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Hey how much you wanna bet Cursed City is on that boat

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Hey how much you wanna bet Cursed City is on that boat

Or, it could certainly be on the boat that was now forced to go completely around Africa.

 MDSW wrote:
Does the Suez Canal have the same system of locks as the Panama Canal? Apparently they cannot simply flood the lock to get more water in, like the PC, as the ground appears to be right at the water level so have to wait for a higher tide like Crablezworth says. But, it still does not look like they can get much more water into the location to help.

Yep, get about twenty tugs all chained up and get a running start... And get the he** out of the way!

No, there are no locks on the Suez canal. The northern part of the canal flow changes direction seasonally, the southern part )where the Ever Giving is) is tidal with the Red Sea.

I'm sure there's a reason for this, but how come they don't seem to have been dredging the full width of the canal?

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm sure there's a reason for this, but how come they don't seem to have been dredging the full width of the canal?

Only the channel in the middle is passable. The Suez isn't just a rectangular cut into the ground, so it still has shallows at the edges that, even if dredged, wouldn't be passable to ships. So they don't need to dredge them.

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm sure there's a reason for this, but how come they don't seem to have been dredging the full width of the canal?

In case someone wants to park their boat sideways across the canal.

Any chance at all that this was not an accident but perhaps some sort of sabotage? Although I'm not sure who would gain by blocking the Suez Canal- seems like everyone would lose in that scenario.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Any chance at all that this was not an accident but perhaps some sort of sabotage? Although I'm not sure who would gain by blocking the Suez Canal- seems like everyone would lose in that scenario.

Short term possibly, long term, as you say, everyone loses. But it was apparently not the only ship to lose power leading to wild speculation about emp's and james bond movie plots. It's keeping some russian warships from the mediterranean currently. But suez is just too important to everyone, no one wants to add 10,000km to a trip for no reason.

I know that cargo ships in general have been overloaded lately, quite literally, because of pandemic effects. Too much cargo + stressed and worn down crew, not surprising something like this occurred. It isn't the first accident either, there are a whole lot of Amazon shipments sitting at the bottom of the ocean right now!

Will be one hell of a find for archaeologists in 2000 years

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Any chance at all that this was not an accident but perhaps some sort of sabotage?

Not this time, but now everyone knows how easy it is to do.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wonder what is preventing them from using one of the ships behind it to tow it backwards.

The lines would break before the ship moved an inch, if you look at the photos the tugboats are pushing against the hull not pulling with cables.

That container vessel is one of the largest currently plying its trade through the seas.

Even 10 years ago nothing really carried that amount of containers (so I'm led to believe).

Whilst there is speculation that dirty deeds occured, most likely winds pushed it dangerously off course, with the relative narrowness of the channel there was little time to react.

If you look at the height with containers loaded its not hard to see that a small gust at the right angle would mean some immediate steering corrections are needed.

Other vessels in and around the Suez at the same time reported some issues with winds.

The fact is that the Suez cannot really be scaled up to accept ever larger vessels. Its at its limits and something like this was bound to happen.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I know that cargo ships in general have been overloaded lately, quite literally, because of pandemic effects. Too much cargo + stressed and worn down crew, not surprising something like this occurred. It isn't the first accident either, there are a whole lot of Amazon shipments sitting at the bottom of the ocean right now!

Will be one hell of a find for archaeologists in 2000 years

Its interesting about how loaded down ships are these days. . Was talking with a longshoreman buddy of mine about pandemic affects on his work, and it confirmed the complaint of a small shop owner I had been talking with on sunday. . . Basically, for a while now the practice has been to unload "essential" containers first, then get "essential" containers out of the port first. . . The problem is, while sure, the local anime, model/hobby shops are delayed because their stuff isn't getting to them, what its also doing is filling up the port. They can only load X number of containers a day, and if port authorities have stopped movement on anything deemed "non-essential" well, thats now stuck in port, which takes up space. And I guess my local port, and I doubt any other port is any different, is to the point where they can no longer fully unload ships until they can somehow get some of the backlog cleared. So ships come in, unload 60% of their containers, load up a few "essential" outbound ones and go on their merry way.

I'd not be surprised if some containers have made the same trip 3 or 4 times by now because the backlog is starting to look worse than our painting backlog

And in the end the public of the world will pay for this, not the company responsible. That's one thing for sure.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Any chance at all that this was not an accident but perhaps some sort of sabotage?

Not this time, but now everyone knows how easy it is to do.

I haven't seen anything but the Middle Easy seems to run on conspiracy theories so I'd expect them to crop up soon if they haven't already.

Just for fun I expect to hear it was really a plot by...

Israel/America
Sinai insurgents allied with ISIL
The Muslim Brotherhood/Qatar/Turkey

The first needs no explanation of course.
The second is a serious and ongoing insurgency in the Sinai peninsula (the part of Egypt on the Asian side of the canal).
While the third has to do with the 2011 revolution and 2013... coup/counter revolution/real revolution. Essentially after the long-serving military-backed President Mubarak was overthrown by a popular uprising, Morsi a Muslim Brotherhood candidate was freely elected. He was then overthrown by a popular uprising/coup/military counter revolution leading to the current president (former defense minister, former general) Al Sisi. After the resulting crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood the leaders who were not arrested fled and found refuge in Egypt's rival Turkey or in the Gulf State of Qatar.

None of these are likely to pull this off, all signs point to an accident. But blaming any of the three would take some pressure off the government and give everyone a nice target to hate for a while.

It’s not a simple matter to determine who is responsible.

The ship owner? The charter party? The flag state? The Recognised Authority? The pilot association piloting the vessel? The manning agency who hired the crew? The company the dredged the canal? The local government body that determined a vessel of that size was allowed to transit the canal? The captain of the vessel operating under pilot advice?

International shipping is a complex and interconnected system of local, national and international laws, recommendations and conventions. It is seldom a simple matter when accidents happen at sea.

As for what caused it, until a full investigation report is available then it’s impossible to know for sure, but my understanding is a combination of winds higher than predicted, bank effect and there are rumours of either a blackout, a partial blackout or a steering gear failure contributing to the grounding.

The ship owners have said that once refloated they expect the ship to be able to get underway again without much trouble and that the propulsion and steering gear are in good order.

From what limited information is available publicly it looks like a combination of tugs working to free the bow and stern and reduce suction from the sea bed, shoreside assistance to dig away at the banks, and waiting for spring tides to lift the ship free of the banks.

That canal in Suez has been nothing but trouble since we built it. I say, fill it in with sand and build a new one, connecting the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. I'm sure that'll make for a much more stable canal indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:
And in the end the public of the world will pay for this, not the company responsible. That's one thing for sure.

I mean, I think that company is probably gonna have to pay for quite a lot of things...

...looks like the good ol' U S and A is getting a nice sweaty slice of soft power out of it, tho.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I know that cargo ships in general have been overloaded lately, quite literally, because of pandemic effects. Too much cargo + stressed and worn down crew, not surprising something like this occurred. It isn't the first accident either, there are a whole lot of Amazon shipments sitting at the bottom of the ocean right now!

Will be one hell of a find for archaeologists in 2000 years

Its interesting about how loaded down ships are these days. . Was talking with a longshoreman buddy of mine about pandemic affects on his work, and it confirmed the complaint of a small shop owner I had been talking with on sunday. . . Basically, for a while now the practice has been to unload "essential" containers first, then get "essential" containers out of the port first. . . The problem is, while sure, the local anime, model/hobby shops are delayed because their stuff isn't getting to them, what its also doing is filling up the port. They can only load X number of containers a day, and if port authorities have stopped movement on anything deemed "non-essential" well, thats now stuck in port, which takes up space. And I guess my local port, and I doubt any other port is any different, is to the point where they can no longer fully unload ships until they can somehow get some of the backlog cleared. So ships come in, unload 60% of their containers, load up a few "essential" outbound ones and go on their merry way.

I'd not be surprised if some containers have made the same trip 3 or 4 times by now because the backlog is starting to look worse than our painting backlog

Is your friend working out of Long Beach? Things are so bad here that there is what looks like a floating city off the coast for miles and miles, even past much of Orange County. Looking out at sea from Huntington Beach is like looking across a lake at a city made of cargo ship buildings and watery boulevards that stretches from the south as far as the eye can see to the hazy reaches of Long Beach.

 posermcbogus wrote:
That canal in Suez has been nothing but trouble since we built it. I say, fill it in with sand and build a new one, connecting the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. I'm sure that'll make for a much more stable canal indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:
And in the end the public of the world will pay for this, not the company responsible. That's one thing for sure.

I mean, I think that company is probably gonna have to pay for quite a lot of things...

...looks like the good ol' U S and A is getting a nice sweaty slice of soft power out of it, tho.

Not challenging you or disbelieving you but could you explain that a bit?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Any chance at all that this was not an accident but perhaps some sort of sabotage?

Not this time, but now everyone knows how easy it is to do.

The Suez Canal was closed during the Suez Crisis in 1956-7 and again for eight years in the 60s and 70s closed as a result of the Six Day War. Scuttling a couple of ships at the entrances is easy to do and harder to clear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Arab–Israeli_wars_of_1967_and_1973

All things considered, the ships in the canal today have it easy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 posermcbogus wrote:
That canal in Suez has been nothing but trouble since we built it. I say, fill it in with sand and build a new one, connecting the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. I'm sure that'll make for a much more stable canal indeed.

Ten times as long, through what appears to be at least two mountain ranges and some war zones? I’m not sure that would be economically viable to build, or to use in comparison to the Suez Canal.

Freighters have gotten bigger since the suez canal was dug, time for a bigger one?

 Matt Swain wrote:
Freighters have gotten bigger since the suez canal was dug, time for a bigger one?

They opened an expansion a year or two ago.

Suez and Panama are basically the limit for ships and they're actually called Pana-Max and Suez-Max sizes.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 posermcbogus wrote:
That canal in Suez has been nothing but trouble since we built it. I say, fill it in with sand and build a new one, connecting the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea. I'm sure that'll make for a much more stable canal indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:
And in the end the public of the world will pay for this, not the company responsible. That's one thing for sure.

I mean, I think that company is probably gonna have to pay for quite a lot of things...

...looks like the good ol' U S and A is getting a nice sweaty slice of soft power out of it, tho.

Not challenging you or disbelieving you but could you explain that a bit?

No problemo

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/27/suez-canal-biden-help-oil-vessels-stuck-ship-ever-given

Soft power 101 we make the roads more transporty, you're welcome




Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh also like, I'm pretty sure while the company may not (likely will a little) actually be held 100% financially responsible, almost everyone who touched this is either going to never be able to do this job again, or try to bury that they were involved because it's probably one of the most significant shipping disasters in a while, not to mention any lawsuits that arise from shippers who have had stuff held up/product go bad/had to keep paying crew wages while stuck in the big Suez Queue.

Clearly, this was all a plot by the Panama Canal, in order to drive more business to their canal instead.

As shipping disasters go, at least this one has - as far as I'm aware, anyway - seen no loss of life.

Given some things that have happened on the water, that's not insignificant.

Well, its not really a disaster in the traditional sense. The disaster is economic, not physical. It just ran aground, something that happens fairly frequently worldwide. It just happens to have run aground in the worst possible spot imaginable.

Efficiency isn't so efficient it seems.

I can't even

Please tell me that is photoshopped...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Is your friend working out of Long Beach? Things are so bad here that there is what looks like a floating city off the coast for miles and miles, even past much of Orange County. Looking out at sea from Huntington Beach is like looking across a lake at a city made of cargo ship buildings and watery boulevards that stretches from the south as far as the eye can see to the hazy reaches of Long Beach.

Nope, we're out of the Tacoma area. . . Things aren't quite that bad here, yet. . . But I suspect that I say that only because the way the Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca are set up, there isn't enough room for big ships to just park up for a while while waiting to unload.