Shippy McShipface (A Suez Canal thread.)

Someone made an html game where you play the lone bulldozer trying to get the ship unstuck:

https://eric-c-wilder.itch.io/suez-canal-bulldozer

(it's super stuck)

k

From 2005-2010 I did a lot of sailing in and around Long Beach, CA.  My friend kept a boat deep down the channel around the Port of Long Beach/Port of LA.  To get to his dock we had to sail right past these huge container ships.  I knew I had some close up pictures of an Evergreen boat.  Turn out it was the boat named Ever Chivalry (EC) not Ever Given (EG).  

I thought the EC was huge but only:
334m x 43m (1095 ft x 141ft)

The EG is:
400m x 59m (1312ft x 193.5ft)

Some pics found of the EC taken in 2010

I am still amazed that there are 1000' ships on the great lakes.

My office is on the river that feeds the bay of Green Bay and we regularly have a few different ships go past. The SS Alpena is 639' long.

stanger_mussle (Forum Supporter) said:

Someone made an html game where you play the lone bulldozer trying to get the ship unstuck:

https://eric-c-wilder.itch.io/suez-canal-bulldozer

 

(it's super stuck)

Dang, it is super stuck.

In reply to RossD :

I think I have heard something like being qualified to captain a ship on the Great Lakes qualifies you to captain a ship on the Oceans but being qualified to captain a ship on the Oceans does not qualify you to captain a ship on the Great Lakes.

The real dangers of captaining a ship are when you get close to immovable objects and in the Great Lakes you are close to immovable objects MUCH more often.  

RossD said:

The SS Alpena is 639' long.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was 729' long!  

Assuming there is some kind of flow to the canal, could a large ship(s) not be placed down stream in such a way as to block most of the flow and raise the water level to some degree?  You could use ballast to sink the downstream ship and then raise it by pumping out the ballast.

So is the issue they can't find enough tugs to pull the thing out, or that they're worried it'll rip in half if the pull the wrong way?

stanger_mussle (Forum Supporter) said:

Someone made an html game where you play the lone bulldozer trying to get the ship unstuck:

https://eric-c-wilder.itch.io/suez-canal-bulldozer

 

(it's super stuck)

That was hilarious!

(it's super stuck)

In reply to NOHOME :

The entire canal is at sea level, there isn't any flow.

BUT, maybe they build coffer dams on either side of it and pump water in to float it. There, I've solved that problem for them !

John Welsh said:

RossD said:

The SS Alpena is 639' long.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was 729' long!  

As the big freighters go it was bigger than most. 

Every man that has seen a photo.

Joking aside, I'm worried that the bad guys, ISIS and such will get bad ideas. Imagine blowing up a ship this size in the middle and then flying a couple of fully fueled plans in right after. They could close it for a year or more. 

Somewhere along the way I was not paying attention; when I was a kid it was the panama canal. when did it become (and why) the suez canal?

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Apparently, as long as you call them ISIL, then there is no threat...

03Panther said:

Somewhere along the way I was not paying attention; when I was a kid it was the panama canal. when did it become (and why) the suez canal?

Not sure if serious...

The Panama Canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama to join the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Suez Canal joins the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean via the Red Sea. 

In reply to Duke :

Yep, was serious; they seem to being used interchangeably online. That makes much more sense!!!

Thanks.

They must have all sorts of dredging equipment to keep the Suez from filling with sand.   I'd have wondered about whether they could get close enough to pull a bunch from underneath the port side?

It's a farging bastich no matter how you look at it.

Streetwiseguy said:

They must have all sorts of dredging equipment to keep the Suez from filling with sand.   I'd have wondered about whether they could get close enough to pull a bunch from underneath the port side?

It's a farging bastich no matter how you look at it.

Maybe they have a snow fence for the sand. 

Was anyone else surprised to see the Suez Canal is basically just a trench in the sand?  I was picturing something a bit more finished.