UKC

It looks like this is sorted but what would happen if it was a long term problem.  Are most modern ships even rated for going round South Africa?

Probably it's just a bit further. 

Longer journey times (delays), more fuel burnt and undoubtedly higher shipping costs

Apparently transiting the canal costs $500000 so perhaps not that much more!

I found it interesting how something simple can cause problems like it did, it reminds me of somebody saying 'The whole world is flying by the seat of it's pants'.

I guess at some point, greater efficiency along the lines of being greener might help to reduce costs of sailing further?

I told my wife this morning that he was trying to do a three point turn to which she was unconvinced. Later I then found out courtesy of the Daily Mail that he’d managed to draw a massive cock and balls on the ship tracker. Which sort of proved my theory.. sort of. 

You mean they released all the children on board? 

During the first lockdown I looked at some freight costs for getting some containers shipped from China. It was cheaper to go around the Cape as the oil price had dropped so much.

Canal transits are around a quarter of a million dollars for a Suez max vessel with passage times around a fortnight quicker for vessels bound from the Far East to European ports saving in the region of 4 thousand miles, so bunkers are a big factor regardless of oil prices. Add in additional cost/risk owing to piracy around the Horn of Africa, sensitivity/urgency of cargo, draft/load line rules etc and there are a lot of considerations why shipowners might opt for a certain passage. A few years ago owing to more prevalence of piracy off Somalia medium size bulk carriers bound from Liverpool to China with scrap iron were using the Cape as standard and avoiding Suez altogether...a 54 day passage! Considering the extra bunkers burned, that’s quite an environmental cost. It will be interesting to see what happened with Ever Given, whether it was gear failure or interaction owing to draft. Anyway, Suez is certainly going to be busy once it’s clear with upward of 100 vessels now waiting to transit.

Opportunity for you there, Num Num? Maybe do a few foreigners, strictly cash... Where's your Scouse initiative?🤔

An old pilotage joke to appease an angry captain when you’d twonked the lock wall going into Gladstone was to remark on what a great bit of navigation it was...’Look at that Captain! You’ve just come two thousand miles and you were only a metre out at the end’

Anyway Rob, I’ve swallowed the anchor now and hung up my float coat in retirement.... more time to bullshit on forums!

It certainly doesn't seem to be sorted. The CEO of the company trying to move it says it could take weeks!

They're gonna need a bigger digger...

Made me wonder what coordinated terrorist attacks, incapacitating ships in the Suez and Panama canals would do to the world economy.

Curious aside: if the canal runs through sand what's stopping the water filtering away? Does it have a lining?

As I understand it the canal is at sea level, there are no locks so it's infinitely replenishable.

I didnt know it had been shut for several years in late 60s early 70s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet

Are you the Chris R who wrote "Getting on Global Watchlists for Dummies"?  

He probably wasn't planning on flying anytime soon anyway.

I wasn’t really referring to flight watch lists but anyway they are indefinite.

I also wasn’t being entirely serious 

The same thing in the Gulf (Persian Gulf? Arabian Gulf?) would be a problem too

I can't help thinking the bloke in the hiz-vis is on the phone to the shipping company, making a sucking noise through his teeth, and saying "I'm sending you an estimate, but it's a lot of work and it won't be cheap. I'll also want half up front, in cash.."

Coincidentally I am sure, this effectively cuts the Eisenhower carrier strike group off from the Gulf region.

Been there, done that......

I'm just glad I'm not one of the pilots who was guiding the ship at the time.

I find it difficult to conceive of how a gust of wind, 30 mph [?] , was enough to blow it off course.

The effect of a strong wind  on a ship with that amount of windage would exert a huge amount of force, although why it happened to that ship and not others I've no idea.

There's now talk of having to unload the vessel to float it off. A process that would take weeks!

In Thaillhook:

Thanks. I did some 'research' (Wikipedia!) and read that the ancient Egyptians dug several versions of canal in the area dating back thousands of years. They weren't linking the Red and Med Seas but rather linking an arm of the Nile Delta to the Red. Still an impressive achievement.

Thats the same with me - assuming it has sailed from China / Korea, it has managed the weather all the way there, and then gets caught by a 30 mph gust in a canal? Thats like an everest summiteer breaking their ankle falling down the steps of the plane home.........

Didnt something like that happen to Alan Hinkes - hospitalised sneezing on a chipati whilst at base camp for an 8000m summit attempt?  

It did; and he still gets grief about it to this day.....the poor bloke cant go near a curry house without someone reminding him.....

could it just be that with a ship of that size the consequences were more serious?

Charles Arthur tweeted an extract from an FT article about how the blockage probably happened which is really intriguing. I’m posting the tweet because the whole article is paywalled-

 https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/1375397609305743361

stupid question I am sure because if it would work I am sure they would already be doing it, but given that mass moves mass, instead of piddly little tug boats, why do they not attach a line to one (or two) of the gigantic container ships lined up behind the Ever Given and get that to pull it off?

additional query, everyone is calling this ship the "ever given" but in massive letters on its side it says "evergreen"??

Evergreen shipping line. 

The Shipping Line is Evergreen and they name all their ships Ever - something.

All ships have to have totally unique names, so this one's full registry name is Blowjobs n'Ever Given, which is shortened for every day use. Like they do with race horse names.

Very interesting - will remember that effect next time I'm out in the kayak

I have heard a retire captain say they should have used a ship immediately behind it to pull as they have the power. Granted you'll need a decent rope. 

I think there's a high chance that might make it worse.

if you attach a line to something and pull, if it doesn't move the force will deflect the pulling unit sideways (classic example is helicopter pulls speedboat), and that's never mind the propeller-walk. you'd then have a 2nd weaving container ship that very likely wouldn't have sufficient bow-thrusters and would need a fleet of tugs to keep itself in a straight line.

although excessive force is, sometimes, the answer....

Yes, it's much easier to develop high loads when acting against a fixed point. Getting boats off sand bars is usually more successful done by steadily winching against a well placed anchor than lots of power frothing up the water from a propellor. 

We're obviously not privy to everything that's going on, but we seem to be in that limbo period so common to all salvage operations where the chronically under resourced local experts are having a go before saying 'Sod it - send for the Dutch'.

Tugs are built for agility and applying a lot of force. It's not the mass that matters per se, it's how much water their screws can shift.

I'm a little surprised they're just digging the canal wall away. It does look like it's not just the bulbous bow stuck, there's a bank of sand piled up dozens of meters back from the bow too, it's presumably very firmly aground. I'm surprised that's not being eroded away with flowing water, maybe it's not much of a problem, it's the earth underneath that is.

Even with enough available power there are probably limits on how hard the ship can be pulled to free it without damaging the structure or compromising stability given it'd be pulled basically sideways, from attachments near the deck dozens of meters above where it's stuck. Presumably they've also already dumped as much ballast as possible reducing stability.

Odd isn't it, it appears to be marked both Ever Given (bow) and Evergreen (huge, side).

jk

think you're right there, it's nolonger a canal operational issue and is a proper salvage operation.

cousin Ahmed's 20t excavator isn't going to cut it if the bow and stern are properly grounded......

sounds like they heard you - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/suez-canal-blocked-ship-ever-...

Evergreen is the company and their naming convention for their ships is that they are all (or mostly) the Ever Something

Edit: beaten to it in a more humorous way I see.

Remember it's not a river. I guess the tide and boat movements will create some water flow, but probably not much. 

Sorry, wasn't clear, I meant I'm surprised they don't have pumps or even tethered tugs blasting thousands of tons of water in there to flush the gravel out.

jk

Bigger problems now. Number of ships waiting is "growing exponentially".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56538653
Now, knowing what we've all learned about exponential growth, this means they'll displace most of the earth's oceans by the end of next month. Someone needs to go help that guy in the digger, ASAP.

In the open sea, a gust of wind doesn't plough you into the bank of a narrow waterway. It is reported they lost power at the same time, too.

That's the worst hyperbole ever 😉

I think that means the media still haven't understood what 'exponential' means. This is a very linear problem. And not just that it's a long. straight canal...

It was the chief engineer of the Maersk Ohio who said it!

With the draught it has a tug prop wouldn't scour much, a suction bagger has arrived though and they are preparing to pump the ballast and fuel. The last ship that size that ran aground in the Elbe took 12 tugs, 2 suction dredgers and a week to get free.

Something that's not obvious to me but might be to the nautical types.... why are they using tugs? I get it in a harbour or on the ocean, but there's solid ground *right there*. Why are we not seeing bulldozers, winches, battle tanks pulling on it?

I once got a rowing boat stuck in a lock on the Wey Navigation in a similar fashion. It swung around as we drained the lock, and stuck between the sides. We then closed the lower sluices and opened the upper ones to refloat it. Only it didn't, and the two remaining occupants clambered out. Fortunately, it then popped free like a cork...

...just as someone with a great big video camera appeared from below the lock...

Not if people keep ordering more stuff because the other stuff hasn't turned up.

It would still only be quadratic rather than exponential however...

Presumably the canal is in solid rock so they can't use a suction dredger or water jets to remove soft silt/sand to free the ship.

How do you gently quarry stone under water without sinking the ship?

"We're going to need a smaller boat."

I was going to say 'because they want to pull it into the water, not into the land', then I realised they could put the battle tanks etc. on the other side of the canal and pull it in whatever direction they wanted.  GIve them a call and suggest it!

Yep, squat is a very real problem in coastal waters. Our main freight ship scraped over a reef a few years ago because the captain didn't consider the squat of his vessel. From the MAIB report of that incident

"Interaction between a moving vessel and the seabed takes a number of forms including squat and shallow water effect. Squat is the decrease in under keel clearance that results from the increased velocity of water flowing under a vessel’s hull and, therefore, the consequent reduction in pressure underneath. Shallow water effect can cause loss of speed, vibration and sluggish handling when a vessel is in waters shallower than the onset depth12. Shallow water effects increase as depth reduces and becomes significant at 25-30% of the onset depth. In this case, for Commodore Clipper with a displacement of 7975 tonnes and a speed of 18kts, the onset depth would be 61m and the effects significant in approximately 18m or less sea depth. Interactions vary with the square of the vessel’s speed through the water, therefore reducing speed is the most effective method of limiting shallow
water effect."

The Clipper carried a chart on the wall of the bridge detailing the squat:-

10.4m under the keel - 7kts 27cm bow squat->1.18m @12knts.

Anyone care to work out the Squat for the Evergreen? http://shipsbusiness.com/squat-factors.html

I mean... pushing is also a thing

Anyone interested in salvage should read "Salvage, a personal Odyssey" by Ian Tew, it's excellent.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/salvage-a-personal-odyssey/ian-tew/9781574...

Because tugs use engine power and are close by.  Winches of the requisite bollard pull probably don't even exist in Egypt, then you've got to get power to them. A tug can also apply full power without burning itself out unlike a winch.

They did 4500 years ago.....?? 😏

and hundreds of thousands of slaves who died on the job ! 

As is the biography of my mentor when I was young "No Cure, No Pay" by Capt William Worrall

(sadly out of print) 

I'll look out for it on ebay, thanks for the suggestion

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and rudderless propellers alone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered navvy lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and tears forming quicksand,
Tell that its tormentor well to those reactions led
Which yet survive, stamped on this lifeless thing,
The land that mocked them, and the heart that bled;
And on a metal hull, these words appear:
My name is Ever Given, King of Kings;
Look on these Berks, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

I enjoyed this little post about how refreshing it is for the world to have such a simple and uncontroversial problem:
https://stone-soup.ghost.io/archive/i-like-that-the-boat-is-stuck/
"Another thing I like is that we know exactly what the problem is that is making the boat be stuck. It's a big boat, and it's stuck. Sure, shipping and manufacturing and boats and canals have lots of connections to varied and sundry historical and sociological issues – but this immediate problem, in front of us, is a stuck boat, and we can look at that problem for precisely what it is."

Are you sure?  It's been nearly 40 years since I looked at such things, but if my recollection of queuing theory is correct then the queue of ships is likely to growing more than linearly, for a while anyway.

I think some captains will likely making a decision on if it's quicker to just go the long way. There will be another knock on effect soon. Containers ports will be sat idle in Europe and they'll eventually have queues to unload too... it'll likely continue through the haulage and rail freight chain. 

Actually the problem of backlogged containers and delays in unloading at ports in the EU is already being blamed as one of the reasons the cost of shipping had gone through the roof in the last 12 months. #Covid

You had to go and spoil it.

I think 'the media' have decided that exponentially is a word they can use in a situation where something is growing quite a lot.

I wonder if the sofa of Richard MacDuff might be a relevant source of inspiration?

In reply

If the stuck ships start breeding and have lots of little baby ships, and all remain stuck, then it'll become exponential 

Eh? Rob Exile Ward was the one being a bore! 

Yes, I'm sure.

The canal has a finite capacity. Ship passage is scheduled to maintain that capacity, using a simple linear time model. Ships arrive expecting their slot in that linear schedule. Thus, the queue grows linearly.

Message-based queuing systems may have a buffer that grows faster than linearly if they use some sort of ARQ system, re-sending a message if they don't receive a delivery receipt. We're not going to re-send ships (except in the model wintertree proposes).

I nearly had a Suez blockage this morning, but fortunately it went down on the forth flush and the plunger wasn’t required. 

ahh the good old days.

I've had to deal with sewers blockage before and it was a nasty job