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News Science

Suez Canal Blocked After Giant Container Ship Gets Stuck (nytimes.com) 135

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
Trying to convey the sheer scale of the nearly quarter-mile-long container ship that has been stuck in the Suez Canal since Tuesday evening, some news outlets compared it to the length of four soccer fields. Others simply called it gigantic. From a report: But the main thing to know was this: After powerful winds forced the ship aground on one of the canal's banks, it was big enough to block nearly the entire width of the canal, producing a large traffic jam in one of the world's most important maritime arteries. By Wednesday morning, more than 100 ships were stuck at each end of the 120-mile canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and carries roughly 10 percent of worldwide shipping traffic. Only the Panama Canal looms as large in the global passage of goods. "The Suez Canal is the choke point," said Capt. John Konrad, founder of the shipping news website gCaptain.com, noting that 90 percent of the world's goods are transported on ships. It "could not happen in a worse place," he said, "and the timing's pretty bad, too."

The potential fallout is vast. The vessels caught in the bottleneck or expected to arrive there in the coming days include oil tankers carrying about one-tenth of a day's total global oil consumption, according to Kpler, a market research firm, to say nothing of the rest of the cargo now waiting to traverse the canal. And if the ship is not freed within a few days, it would add one more burden to a global shipping industry already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, creating delays, shortages of goods and higher prices for consumers. The ship, the Ever Given, was heading from China to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It ran aground amid poor visibility and high winds from a sandstorm that struck much of northern Egypt this week, according to George Safwat, a spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority. The storm caused an "inability to direct the ship," he said in a statement.
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Suez Canal Blocked After Giant Container Ship Gets Stuck More

Suez Canal Blocked After Giant Container Ship Gets Stuck

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  • Full of PS5, I guess? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @04:24PM (#61194184)
    Isn't that a great opportunity for every company currently struggling to fulfill some order to blame that ship for their faults?
    • Ship insurance will increase. While scale savings with one massive ship , so do risks increase. "As the vessel is chartered, the responsibility for the expense incurred in the recovery operation; third party liability and the cost of repair (if any) is the owners," charter company Evergreen Marine said Thursday.
  • Another account I read said that the wind should not have been a big deal on so big a vessel
    • Considering the scale of the fallout, that's rather darude [youtu.be] of them to posit that.

    • the wind should not have been a big deal on so big a vessel

      According to TFA, there was a sandstorm that impaired visibility.

      Still, they should have been able to steer with GPS.

      An Egyptian pilot should have been on the bridge for the transit, so there should have been no problem with unfamiliarity.

    • Sea worthy? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spinitch ( 1033676 )
      Seems the navigation controls failed, power. So a 400 meter , 224K ton canal jammer entered with questionable sea worthy. offloading some of that cargo to make it easier to move would take a long time. So much for safety. Ideally something that big should have many tugs escorting it, plus a sea worthy confirm b4 entering. They think it can be moved. Will be interesting to see the physics, insurance damage, etc.. those gigantic boats save on shipping but they are not without risks.

    • The bigger the vessel, the bigger the "deal of the wind".
      A no brainer.

    • Depends on how fast you are going and if the pilot ship is actively controlling position or the pilot is on the bridge. Once you slow down you lose much of your control in a ship like that— it is primarily about managing momentum.

      At the same time, I would say other factors were likely at play.

    • Big vessel = big sail area

      If they had to slow down for something like, oh, a sandstorm, then they lose a lot of momentum that they normally use to fight the wind.

      • would a ship like that have bow thrusters ?

        • Whether or not they did, the wind can exert more force than they can produce.

        • Most large, modern vessels have lateral thrusters (bow, stern, amidships, it varies) to make docking more controllable and quicker. Less time at the quay or in the approaches equals less cost per tonne-kilometre.

          The Ever Given has two bow thrusters.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @04:25PM (#61194190)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:If the ship is blocked... (Score:5, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @05:13PM (#61194344)

      pull it with a chain, then ask Elon Musk to step in with the BlockChain Company ?

      Obviously, what's needed here now is UnblockChain - duh.

    • "pull it with a chain, then ask Elon Musk to step in with the BlockChain Company ?"

      It's obviously his fault, the navigator was busy watching Netflix with his starlink.
      This will happen all the time now.

      • This is why you don't have general purpose computers - or power points for connecting them to - on the bridge.

        You think these things didn't get dealt with decades before the plans for this ship were put forward for approval?

    • Maybe he could invent some sort of vessle that can travel on water, and with electric propulsion it could push the stuck ship out.

      He could then call everyone else involved in the operation pedos.

  • and the best part.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @04:36PM (#61194216)

    the best part of this whole saga is that just prior to entering the canal, the ship's holding pattern looked rather like a cock and balls.

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  • The size of that ship is staggering (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @04:43PM (#61194232)

    Yeah, yeah, I know... four football fields. But what struck me was to see all those "tiny" containers stacked on the ship and then think about how big those containers seem when I've been right next to one.

    It's hard for me to fathom what it takes to just build a ship of that size.

    • What is hard to fathom for me is why people keep taking about football fields like it is some kind of unit of measure everyone can relate to.

      What about city blocks? At least most people have walked through one of those as opposed to watch it on a screen.

      • some people are so lazy, we're not going to convert it into libraries of congress or number of songs for you
        jfc, google is your friend.

        • Some people are lazy indeed, especially when it comes to writing.
      • Yes, how many cricket pitches is it!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Well, city blocks aren't standardized to set dimensions, sports fields are standardized.

        Besides, at least in the US more people have been on a football field than walked a city block (not everyone goes to cities that have regular block layout, but most everyone has some public school time on various fields for different sports).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          "football field" means different things to different people and is a stupid thing to use.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Many of these football field sizes are not standardized either. For example an Association football field (aka soccer pitch) can be between 90m and 120m in length.

          For these sorts of things just give a measurement in either yards or metres because for purpose of getting an idea of the size they are sufficiently equivalent.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by trawg ( 308495 )

        I'd argue city blocks is almost an exclusively American measure of distance. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it here in Australia to describe anything.

      • I've noticed city blocks are quite variable, even in my own city. At least football fields only vary by country.
      • Soccer arguably the most popular sport in the world, most people reading /. Have seen one so a easy visual. City blocks ? Vary. 400 meters should be easy to visualize for those who drive since signs to exits usually in similar ranges. It is also very close to quarter mile for non metric.
        • In the U.S., "football" refers to a different sport entirely, more akin to rugby. Fortunately, they are both played on fields of similar size, though not quite identical.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          But a soccer pitch can be between 90m and 120m in length according to the rules. It's consequently a stupid size to use for a measurement.

      • Everyone knows that a football field is roughly 100 yards long, which is roughly 100m.
        Same for a soccer or a rugby field.
        Does not matter if it is 130 yards or 90 yards.

      • It's roughly 1/2 the size of a presidential ego, if that helps.

        (Any president - the dude thought he *should* be president, and thought most people would agree with that)..)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Which is one major problem in politics.

          The people you'd probably most want to hold those positions are the ones that would most likely not want those positions.

          What kind of person thinks they are a good fit for leading hundreds of millions of people and having authority over nuclear weapons? Who doesn't see that as an impossible amount of responsibility to take on? The people who recognize the gravity of what the job should be can't imagine being capable of handling it.

          • Agreed.

            The founding fathers of the US designed a system in which the politicians can't really do anything without getting the House, the Senate and the President all to agree. Almost as if it were designed as a way to keep busy the people who want to boss the rest of us around, without having them actually do much harm.

            As a secondary effect, if all three agree that X is a good idea, maybe that's because it's actually a good idea, so we do that.

      • > What about city blocks?

        Because "city blocks" are incredibly variable depending on the city, or even which direction you're walking in some cities?

        Walk in downtown Vancouver along Georgia Street near Burrard and each block is about a 3 minute walk. Turn left or right at the end of one of those blocks and the new measurement is about 60 seconds walk per block. But wait, there's more! Keep walking along Georgia Street towards Stanley Park and as you head down the hill each block gets shorter and short

      • I think you will find that "city blocks" vary in size.

        Standard shipping containers, however, are of fairly standard width (though length and heights vary). Those might be a reasonable basis for comparison.

      • Because a football field is an exact unit of measure, being exactly 100 yards, or 300 feet (not counting the end zones). There is no set standard for the length of a city block. For example, the standard block in Manhattan is about (but not exactly) 900 feet, and in Chicago, a typical city block is roughly (again, but not exactly) 660 feet. There's simply too much variation for this to be a useful point of reference.
        • Quite the opposite, it is not because a football field is an exact unit of measure. If that was the case, they would use a standard unit of measure instead.

          I do not mean to say that they should use city blocks. They are intuitive to some and useless to others. The former group assumes it is a norm.
          • Wrong. People are terrible at judging large sizes and distances based on numbers alone. We need a point of reference. So, without a standard that is applicable to all cultures, we get references to things that are equal to exact units of measure that are ubiquitous (or nearly so) within the culture in which the reporting is being done. That said, you're focusing on the wrong part of this problem. Rather than simply reporting using only the exact measurement, which would go over the heads of the majority of
            • What you are saying is correct, but it doesn't make me wrong; you are just intent on misreading me. I was pointing out that if they had no intent on being precise, thus the exactitude of the lenght of the football field is irrelevant.

              This is a boat, not a surface. Better news sources have used containers as a reference. Even 'tug boats' would be better than 'football fields'. I think some people just like to talk about football whenever they can.

              People are terrible at judging period.

              • People are terrible at judging period.

                Precisely why I said, "Wrong." As you stated, "Quite the opposite," which was incorrect, or imprecise at best.

                • English is an ambiguous language, so let me try to rephrase.

                  They were not using "football field" because a "football field" is an exact unit of measure (even though it is). They were using "football field" because they think it is relatable to people who are terrible at measurement (including themselves).

      • What about city blocks? At least most people have walked through one of those as opposed to watch it on a screen.

        So, you're saying that ALL cities use the same size "blocks"?

        I think not.

      • Your city has two adjacent blocks that are anything like the same size?

        Next thing, you're going to tell me that you have streets which are straight from one end to the other without any bends or 5-way junctions [wikimedia.org]?

        How ... dull.

        • A city block is a bad measurement too, and accuracy is a pretense;

          It might prove popular in a social setting if someone mentions the boat incident; you can follow up with football, but it doesn't say anything about the boat.

          How many cubic "football fields" does the boat make? And how does it help to convey the amount of water displacement, thus the incredibly difficult task ahead?

          Perhaps you find that dull and prefer football.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      The ship is rated for 20,000 TEU, which I guess are the containers. That is a lot of Nintendo Swithes. I think it is too big for duct tape to help. They have 8 tugboats. Certainly blowing it up and scuttling it is not an option. A;arenâ(TM)t;y getting stuck is not uncommon.

    • Indeed. How about the engineering puzzle of trying to get her unstuck? You don't hear about it happening often, so there must be an interesting cascading series of events leading up to this.

      You could unload it, but it doesn't look like that's highly feasible in its current location; you could blow it up, but that's likely to cause extensive damage to the canal; or, since it floats, maybe you could dam up a small portion of the canal to float it free.

      • I'm guessing they were going with the general flow. Article I read said the bow hit one edge, and then the stern hit the other edge of the channel. Exactly like you would expect with an obstruction in flowing water heading downstream, the bow is suddenly stationary and a whole lot of pressure is pushing on the back. If the currents were going the other way it would probably not be wedged in like that.

        In this case I would think it best to be pushing both ends out towards the channel, as opposed to just

        • Re:Currents? (Score:5, Informative)

          by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @07:09PM (#61194692) Journal

          They're hoping to use high tide on Monday to lift it out. If they miss that window, it could be two weeks until another similar window opens.

        • I'm guessing they were going with the general flow.

          Is there a net flow in the Suez Canal? It's not a river, with a high end, sloping down to a low end. One end is stationary (height-wise; the Med has very little tide) while the other oscillates up and down by about 0.95m at 0.023mHz. That's not going to give a large dynamic pressure.

          In this case I would think it best to be pushing both ends out towards the channel, as opposed to just working on the front while the back works continuously against you.

          I've be

    • Where I live there is one of that size in the harbor every week. They travel back and forth between Europe and China on a fixed schedule, visiting the same harbors on their route back and forth. I think a round trip is around 2 month, so they need 8 of these ships for this route alone.
    • The Ever Given is a Golden Class container ship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      they can manage around 20,100 TEU. A TEU is a "Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit". Containers come in a few sizes, but they're all increments of the same X and Z value and 20 ft' in the Y value; some are 40' long, some are double wide, etc, but the smallest denominator is the standard size, which is 8 feet wide, 8' 6" tall, and 20 feet long. So these ships can carry roughly 20,100 of those standard TEU boxes.

      There's a lo

      • The biggest ships are by far the most economical, bigger ships can have bigger engines; I don't remember the exact ratio but the scaling in the amount of fuel used with bigger engines and ships is far less than how much scale you get in terms of tonnage and carrying capacity

        To a first approximation, drag scales as the cross-section area (which varies as the square of the length or beam), while the enclosed volume varies as the cube of the length (or beam), so the volume:drag ratio varies as the length^(3/2

  • Given where it is, they could get better traction pulling it with land-based equipment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Well, I suspect they want to have a vaguely intact vessel that can be floated on through rather than a massive shipwreck to have to clean out of the canal. So there's not such an easy answer.

      • The places tugs would pull on, land-based winches could pull on, without losing efficiency in propellers.Just have to anchor them well.

        They need to lift the bow in any case. Digging it out with one front end loader isn't going to work very quickly.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          I think the issue would be that once you get to the point where a tugboat's force is not adequate, applying more force to the same points would not be a recipe for a good outcome for the vessel. The limitations of water based tug boats may be an important self-limiter in the utility of the structure of the ship to be pulled around.

        • Just have to anchor them well.

          Yeah. That's actually quite a big question.

          A land-based anchor good for O(kilotonne) loads.

          Which is less than a week's travel from the site.

          Plus build time.

          I know where I'd start, but my first phone call would be to local construction suppliers looking for a lot of 10-tonne+ cable, splices and/ or shackles and the phone numbers of steel and concrete stock yards. Excavators and sand are already on site.

      • Build a temporary lock or two and refloat it.

        Or build a temporary lock or two and widen the canal at that point to provide a way for (most) other boats to go around.

        Both "easy" answers. Expensive, time consuming, etc. - yes. But I didn't even break a sweat while typing it out.

    • Don't underestimate a tugboat. A typical tug with a 3kW engine can generate several hundred kN of force. And that is total force after all losses are taken into account, not just the ability to spin wheels in a sand. My guess in this critical canal and with the container ships they service these tugs likely have far larger engines and capacities than that.

      Even before you get into the question of maneuverability from land based equipment you would still be looking at incredibly massive equipment (think large

      • A typical large tugboat has some 50 tons "tractive force".
        An Caterpillar D9 heavy bulldozer has a maximum of 70 tons drawbar pull (but it depends on the ground quality).
        However, even 70 tons of pull force seem puny against a 200,000 tons ship that dug its nose in the side of the channel.

        • Not sure why you use different terms when we're discussing a stuck object. Tractive force (bollard pull in tugboat terms) is the same as drawbar pull when stationary, which is what any tool used to get something stuck would be at first.

          Anyway that's beside the point. My point was that a normal tugboat has some 50 tons of force it can apply. Large tug boats go higher than that. Now my question to you, in one of the most important heavy shipping channels in the world that goes through the middle of bumfuck n

    • Saw a picture of a bulldozer trying to push it from the sand. Good for a laugh. Unless they can unload the first couple rows of containers from shore they are going to fight pretty hard on the one.

      Panama Canal has a huge crane that services the original locks— something like that would be able to easily lever the boat out, but no idea what resources Egypt has in the area.

  • Insert supply chain conspiracy here

  • It is was winds, would it not happened before? Wonder if was really a political message from some gulf country?

    • Re:winds??? (Score:4, Informative)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @05:39PM (#61194426) Journal

      It is was winds, would it not happened before?

      Maybe, but container ships of this size have only been floating since 2018, as ships have been getting larger and larger.

    • Sergei Brin giant airship ready for action? could float over help lift ship or move cargo.

    • I don't know my port from my starboard, but this is slashdot, so we're all experts...

      I wonder if there's been a build up of silt? I presume they have to hoover it our from time to time, so maybe they were a bit behind on the maintenance, or the silt cleaning boat was scheduled right behind this one...?

      Well, "a build up of silt" is the usual excuse the water companies use when their rivers burst their banks and cause house floods, so maybe we can recycle the excuse for this problem too?

    • a political message from some gulf country

      The Gulf of Taiwan? Or the Gulf of Japan? Or maybe the Gulf of Singapore?

      This may come a shock to you, but not everywhere which is "abroad" is the same place.

  • Bad driving? (Score:3)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @05:16PM (#61194356)

    Another article quoted people from the ship behind that these stuck guys cut them off to rush into the canal ahead.

  • I want to know how many Libraries of Congress it is.

    • The main building of the Library of Congress is 40 football fields in size, so the ship is 1/20th LoC.

  • New bridge between Egypt and Israel !

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sun ( 104778 )

      I don't know how to break it to you, but Israel withdrew from Sini desert 40 years ago. It's a new bridge between Egypt and some more Egypt, now.

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