Boaty McStuckboat

[dixiehack]

This is truly reaching the crisis stage.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I was going to reference "Trouble in the Suez" but I like your thread title.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

 

[dixiehack]

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

But enough about Peyton Manning.

 

[dixiehack]

 

[HanSenSE]

 

[TigerVols]

I don’t get this.

 

[Tighthead]

I don’t get this.

If the first boat through did the same thing.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

There are legitimate concerns here.

Here’s the traffic jam. That’s a lot of freight that can’t move unless the captains and ship owners want to run the pirate gauntlets off both east and west Africa, and best case it adds 2 weeks to the shipping time. Most of it is bound for European markets, and the Suez handles 10 percent of global trade.



Here’s the current map from MarineTraffic.com (which tracks vessels’ AIS signals). Quite the mess.

The Ever Given is large — over 1,300 feet long and almost 193 feet wide.

This could have a major economic hit for Europe, which could also be felt in the United States.

 

[Batman]

One thing I've been wondering is how is this hugely important shipping lane barely wide enough to fit one container ship? As ships have grown larger over the past couple of decades, shouldn't someone have looked at things and said, "You know what, maybe we should have enough room to pass two at a time through here?"
IIRC, the Panama Canal is pretty similar. Some of the bigger ships, especially our aircraft carriers, barely squeeze through there. Why can't or why haven't they ever just expanded the canal a couple of hundred feet?

 

[PCLoadLetter]

One thing I've been wondering is how is this hugely important shipping lane barely wide enough to fit one container ship? As ships have grown larger over the past couple of decades, shouldn't someone have looked at things and said, "You know what, maybe we should have enough room to pass two at a time through here?"
IIRC, the Panama Canal is pretty similar. Some of the bigger ships, especially our aircraft carriers, barely squeeze through there. Why can't or why haven't they ever just expanded the canal a couple of hundred feet?

I suspect the answer is that they would have to shut down the canal for an extended period to widen it and they don't want to do that.

 

[Neutral Corner]

They're trying to dig it out. I'm not sure they can, and it isn't likely to be soon in any case. That ship is as long as the Empire State Building is tall. The captain did one helluva job getting all that weight and momentum stopped without dumping containers all over the canal. I don't know about the driving that got him into trouble, but that thing could have been driven way the hell deeper than it was. I saw an underwater topo map of the canal there, and it looks gnarly.

From everything I read the canal may be down for two or three weeks. If they can't free it by dredging around and under it, they'll probably try to lighten it next. That would start with offloading ballast and fuel, but if that does not do it they'll have to start taking containers off. They don't have proper container handling gear and trying to use mobile gear based on sand instead of concrete is sketchy. They start fooling around with that and mess up the weight distribution somehow and they may domino the containers off into the drink.

Best of luck to them. They'll be sending the best cargo handling emergency crews and equipment they can find. Might not be a bad idea to buy a couple of big packages of TP and paper towels. I doubt that much of the supply comes from overseas, but all it takes is one big mouth and an old picture of empty shelves on Facebook and you won't be able to find any.

 

[User 149557]

I haven’t worked in a week because we’re missing parts for our actuators. The supply chain is already effed. This is only going to make it worse.

 

[Driftwood]

I never went through the Suez, but I did the Panama Canal.
Our carries can't get through there, and even the largest commercial ships won't fit. The locks aren't big enough. They were built just big enough for the biggest ships a hundred years ago. Many modern commercial vessels are built to the size specifically to fit the locks when they could actually be larger.

 

[BTExpress]

If the first boat through did the same thing.

I think the word "through" screwed us up, because it implied the ship made it through . . . and then did this funny thing.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

OK, I’ve had a chance to talk with a friend of mine who used to work in big ships.

He thinks the “**** pic” was actually the Ever Given crew maneuvering while waiting for their Suez Canal pilot. He said the ship has about a 50-foot draw fully laden (that’s how much of the hull is underwater) and that the canal is 80 feet deep dead center but only 30 feet at the sides. A giant ship pushed by high wind into water that relatively shallow is gonna be seriously aground. He has no explanation as to why the experienced captain that Evergreen sent to command the passage through the canal would choose to eschew a tugboat escort, or why canal managers would choose not to force the tugboat issue.

Tangent: Go fill your fuel tanks today. Prices were already heading up and now the supply chain is strangled.

 

[dixiehack]

 

[micropolitan guy]