Suez Canal Blocked

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..never had to tug a 400m ship to free it from a canal before.. but I bet they have the technology to blow it up!

Blowing it up will mean salvage and cleaning which will hold up the canal even longer. Very poor risk management to have such global reliance on an antiquated channel cut through one of the poorest countries in south America

Okay, you lost me with that one, I need more detail of your thoughts about how the Panama Canal and socioeconomic conditions in Central America figure in to a ship grounded in the Suez Canal in Africa-Asia, because I totally can't see the logic flow.

Yeah I completely mucked that up! I got mixed up with the Panama canal!!

Egypt

https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/10 ... go-ship-in

Am not an apologist for the US DoD but this is several kinds of laughable.

Its the...SUEZ Canal. Not the Panama Canal. The Suez Canal is in Egypt. Not in the CENTRAL American country of Panama

The US Navy doesnt have any juristiction over it the way it did at one time over the Panama Canal. The US no longer owns the Canal zone, but we could re seize it at a moments notice if world war three were to break out. But the Suez was built by the Brits and the French . It was fought over a couple times by Egypt and Israel, but never by the US. lol!

Its a civilian cargo ship. Not a Navy ship. Its about 25 percent longer, and four times as massive as the biggest American nuclear aircraft carrier. So its not the navy mess to straighten out, nor even to be able to straighten out.

Yeah rub it in....cyberdad doesn't know his geography

Doesn't bode well. Where is a the cargo destined for? I hear its carrying vaccines

It was enroute from China to Rotterdam Netherlands (the biggest port in Europe). Full of the usual stuff that fills shopping malls the world over:merchandise, clothes, spongebob toys, lunchboxes with pics of the two girls from "Frozen" on them, etc.. I dont think that Europe imports vaccines from China.

Dredgers were working again Friday morning to remove hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of sand around the bow of the 1,300-foot Ever Given, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, in order to reach a water depth of roughly 50 feet needed to remove the ship, according to the Suez Canal Authority. More diggers are being brought in and salvage teams are making plans to siphon out fuel and ballast water to lighten the ship, according to one person involved in the operation. "It's a difficult process. The ship's bow is still wedged in the canal wall and there could be some structural damage," this person said. "If you try to yank it out, things could get worse and fuel could spill out. It's the worst place in the canal for such a big ship to be stuck."

Meanwhile, shipping companies have reported more than 300 idled vessels on either side of the canal, which links the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and is a crucial waterway for global trade and energy shipments. For days, as Egyptian authorities tried to clear the canal, shipowners and operators have debated whether to reroute -- adding weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of voyages -- or wait for the canal to free up again.

Ship operators have started rerouting tankers and containers away from the Suez Canal -- in some cases sending them on a two-week extended voyage around the southern tip of Africa -- as they increasingly bet on a prolonged closing of the key waterway.

Source: Suez Canal blockage forces operators to reroute ships

About 10% of world trade flows through the canal, which is particularly crucial for the transport of oil. The closure also could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.

The Ever Given’s location, size and large amount of cargo make the operation more complex, Sloane said. The operation should focus initially on dredging the bank and sea floor around it to get it floating again, rather than unloading its cargo, which could take weeks.

That’s because the clock is also ticking structurally for the vessel, he added. "The longer it takes, the worse the condition of the ship will become, because she’s slowly sagging," said Sloane, vice president of the International Salvage Union. "So ships are designed to flex, but not to be kept at that position with a full load of cargo for weeks at a time. So it’s not an easy situation."

Source: Maritime traffic jam grows outside blocked Suez Canal

losses of $400 million per day will add up.

Here are some pics from the BBC website...

 Link to the BBC article 

Cool pics. I wonder if there is any way to restrict or totally block water flow to raise the water level and get the ship out of this jam. Is there any natural water flow from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean?

The ship is grounded just a few kilometres from the southern end, where it entered from the Red Sea.

 Link to Full-Screen Images 

Look in the upper-left corner of the aerial view at the top of the page.  Below is a smaller version.

From that outer space picture it looks like an obstruction in your throat.

So...they should try the Heimlich maneuver.

Set off a small nuke in the canal upstream, which would send a little tidal wave down the canal, which would cough it right out!

What could...possibly... go wrong?

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But seriously, about the only solution I can think of is to send a succession of small container ships up from the southern Red Sea entrance to dock along side, and little by little remove its cargo in order to (a) have the smaller (but still large) ships deliver some of the cargo the long way around Africa, and (b) to lighten the stricken ship's load so that it gradually rises up and draws less water. Eventually it will float so high that it will float free of being stuck. Or so we hope.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 26 Mar 2021, 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.