How is it that something like this just happened now? The canal has been open for decades, is it that they probably loaded one extra container on a ship like this and that was the straw that broke the camel's back?
Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
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Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#112Tengential but I am always curious what software these huge logistics company use to manage their business. From my outsider's perspective, it seems like a best-in-class-software enabled company would have a massive advantage over the rest. Interested to hear if anyone has insights about this
Who wants to start a company to disrupt logistics software like? Closest thing I can think of is Flexport.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were some interesting profiles following the NotPetya attack on Maersk in 2017 where Maersk claimed to have 1,200 - 1,500 applications, 49,000 laptops, 6,200 servers. Maersk are entering into block-chain "distributed ledger technology" with IBM and similar modern solutions. But one article put $300 of every $2,000 of shipping costs for administration and paperwork[0]. I think you're right, there is a massive ad…
> 300 of every $2,000 of shipping costs for administration and paperwork Damn that's a lot. I understand this is a capital intensive industry so I guess it's hard/impossible to get in now but it seems like if someone started a competitor from scratch and had great software as the foundation of their company, they'd make a killing
15% overhead is actually pretty low all things considering.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#114How is it that something like this just happened now? The canal has been open for decades, is it that they probably loaded one extra container on a ship like this and that was the straw that broke the camel's back?
Ship lost power and began to drift and got wedged in.
If necessary I guess they’ll have to unload it somehow.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#115I wonder how effective two giant ground based winches would be, pulling on the mooring attachment points, on diagonally opposite sides of the ship?
If it remains stuck, perhaps they might need to bring in a suction dredger to work on the area around the bow?
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#116In a chapter of "Ninety Percent of Everything", the author rides a container ship through the Suez Canal and relates what it's like, if this has piqued your interest about the shipping industry. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16044961-ninety-percent-...
Aren't they just a dozen Filipinos or Russians keeping the boat clean while the auto pilot makes a slight adjustment every few hours? I'm not sure how exciting it would be.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#117Shoul've expanded their canal, just like panama did recently
They just did (2015?), that’s the only reason this one was able to fit through.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#118Sorta makes me wonder why another ship, larger than a tugboat, couldn't hitch it with a tow rope (whatever the marine term) and give it a jerk. I get that ships aren't normally expected to do that, but you know, probably need larger tugboats for gigantic ships.
Based on the photos, the most useful vector a tug (of any strength) might take is not available. Yanking the ship backwards, off the bank, would work nicely but pulling its bow 35 degrees through the bank is pretty rough.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#119Tengential but I am always curious what software these huge logistics company use to manage their business. From my outsider's perspective, it seems like a best-in-class-software enabled company would have a massive advantage over the rest. Interested to hear if anyone has insights about this
I’m a software engineer at one of these global logistics companies.
The market is extremely competitive. We are one of the biggest in the business, and we only capture small percent (I heard 3% before) of market share.
We build event driven systems primarily glued together with Kafka. There are thousands of deployed products.
Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
...which is interesting. Two unrelated ships lost power at the same location on the same day? Curious.
You think someone was bribed to choke up the canal or something? What incentive would you have to do something like that? Is this part of a spy movie?
I don't think that happened but if I did I'd be thinking financial market manipulation for private gain long before intelligence agency shenanigans by states.