Is that ship still stuck? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#291

Post by barbegal » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

It will be weeks before this ship is free.

Fuel and oil can be pumped out but that only makes up a fraction of the total weight of the vessel. Containers can be unloaded but again the lightest will be at the top so a significant number will need to be removed to make a big enough difference. And unloading them will be a slow process. You can maybe unload a few per hour with helicopters. There doesn't exist any infrastructure which could get to that location and lift off containers. You could build a custom crane barge but that would take at least a month to fabricate and get to the site. The easiest way to remove containers will be using cutting equipment, winches and possibly explosives. It won't be easy and will likely take several weeks to unload a significant number of containers, the ship and containers will be damaged in the process.

That leaves dredging the sand under the ship. Again the infrastructure to do this rapidly doesn't exist. You can dig out the sand around the ship but there is a huge amount that the ship is resting on. It will take specialist dredging equipment to start removing this sand.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#292

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #263

blhack wrote: post #39

I don't think people are giving enough credit to how stuck the ship is. Look at some of the photos of the front of it. Look at how far out of the water it is sitting. The ship might look like that if it were totally empty, but not when it is full of containers like this. Some people saying: just drag it off of the sand. Okay! And what happens when that causes you to rip a hole into the hull of the ship? Now it's real…

Lloyd's List estimated that every day Suez is closed costs US$9 billion ($400 million per hour). If it could be done technically and open up the canal, it would be cheaper for insurance companies to buy the ship, it's cargo, buy all nearby property and then blow the whole ship up.

From orbit.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#293

Post by kergonath » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

I wonder how expensive and complicated it would be to let it there and dig another lane to bypass it.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#294

Post by zepearl » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

adflux wrote: post #155

blhack wrote: post #39

I don't think people are giving enough credit to how stuck the ship is. Look at some of the photos of the front of it. Look at how far out of the water it is sitting. The ship might look like that if it were totally empty, but not when it is full of containers like this. Some people saying: just drag it off of the sand. Okay! And what happens when that causes you to rip a hole into the hull of the ship? Now it's real…

Love the armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies

Detonate a small but still relatively powerful bomb upstream (or maybe multiple small but staggered ones), to create a small tsunami-like wave, which in turn will move at least the ship's aft/stern (as the ship creates in the canal a "V"-like shape which will therefore concentrate most of the wave's force in that area) when it hits it. Almost guaranteed to work, theoretically.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#295

Post by Denvercoder9 » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #177

qbasic_forever wrote: post #68

Comedy option, what wacky cold war era aircraft do we have capable of lifting massive loads like a container ship? Perhaps an enormous fleet of Chinook helicopters could take it straight up?

Oh what about magnetism? Could we wrap the ship in wire and send so much current through that it repels against the Earth's magnetic field and shoots itself right into the atmosphere? Basically building a giant rail gun. Might need a small nuclear power plant or two to make it feasible.

> Might need a small nuclear power plant or two to make it feasible.

Amazingly, that's a severe underestimation.

The force on a wire carrying current in a magnetic field is given by F = B*I*l, and to move it upwards that force needs to be at least equal to gravity, so equate to F = m*g.

- Let's be generous and assume B = 100 uT = 100 * 10^-6 T.

- Likewise, assume the ship is a rectangular box with sides of 400 m x 100 m, so a circumference of 1000 m, and that we can wrap a wire 100,000 times around it, to give total wire length l = 10^8 m.

- m = 200,000 metric tonne = 2 * 10^8 kg (we assume magic wire that is massless).

- g = 10 m/s^2.

Solving for I yields I = mg/Bl = 2 * 10^5 A. That's a lot of current.

If we assume the wire has a diameter of 10 cm (which is ridiculously high considering we just wrapped it 100,000 times around the ship, but whatever) and is made out of copper, it has a resistance of ~200 Ohms. Necessary power to generate such a current is P = I^2*R = 8*10^12 W (= 8000 TW). That's about half the total energy consumption of humanity.

The largest nuclear power plant puts out about 8000 MW, so you'd need a 1000 of them.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#296

Post by wongarsu » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #269

blhack wrote: post #39

I don't think people are giving enough credit to how stuck the ship is. Look at some of the photos of the front of it. Look at how far out of the water it is sitting. The ship might look like that if it were totally empty, but not when it is full of containers like this. Some people saying: just drag it off of the sand. Okay! And what happens when that causes you to rip a hole into the hull of the ship? Now it's real…

If you unload 20,000 TEU's onto rail cars it takes 5000 cars, double-stacked. That's 50 100-car trains. It'll take weeks to months to load and unload all that, if a proper rail depot is available to take it. It takes huge cranes to reach across a megaship and into its hold. That'd have to be build. On sand. The idea that there's any quick way to manage the cargo of this ship is whistling in the dark.

Cranes on barges or ships, unloading the cargo into other ships is probably the most viable way to unload any significant amount of cargo.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#297

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

barbegal wrote: post #291

It will be weeks before this ship is free. Fuel and oil can be pumped out but that only makes up a fraction of the total weight of the vessel. Containers can be unloaded but again the lightest will be at the top so a significant number will need to be removed to make a big enough difference. And unloading them will be a slow process. You can maybe unload a few per hour with helicopters. There doesn't exist any infras…

The excavators make sense as the first stage of a dredging operation.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#298

Post by testaoijoiaj » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #239

thewarrior wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea : Can we roll it into the water by pulling it over high strength rollers of some sort ? It would be pretty cool to use the same technique that was use to build the pyramids.

Okay hear me out: Somebody call Elon. Get the TBMs, and set them to work building a tunnel under the ship. Now fill the tunnel with giant rubber bladders. Call the Saudis and have them start shipping over helium. Fill the bladders with helium. Okay, keep the saudis around and get them to bring over one of the high pressure water drilling rigs that they use for oil. Start digging out the sand above the bladders, and f…

> Get them to bring over some MASSIVE water pumps and some damming equipment.

If you had this, then I would damn each side and pump water INTO that space. Raise water level, ship frees. Boom

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#299

Post by tibbydudeza » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #89

6nf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only about the center third of the channel is actually deep enough for this massive ship. Both ends of the ship is stuck in several meters of sand. So far they've only managed get two bulldozers on to try and dig it out but progress is slow.

Kind of amazing that in 48 hours, an event happens that threatens one of Egypts major income streams and political power sources, and the maximum they can spare is 2 bulldozers... Like why not call in the army, rent every bulldozer in the district, and within 12 hours you'll have 30 on site and be able to move a lot of sand quickly to free it?

I watch Gold Rush and one of the prospectors use a massive Volvo excavator that makes those two tiny ones they use in Suez look like tinker toys.

I think they have no idea at this moment as the tugs can't get it done.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#300

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #132

leesec wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even close. This ship is absolutely giant.

Hrm change of plans, let's pull a few ICBMs out and set them up on each corner with massive tow lines. We'll get it out the way in an instant... and into low earth orbit minutes later!

[deleted]