Suez Canal Blocked by Container Ship

AD1184

Celestial
This story has dropped way down the list of priorities for the world's media in recent days, but I think that it is probably one of the most important ongoing global news stories at the moment, and deserves its own thread.

https://news.google.com/stories/CAA...ibWNnVTNWbGVpQkRZVzVoYkNCamIyNTBhVzUxWlNnQVAB

So far, all efforts to remove the bow of the Ever Given from its present position--embedded in the bank of the canal--have failed.

The mainstream news media are reporting that there are fears the channel may remain blocked for many weeks. However, it could be even worse than that.

The bow has clearly risen, placing a lot of strain on the ship's midsection. There is partial flooding of the forward bow thruster rooms already. The canal is tidal, with a tidal range up to five feet. Currently there is a full moon and thus a spring tide, giving near-maximum tidal range. This tidal movement places cyclical stress on the ship's structure that it is not designed to support.

Any effort to remove the ship from the bank is necessarily going to place further strain on the structure. It is not out of the question that an ultra-large container vessel such as this could have its structure fail in the effort. If it did so, it would leave the Canal blocked for a protracted period. The Costa Concordia cruise ship, about half the displacement of the Ever Given, took two years to salvage when it capsized in shallow water off the coast of Italy. There was more room to manoeuvre around that vessel at the time, it having sunk in open water.

The global economic impact of this event is significant, and could become immense, depending on how long the canal remains blocked.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
How did this vessel get turned in such a way to get stuck in its current position?...I never heard the reason why this happened...

I didn't realize the canal was so narrow, its surprising this has not happened before...I also didn't realize how stuck it has become that structural damage to the ship may be imminent, if the ship's structure does collapse in some way it will take a long time to clear it out...

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Toroid

Founding Member
How did this vessel get turned in such a way to get stuck in its current position?...I never heard the reason why this happened...

I didn't realize the canal was so narrow, its surprising this has not happened before...I also didn't realize how stuck it has become that structural damage to the ship may be imminent, if the ship's structure does collapse in some way it will take a long time to clear it out...

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There were many factors with wind being the primary. The Suez Canal is 120 miles long. Those super container ships are too big. I read the canal has been widened several times.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKvGKTsAoO4
 

AD1184

Celestial
The Suez was blocked for three days by the oil tanker Tropic Brilliance in November, 2004. Its steering gear failed and it ran aground. Oil was able to be transferred to another ship to lighten the load before it was refloated. Crucially, this incident occurred north of the Bitter Lakes, where the canal has a sandy bottom and banks. The canal south of the Bitter Lakes, where the Ever Given is stuck, is in clay, which does not lend itself to dredging. The canal north of the Bitter Lakes was dredged, whereas the southern portion was dug with mechanical excavation.

SCF Group - Incident with Tropic Brilliance

The canal has been widened as recently as 2015 to accommodate UCLVs like the Ever Given, but conditions remain fairly treacherous. Apparently on the day that the Ever Given got stuck, some captains had opted to hold off transiting the canal due to the conditions. Captains also have an option for tug escorts to better control the ship throughout the transit. The Ever Given opted not to use tug escorts. The two smaller vessels which transited the canal immediately ahead of the Ever Given both opted to use tugs, according to this report.

How a Desert Wind Blew $10 Billion of Global Trade Off Course – gCaptain
 
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nivek

As Above So Below
Suez Canal chiefs launch last-ditch bid to use supermoon king tide to free the Ever Given after it shifted 100ft during the day - as Egypt's President loses patience and says the boat must be unloaded if this fails



Canal officials have launched efforts to take advantage of the high tides brought about by the supermoon to help free the 220,000-ton skyscraper-sized Ever Given (left), which has been wedged across the Suez Canal in Egypt since Tuesday. The rescue efforts came as Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi also ordered preparations for the possible removal of some of the ship's 18,300 containers if dislodging efforts failed.It came as rescue crews desperately trying to free the Ever Given container ship today said they had made a breakthrough and managed to move the Japanese-owned vessel by nearly 100ft. The 220,000-ton ship is disrupting global shipping valued at more than £6.5billion per day (aerial view of supertankers queuing in the Gulf of Suez in an effort to cross the blocked canal, pictured bottom right).

However, in a major breakthrough, rescue crews have reportedly managed to move the enormous carrier by around 98ft and today emergency crews were ordered to start offloading containers. The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, which were called in to work alongside tugboats on the scene, will now help nudge the Ever Given (graphic of the ship wedged in the single-lane stretch, top right) as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side.


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August

Metanoia
Suez Canal chiefs launch last-ditch bid to use supermoon king tide to free the Ever Given after it shifted 100ft during the day - as Egypt's President loses patience and says the boat must be unloaded if this fails



Canal officials have launched efforts to take advantage of the high tides brought about by the supermoon to help free the 220,000-ton skyscraper-sized Ever Given (left), which has been wedged across the Suez Canal in Egypt since Tuesday. The rescue efforts came as Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi also ordered preparations for the possible removal of some of the ship's 18,300 containers if dislodging efforts failed.It came as rescue crews desperately trying to free the Ever Given container ship today said they had made a breakthrough and managed to move the Japanese-owned vessel by nearly 100ft. The 220,000-ton ship is disrupting global shipping valued at more than £6.5billion per day (aerial view of supertankers queuing in the Gulf of Suez in an effort to cross the blocked canal, pictured bottom right).

However, in a major breakthrough, rescue crews have reportedly managed to move the enormous carrier by around 98ft and today emergency crews were ordered to start offloading containers. The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, which were called in to work alongside tugboats on the scene, will now help nudge the Ever Given (graphic of the ship wedged in the single-lane stretch, top right) as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side.


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Why don't they just dig a trench around it for a by pass until they can move the thing.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The vessel has been freed at last...

 
Why don't they just dig a trench around it for a by pass until they can move the thing.
I read the area where the ship was stuck was clay soil, tough digging. Some parts of the canal are in sandy areas, so they could dredge out a cavity in a similar situation. At the clay areas, the canal was dug with machinery instead of dredging like they did in other places. They were doing both, apparently. There were fears of damage or even sinking if it sat there too long.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Hmmm...

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Uri Geller: ‘Mind power helped to free Suez Canal ship’

Israeli spoon-bender Uri Geller has claimed mind power helped to move the ship which was blocking the Suez Canal. Salvage teams succeeded on Monday at moving the massive container ship, the Ever Given, which had blocked the crucial trade route for the past week.

Geller, who found fame by claiming to have the power to bend spoons, told his fans on social media that they had managed to move the ship with their minds.

He had appealed for people all over the world to use their collective brain power to visualise the Ever Given moving at 11.11am on Saturday, in an effort to dislodge the 220,000-tonne container ship.

“This was a mammoth task but with your mind-power and self belief we all together freed the ship!” he claimed, as news of the ship being dislodged broke.

“Your sheer positive energy also helped the ground crew efforts well done to them too!”

(More on the link)

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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Hmmm...

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Uri Geller: ‘Mind power helped to free Suez Canal ship’

Israeli spoon-bender Uri Geller has claimed mind power helped to move the ship which was blocking the Suez Canal. Salvage teams succeeded on Monday at moving the massive container ship, the Ever Given, which had blocked the crucial trade route for the past week.

Geller, who found fame by claiming to have the power to bend spoons, told his fans on social media that they had managed to move the ship with their minds.

He had appealed for people all over the world to use their collective brain power to visualise the Ever Given moving at 11.11am on Saturday, in an effort to dislodge the 220,000-tonne container ship.

“This was a mammoth task but with your mind-power and self belief we all together freed the ship!” he claimed, as news of the ship being dislodged broke.

“Your sheer positive energy also helped the ground crew efforts well done to them too!”

(More on the link)

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upload_2021-3-31_6-49-11.jpeg
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I read the area where the ship was stuck was clay soil, tough digging. Some parts of the canal are in sandy areas, so they could dredge out a cavity in a similar situation. At the clay areas, the canal was dug with machinery instead of dredging like they did in other places. They were doing both, apparently. There were fears of damage or even sinking if it sat there too long.

saw your avatar and been thinking I ought to splurge for a month of HBO. I'd like to see Godzilla vs Kong. I heard King of All Monsters kind of sucked.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Are we supposed to be hoarding toilet paper again because of this? Something about wood pulp? I know the downstream impact of that mess in TX is that right now trying to lay your hands on Romex or grey PVC pipe is a dicey proposition. Wondering if its safe to crack open that case of coronavirus Scott tissue I socked away.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
upload_2021-4-1_17-39-32.png

Some 200,000 animals trapped in Suez canal likely to die

The worst maritime animal welfare tragedy in history could, by now, be unavoidable, says Gabrile Păun, the EU director for Animals International, an NGO. There are 16 ships taking live animals from the EU to the Persian Gulf which have been stuck for several days behind the stranded 'Ever Given' cargo vessel in the Suez Canal.

Even with the Ever Given now slowly moving again, the live animals inside the blistering cargo containers, which are quickly running out of feed and water, are now nearing an even more tragic end than that which awaits them in the slaughterhouses at their destination. Even if the ships were to resume full course today, the water and food would not last until their sea journey is over.

Romania is the source for the 130,000 of the 200,000 live animals now caught in the Suez bottleneck. Some six of the 11 ships full to the brim with the live animals from the South-Eastern European nation are in a particularly critical situation. They were supposed to reach harbours in the Persian Gulf over four days ago, but still have not left the Canal.

According to EU law, ships carrying live animals need to load 25 percent more food than planned for their trip in case of delays, but animal welfare organisations warned that this rarely happens. Meanwhile, Păun explained to EUobserver that even with the 25 percent buffer, these ships would now run out of animal feed long before they arrive in port.

(More on the link)

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