the fact they only use rope rather than wires they are only used for pulling it into dock and even then they have other assistance. The two situations are in no way comparable.
I was actually talking about manoeuvring whilst in the canal – for example when the bow starts heading off towards the bank due to a strong side wind.
I know what you were asking, it just wouldn't work. Thinking about it I don't think they work very well once you get some forward speed anyway so that's why it's a non starter. It's been a while and I was just a troglodyte. Plus they are huge power consumers, you need to run up extra generators to run them and can't just be used at the flick of a switch.
I’ve been wondering how you steer something that big. Does it need to move at a minimum speed of some sort
To maintain steerage you need flow over the rudder, so the prop's thrust is directing the ship. Once the prop' stops the flow over rudder is down to whatever speed the ship is moving at, so quickly becomes ineffective if there's a failure of the engine.
She has two bowthrusters, but these will have stopped if there was a total blackout, even if they were operable, depending in the wind speed and direction, they may not have been much help. Bow thrusters are used to help swing the bow when in port, assisting with berthing and unberthing. The wind probably shoved the stern across the canal, and theat was it.
Suez canal is also pretty shallow near the banks, and with her draught she will have ploughed in bow first, and the wind then shoved the stern across.
The bow thrusters are now next to useless also, running them with the bottom right underneath will make them churn suck up all the bottom material and quickly die.
Apparently they are going to start lightering containers.
That picture shows what a massive task that will be.
https://gcaptain.com/smit-start-suez-box-removal/
They'll be hoping that they can make use of the gradually rising high tides that happen over the next few days . . . although the tidal range there isn't huge, every little bit will help. From Wednesday onwards the tides get progressively smaller, which will make the refloat progressively harder.
An alternative viewpoint . . . bigger tides over the next few days will mean that at low water more of the ship's weight will be bearing on the grounded bow and stern sections (leaving the midships "hanging") . . . increasing the possibility that the hull could break its back.
What about blocking the canal either side of the stuck ship and pumping water in to raise the water level. Tugs then manoeuvre boat to middle and temporary lock gates are removed?
I don’t know if this chart is genuine. But if it is, it’s not going anywhere...
https://twitter.com/gletham/status/1375862044650446848?s=21
Is this what marketeers call "Positioning your brand?" Asking for a friend
That chart appears to be accurate according to the latest position, it's by the KM151 red channel buoy and the little inlet. There's very shallow water to the east of the channel. Depths on the chart will be lowest astronomical tide (LAT) so high tide (I believe it's tidal there) will give a bit more water
What about blocking the canal either side of the stuck ship and pumping water in to raise the water level. Tugs then manoeuvre boat to middle and temporary lock gates are removed?
^^If they can get two countries to give a dam,I think this could work, 🙂
Where's my coat?
What’s the ground reaction that you need to overcome? It could easily be thousands of tonnes. They have been pulling with tugs with a total bollard pull of around 1000t and it still hasn’t moved.
A 1000t would part the anchor cable and rip the windlass off the deck.
I was reading some back of the envelope calculations assuming a friction factor on sand of 0.5.
If the vessel has a mass of 200,000 tonnes and 1/3 of that mass is now supported by the sand at the bow (and to some extent the stern?), this means (crudely) that 33,000 tonnes-force is required ((200,000 * 1/3) * 0.5) to start moving the vessel.
The most powerful tug in the world can only pull 470 tonnes-force for some context.
I was out mountain biking with my lad, he was hit by a cross wind on a jump and is now wedged in good. Six days later he is still there, I might need to get a crane in to lift him off.
If the vessel has a mass of 200,000 tonnes and 1/3 of that mass is now supported by the sand at the bow
It won't be as much as 1/3 as the draft is 14.5m and the exposed waterline is about 1/3 of that, so 2/3 is still supported by buoyancy, so maybe 1/6 on sand. But the total mass is a bit more as the dwt tonnage is just the cargo. Difficult to find the mass of the ship but probably about 30,000 tonnes.
Not been following. Did they get another ship to go at it full tilt then handbrake turn thus refloating it with a "wave of awesomeness" as suggested earlier in the thread?
"It's not the first time a Dutch super tug has produced a happy ending"
The chart extract @jam-bo has posted is very interesting. It looks genuine, from Navionics, although it contradicts the official Suez Canal data which suggests it should have both sides battered at 1:3. The way the chart shows it is inviting the kind of accident that occurred - a big shallow shelf for an off-course ship to run up onto. If it had been more like the official profile the ship would be more likely to scrape along the side and be deflected back into deep water.
Moving the stern away from the bank, as recently reported, seemed counter intuitive at first. If the canal is as on the chart and the bow didn't move, it's just putting more ship on the shelf. But it gives them the chance, on the next tide, to drag the ship back out the way it went in - perhaps using its own engine and prop as well as tugs.
Update - AIS image on the latest BBC article suggests the bow has moved and the ship has effectively pivoted on the shelf.
that ties in with a report that it was sitting hard on a large rock under the grounded bow section. the salvage guy in that report seemed keen to emphasis it was far from over.
I guess the key question is have they moved it enough to get traffic through.
I guess the key question is have they moved it enough to get traffic through.
I can't see them allowing traffic through until they've moved the Ever Given to a safe location - The canal Authorities will look like total fools in front of the whole world if they allow a situation when another ship could crash into this one..
I can’t see them allowing traffic through until they’ve moved the Ever Given to a safe location – The canal Authorities will look like total fools in front of the whole world if they allow a situation when another ship could crash into this one..
According to the news as soon as tides allow (about now actually) it's going to be moved to a wider part of the canal that has a holding area and traffic will then be allowed to flow.
Wouldn't the waves from other big ships, potentially cause it to become even more beached?
Right big lad, get the wing mirrors folded in and the foot down. My Tacx axle is probably on that ship and it's already late.
Vesselfinder.com shows it back across the canal now, the bow is a little bit further from the shore. High tide this morning has passed.
if you look now, it shows it as underway, heading north at 2.5kts. started moving at 13.04 UTC.
started moving at 13.04 UTC
That must have been a minute after I was looking at it wedged on vesselfinder.com ! Should have stayed watching.
how nervous do you think the captain of the first ship through to be let through will be.
don't **** it up....
Breaking news: Footage at the time of the ship's grounding has emerged.
has Johnson claimed credit yet ?
I'm so pleased it's finally back under way. Excitedly told my wife; she couldn't have given me a more withering look.