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Is that ship still stuck?

istheshipstillstuck.com

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Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#421

Post by dragonwriter »

trhway wrote: post #416
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…

>You're basically asking to build a port in the middle of the egyptian desert. No. Helicopters. 10 helis, 1 container/sortie, 10 sorties/hour = 10000 containers in 5 days.

> 10 helis, 20tons each, 10 sorties/hour = 200k ton in 5 days.

Among the many problems with this calculation is that shipping containers can't be freely subdivided and recombined, and can have a loaded weight over 30 tons.

EDIT: And to address the crossing edit:

> 10 helis, 1 container/sortie, 10 sorties/hour = 10000 containers in 5 days.

...and the heaviest-lift helicopters can't lift 30 tons.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#422

Post by qbasic_forever »

nicbou wrote: post #394
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?

What about using a really, really long lever?

Hah that would be incredible. Build something so long that a small child in China steps on it and WHOOSH out goes the ship thousands and thousands of miles away! We'll use the peak of Mt. Everest as the fulcrum!

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#423

Post by agotterer »

WJW wrote: post #32
dnautics wrote: post #16

Principle of maximal irony prediction: the ship rolls over while trying to free it and the suez gets littered with containers, takes even longer to clear it.

The Dutch national news had an interview with the CEO of Boskalis, which is the company hired to unlodge the ship. They have one team on the ground atm and another building computer simulations exactly to calculate how much oil and ballast they can pump out (to lighten the ship up and make it easier to tow) without endangering the stability of the ship. Apparently they had a similar case (same size of ship) a few yea…

I’ve always wondered what something like this costs and who is responsible for paying the bill?

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#424

Post by Denvercoder9 »

gabagool wrote: post #419
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 10…

okay, got it. So that's totally infeasible. what if we "only" had to fire it into the nearby Suez Gulf?

This calculation only gives the amount of power needed to cancel gravity. It's the minimum power needed to move it up, even if that's just a millimeter.

If you actually want to accelerate it upward to any meaningful speed, you'd need even more power.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#425

Post by elorant »

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…

You could unload it using crane ships, and just leave the containers in heaps on the bank of the river, but it could take weeks because that thing is filled to the brink. Any way you look at it there's not an easy solution in sight.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#427

Post by nate_meurer »

Zenst wrote: post #390
barbegal wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how much salt would you need? At least 100kg per m3. Assuming the canal is 250m wide you need a 400m section dammed and average depth is 15m then you need 150 thousand tonnes of salt. Thankfully Egypt produces more than 3 million tonnes of salt per year so just a few weeks worth of production and enough to fill a large bulk carrier ship.

I was thinking a few lorry loads on the edge they are trying to pull, just to give it a kick briefly so the tugs can get that initial momentum going. More of a brief sudden kick/change to give it that edge. With that I don't think with the whole damming of aspect would be any better than damming of and pumping water in. Also with that scale you run the risk when you breach the dam of causing what I'd call a saline ts…

The ship weighs roughly 100,000 tons. I very large lorry might be five tons. Factor in the static friction of the ship's keel stuck in mud, and the suction opposing any movement.

For kick of initial momentum, I suggest nuclear weapons.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#428

Post by tyingq »

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…

"Some people have suggested unloading the ship. I don't think you realize the infrastructure required to unload a ship."

I would guess someone could figure out how to use a normal-ish crane to unload some of the containers and set them down in the sand. The top containers look like they are maybe 150 feet or so higher than ground level.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#429

Post by busyant »

m463 wrote: post #413
busyant wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies There are 2 types of armchair engineers. The ones who sneer and say, "If they just then it would be fixed because I know best" Those people are bores. There are others who are just tossing ideas around: partly for amusement and partly because they enjoy thinking, "What would I do in this situation ...?" I haven't seen too man…

and... and... what?

Sorry, I was typing 1/2-thoughts & talking to someone. I deleted the sentence fragment.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#430

Post by kevinsundar »

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…

I wonder, could you liquify the soil around the buried part of the ship by pumping air into the surrounding areas? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_liquefaction
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