The saga of the world’s most famous stuck ship, the Ever Given, is approaching its second week after ongoing attempts to dislodge the massive, Empire State Building-length container ship, which blocked off the Suez Canal in Egypt when it ran aground diagonally on March 23, have yet to succeed in re-floating and freeing it. Below are the latest updates on the ordeal, the economic impact of cutting off one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and what might come next
Will the rising tide lift this boat?That’s the ongoing hope, the Associated Press explained on Sunday:
Workers planned to make two attempts Sunday to free the vessel coinciding with high tides helped by a full moon Sunday night, a top pilot with the canal authority said. The full moon offers a spring tide, or king tide, in which high tides are higher and the low tides are lower because of the effects of gravity during a straight-line alignment of the Earth, the moon and the sun.
Two more tugboats arrived on the scene Sunday. The peak high tide will occur a little before midnight local time tonight.
Egypt readies weight-loss schemeEgyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has reportedly ordered the Suez Canal Authority to come up with a plan for removing some of the more than 18,000 containers off the Ever Given should efforts to re-float the ship — like Sunday’s high-tide maneuvers — continue to fail. That would serve to lighten the load, beyond other efforts to do so like emptying the ships ballasts and fuel tank — possibly making the ship easier to dislodge. Removing the cargo would not be easy, however.
Since there are no cranes nearby tall enough to reach the top of the container stacks, authorities would most likely need to use big helicopters to take the containers off, one by one. That wouldn’t work for all of the containers, either, just the ones light enough to be safely carried away by whatever helicopters can be made available for the effort. The Wall Street Journal suggests tandem rotor Chinook CH-47s could be used, but as Aerotime Hub noted last week, though the CH-47 is a world-renowned heavy-lift workhorse, it can only handle loads of less than 10,886 kilograms, which likely wouldn’t cut it for much of the Ever Given’s cargo:
While the exact number of cargo the Ever Given carries is not published, its capacity is over 20,000 20-foot-long (6.1 m) intermodal containers, although in its current configuration — as photos of the vessel show — the ship is mostly loaded with double-size, 40-foot-long (12,2 m) containers.
One empty 40-foot-long container weighs 2,400 kilograms (5,290 pounds) and can fit a maximum of 28,8. kilograms (61,910 pounds) of cargo, for a total maximum gross weight of whopping 30,480 kilograms (67,200 pounds). While there is a high chance not all of the Ever Given’s containers are filled to the brim, logistics companies typically try to maximize the load of their containers, as shipping empty space is not exactly efficient. Also, from the photos it appears the ship sits very close to its waterline, meaning that it carries almost as much as it possibly can.
The heaviest load any currently operating helicopter in the world can lift is 20,000 kilograms (with a Russian Mil Mi-26). The most any U.S. military helicopter can lift is 16,329 kilograms (with a Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion).
The other option, Aerotime Hub explains, would be using mobile crane barges, but it’s not clear when those could be made available, or how safe they would be to deploy in this specific situation.
Offloading the Ever Given’s cargo by any means could also destabilize the ship — or even break it in half. As BBC News points out, experts say that should the weight not be removed from the ship evenly, it could create a catastrophic imbalance.
Not the Ever Given’s first accidentThe Wall Street Journal notes that the 1,300-foot Ever Given hit a moored 75-foot pleasure ferry in Germany in 2019 — though a subsequent criminal probe did not uncover any wrongdoing:
The investigation found no misconduct and determined the captain of the container ship had been caught by surprise by winds. Its slow speed had limited his ability to maneuver the ship away from the river’s banks, the probe found. It couldn’t be learned if the current captain of the ship is the same as the one who was investigated in Germany.
As is standard procedure for any ships traversing the Suez Canal, local Egyptian crew took over steering the Ever Given through the canal last week.
Desperately seeking detoursAs of Sunday morning, more than 320 ships were stuck at either end of the Suez Canal waiting for the situation to be resolved so that they could travel through. Meanwhile, the shipping giant Maersk has already redirected 15 ships around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa to avoid the blockage, and it has warned its customers that it could take as many as six days to clear its backlog of 32 vessels and counting at the canal (including three anchored inside). The world’s No. 2 shipping giant, Mediterranean Shipping Co., has redirected 11 ships around the Cape, and Hapag-Lloyd AG has redirected six of its vessels.
As The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, the shipping industry is scrambling to adjust:
27,000 cubic meters of sand — and shiftingShipping executives said even if the vessel is removed imminently, a backlog of ships waiting to pass through the canal would linger for days, and diversions of cargo could wreak havoc on port traffic around the world for weeks, upsetting the usually carefully orchestrated management of the world’s containers. The canal connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas and accounts for as much as 13% of seaborne trade and about 10% of maritime shipments of oil. …
Rerouting away from the Suez Canal intensified over the weekend as more shippers lost hopes of a quick resolution. Initial diversions around the waterway involved container ships and tankers that were still far away—typically sailing in the Atlantic on their way to Gibraltar to enter the Mediterranean. But now, container ships that are nearing the Red Sea also are abruptly changing course to go south around Africa.
That will delay their arrivals in Europe by up to two weeks and incur extra costs of as much as half a million dollars each. The diversions also threaten major port congestion in big ports in Europe and Asia, as all those diverted ships arrive late.
As of Sunday, Egyptian authorities report that they have already shifted 27,000 cubic meters of sand, to a depth of 18 meters, in an effort to dislodge the ship via dredging. A team of U.S. Navy dredging experts was expected to join the effort over the weekend.
100 feet of progress on SaturdayAfter successfully digging out the Ever Given’s rudder on Friday, tugboats working to free the Ever Given were successful in moving the ship two degrees (about 100 feet) by late Saturday, though the New York Times reports the bow remains “firmly planted in the soil and that the operation still faced significant hurdles.”
Syria begins oil rationingThe Syrian Arab News Agency reported Saturday that with no sure end in sight for the blockage of the canal, Syria’s government has begun rationing its oil supply “to ensure their vital availability for the longest possible time.”
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March 29, 2021 at 02:40AM
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Suez Canal Ship Is Still Stuck: Updates - New York Magazine
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