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Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

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Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#341

Post by foobarian »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #287
lmilcin wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything else than straight shaft with a propeller on it is a loss of efficiency and reliability. When the fuel efficiency and reliability drive your competitiveness that is a huge issue.

Something that people perhaps don't appreciate is that typical large ships like this don't even have a gearbox (which would be perhaps 95% efficient). They use large two stroke diesel engines which can be stopped and started in reverse. They use an extra valve in the engine head to admit air for starting and have valve gear which controls the direction. Cruise ships on the other hand have electrical house loads which…

Megaship engines are so fascinating. Over 100k horse power!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXeBQrio4Uo&t=680s

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#342

Post by hef19898 »

airhead969 wrote: post #327
hef19898 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be a ton of pictures to document, and later investigate, that incident.

Is the Suez Canal Authority of Egypt or maritime authorities in-charge professional enough to do this?

There are professionals, I don't know how it works at suez but we have people called "Havarie Kommisar", they are the guys brought in by insurances to document and certify accidents involving transportation.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#343

Post by booleandilemma »

lovelyviking wrote: post #301
fifilura wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the position of the Swedish flag in that photo. Given that the accident happened in Germany and the ship is Taiwanese. It is just freaky, I don't know if it is good or bad to be associated with such an incident. In a plane crash they are usually quick to paint over the name of the airline company to not be associated. I don't think this is the same though.

Can't see the flag, because the whole page is blocked by some BS (presumably in german). Blocking own content or creating obstacles to see it ... what can be more ridiculous. I just close such web pages and never come back.

Clicking "Akzeptieren und weiter zu mopo.de" will let you view the page.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#344

Post by ohples »

One thing I learned from reading about this is that Rotterdam is the destination of a large amount of China to Europe trade.

Is there really not a suitably developed Mediterranean port closer to Suez? Is there work on one?

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#345

Post by akudha »

bobthepanda wrote: post #146
oliv__ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

A good deal of it probably has to do with how crazy customs gets in every single port, and how to properly insure goods. (Lloyd’s of London got its start in marine insurance.) If your paperwork is mostly driven by other actors tech probably won’t help all that much. Tech has not made significant inroads in disrupting American health insurance, for example.

Is there a reason these customs processes can't be simplified? Or is it due to some perverse capitalist reason, like TurboTax lobbying against simpler tax code?

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#346

Post by NamTaf »

morei wrote: post #98
aasasd wrote: post #93

Sorta 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.

Amusingly enough, the tugs not uncommonly have more thrust. Large ships are _heavily_ optimized for the common case, which is sailing at about 13.5 knots. They take a very long time to get up to speed because their propulsion is sized to be just enough to overcome resistance at their typical cruising speed. Consequently, it would be difficult to get another ship up to any sort of speed in a short enough distance. Eve…

Expanding on your comment, it's analogous to torque vs speed in cars. You wouldn't use a Ferrari to tow just because it has a high top speed and lots of top-end power. You'd use something with high torque down low and good gearing.

Similarly, tugs use different propeller setups (e.g. ducted props for extra power, or vectored systems such as azimuth thrusters or cyclorotors for extra manuverability), which just cause extra drag if all you're doing is cruising at a fixed speed throughout oceans.

A big container ship trying to tow something is not unlike having a high-speed racecar spin its wheels. It's not designed to put that torque down at low speed and lift a big trailing mass.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#347

Post by magicalhippo »

oliv__ wrote: post #108
bobby_bob wrote: post #105

Earlier 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

> had great software as the foundation

This is obviously something that affects how competitive you can be. As an example, our software allowed a customer to go from 5-6 hours of work in their previous application, to less than 10 minutes in ours for a typical workload.

However, a big remaining issue is that there's a lot of local laws and procedures around which are not exposed in a computer-friendly way. If they are computerized they're often old systems with serious limitations.

For example, import declarations in Denmark is limited to only 99 goods items, so consolidation of goods items is almost required, especially in e-commerce settings, which again makes it more difficult if things are re-exported (customer didn't want that jacket say).

This can't be fixed on the commercial side, it requires work by the government agencies.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#348

Post by brazzy »

sandworm101 wrote: post #331
brazzy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause for that accident seems to have been strong wind, which apparently makes these huge ships very hard or even impossible to maneuver when they are going slow. If true, then the "systemic issue" is only that ships are getting too big.

>> The cause for that accident seems to have been strong wind The more descriptive cause is the failure to pay for adequate tug support/escort. "(Escort tug charge) = 6,600 SDR/tug" https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/11657251_04.pdf

I was talking about the incident in Hamburg, not at the Suez canal. I'm not sure about Suez, but I'm pretty sure you don't get to choose whether and how many tugs you need at Hamburg; the port will decide that.

The article cites a tug captain as saying that they have a very limited ability to react to big ships being pushed by strong wind. They compare it to driving a care on ice.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#349

Post by magicalhippo »

akudha wrote: post #345
bobthepanda wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good deal of it probably has to do with how crazy customs gets in every single port, and how to properly insure goods. (Lloyd’s of London got its start in marine insurance.) If your paperwork is mostly driven by other actors tech probably won’t help all that much. Tech has not made significant inroads in disrupting American health insurance, for example.

Is there a reason these customs processes can't be simplified? Or is it due to some perverse capitalist reason, like TurboTax lobbying against simpler tax code?

Here in Norway it's mostly been a lack of focus and money.

The government doesn't seem to consider the huge hidden cost to the businesses in the country this represents, and the businesses haven't been stellar at highlighting it, which I guess is because they mostly just push that cost onto the consumers.

Re: Suez canal blocked by a massive ship

#350

Post by nothis »

capableweb wrote: post #23

If you go to vesselfinder you can follow the drama in real-time! Seems it's still stuck: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000

Considering how niche it is, that's a super snappy and well designed site!

EDIT: Just saw they had outages, but I guess nobody ever expected it to be trending on twitter. Works fine for me.

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