Shippy McShipface (A Suez Canal thread.)

Going forward, guess no one should ever feel bad about clogging a toilet. 

Handy page for updates, too: Is that ship still stuck?

I know shipping is rerouting around the cape, but I wonder if modern container ships are really built to handle the cape if it goes full-tilt crazy. Something like nearly 3,000 containers were lost off ships last year - that might get a lot worse...

On Marketplace last night they said an analysis of daily shipping value puts the clog's held-up-goods cost at $400 Million per hour.

The memes coming out of this ordeal are fire and I love it. 

That's a BIG boat!

"Spanning 1,312 feet long and 193 feet wide, Ever Given can carry up to 20,000 20-foot equivalent (TEU) shipping containers."

I wonder if airlifting containers off the deck would allow it to float/clear faster? The reverse of letting air out of the tires of a tunnel stuck truck.

In reply to NOT A TA :

No doubt, you could hold 1/8-mile drag races on its deck!

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NOT A TA :

No doubt, you could hold 1/8-mile drag races on its deck!

The deck is almost 6 acres... I wonder what kind of autox you could setup?  Probably a pretty decent kart track.

ProDarwin said:

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NOT A TA :

No doubt, you could hold 1/8-mile drag races on its deck!

The deck is almost 6 acres... I wonder what kind of autox you could setup?  Probably a pretty decent kart track.

At 193 feet wide, your basic "slalom down, pivot, slalom back" community airport course.

Gives the term off-course a whole new meaning.

The good thing about this ship disaster is that it will make your worst day at work seem like a trivial matter.

South of the canal is where all the Somalian pirate trouble happens. If boats sit still there they will be sitting ducks. 

I wonder if the pirate raids are on a rampant rise? 

I imagine a huge navy presence must be increased to offset this. 

Pilots or not? 

When a container ship arrives at a port, like the port of Los Angeles, the ship is met by a smaller boat and jumping off the small boat and onto the big boat is a pilot. This pilot then drives the boat to the dock.  Sort of like vallet parking but for container ships. 

Are the ships in the Suez in the hands of a Pilot or just the regular captain? 

In reply to John Welsh :

I don't know about the Suez (which does not have locks), but I've sailed through the (old) Panama (which does have locks) and we did not get a pilot. We drove it the whole way with just our regular crew.

If the Suez is like a giant bathtub ,  they  need to add more stuff to raise the water level , or add water , lots of water !

I hope they are smarter than we are , at least they got the Dutch to come and help :)

A topical meme from the U.S. gov't. 

No locks in the Suez.

Currently, pirate issues off Somalia are broadly controlled. Certainly much easier to protect a group of stationary ships holding in place than widely scattered ships underway. Terrorism could be a problem in theory, though getting the planning done and the assets in place would likely take longer than the backup will last. From what I understand, the Gulf of Guinea is the current African piracy hotspot.

Apparently caused by a freak 30-40knott crosswind that turned the ship like a kite.

Its getting pretty jammed around there.

84FSP said:

Apparently caused by a freak 30-40knott crosswind that turned the ship like a kite.

“Sarcasm font” You mean we need to consider wind on a ship?

Apparently we’ve discovered how big is too big, the amount of sail area on that ship is absurd.  For scale the United States Lines container ship I was on in ‘80s was 760 feet long and carried about 2,000 containers. (A / fully cellular below, built in 1968)  Ships designed to ULCS or ultra large container ship standards are 1,300 feet long and can carry as many as 21,000 containers.  Mind boggling to me anyway.  

84FSP said:

Apparently caused by a freak 30-40knott crosswind that turned the ship like a kite.

Ever watch that video "the front fell off" ? 
Very relevant.