Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 593 posts

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#551

Post by pitaa »

creato wrote: post #504
CalChris wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwOZOb90fM

That example was pretty idealized, starting and ending very close to the canal. Most voyages are probably not affected quite as starkly by the canal, and I doubt the canal can or does charge ships based on their overall itinerary.

> I doubt the canal can or does charge ships based on their overall itinerary

You'd be wrong there! They actually have a rebate system[0] based on a number of factors including origin and destination. Basically, they try to make it so that its always cheaper to go through the canal, rather than sail around.

[0] https://www.wilhelmsen.com/ships-agency/suez-canal/suez-cana...

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#552

Post by prebrov »

lolc wrote: post #432
adrianmonk wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a layman, but it seems like there are probably other preventative measures that are way cheaper. A Bloomberg article ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-27/how-a-des... ) says the speed limit was 7.6 to 8.6 knots but the Ever Given was traveling at 13.5 knots. So maybe they need to start enforcing that limit. Reportedly this was during high winds, so they could also reduce the speed limit even furth…

As is standard for canal transit, the Evergiven was piloted by a Suez pilot at the time of the accident. Because this ship's main steering force comes from the rudder, it has more force when it goes faster. Maybe they even accelerated to counter the strong winds.

Navigating canals and major harbours requires a pilot.

Pilot was on board, but there seems to have been some kind of conflict between Master and Pilot that resulted in high tension environment on the bridge.

Ever Given Master’s statement is published here, and has been circulating among the crews for a few days: http://www.maritimebulletin.net/2021/03/28/ever-given-latest...

So, some weird drama. If this is true, however, this would be a gross misconduct of behalf of the Pilot.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#553

Post by Cthulhu_ »

hinkley wrote: post #318
divbzero wrote: post #46

A bit more detail here [1] and here [2]. A combination of vacuuming sand, high tide, and tugboats did the trick. [1]: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/03/29/Su... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/29/ever-given-turned-8...

Is it just me or is the Evergiven listing to port?

I'm only seeing that on two pictures, and in both there's a tugboat attached to the top front of the ship pulling it sideways.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#554

Post by goatinaboat »

mywittyname wrote: post #494
OscarCunningham wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason water is cheap is because it's plentiful; there's a lot of competition to supply it. But there's only one Suez canal and sailing around Africa is much worse. So you would expect Egypt to be extracting a significant portion of the value the Suez canal adds.

You're forgetting about the stick, namely, the literally armies backing these massive shipping companies. If you're going to run an extortion racket, you need the power to secure yourself against the inevitable challenges to your station. Egypt is in no position to handle and armed threat from the US, China, or even most European nations. Their government would be toppled and a sympathetic one would be installed who…

Egypt is in no position to handle and armed threat from the US, China, or even most European nations

A little history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#555

Post by Hextinium »

saalweachter wrote: post #521
arethuza wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure I've seen a definition of engineering that was "Solve the problem by doing as little new as possible".

Or "by doing as little as possible". It's easy for me to throw together a small house, shed or bridge, but chances are whatever I build -- if it doesn't immediately collapse -- is horribly overbuilt for its purpose, because I don't know how to calculate and analyze the various stresses and material capacities well enough to size everything to a proper margin. So when I build a bridge I use lumber that is bigger than…

An engineer designs right to failure, and then multiplies the numbers required till he feels safe.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#557

Post by willyt »

rswail wrote: post #544
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the hydrodynamic effects of these large ships in relatively shallow and narrow canals is underappreciated I'm really surprised I haven't seen this mentioned. A long time ago, I was trained as a merchant ship's navigation officer. One of the things we were taught (but unfortunately had few opportunities to practice), was using "bank cushion" or "bank suction" to use the hydraulic interaction between the hull and a na…

> ... not compensating for the strong cross winds. Not compensating or not being able to compensate? One implies negligence, the other unavoidable.

> Unavoidable

Not really, weather forecasts are readily available and windage calculations are a thing.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#558

Post by unixhero »

piyh wrote: post #452
sidpatil wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of annealing, and why it's implemented as a technique for finding optima.

I'm not blocking the canal, I'm testing robustness! Also in the big picture with covid not being as deadly as it could have been, could serve as a nice dress rehearsal for a captain trips.

That's a great tshirt slogan "I'm not blocking the canal, I'm testing robustness!"

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#559

Post by ozim »

chipsambos wrote: post #179
ufmace wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the actual cost will require an army of accountants and lawyers at a dozen major logistics corporations arguing with each other for months to even try to compute. I doubt us regular uninvolved people will ever get a "real" number. How do you even try to calculate and reveal the cost associated with say a manufacturer in the middle of a supply chain deciding to source their parts from a different vendor for t…

Agree it's incalculable, I don't mean that in the "it's too big of a number" sort of way but in the "we can't possibly know" kind of way: 1) The scale and depth of the disruption makes it impractical to figure in any kind of accurate way and 2) The disruption will have introduced hypotheticals that nay spiral out themselves (butterfly effect style) e.g. some retailer may have lost a customer who went elsewhere, some…

That is why most of the people are fine with $XXX million per day as it is not practical to narrow it down to thousands of dollars.

We lost $100 millions, so it does not matter if it was $10k or $20k more or less because that is less than 1% of the total. There is no meaningful decision you can make based on that 1% difference.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#560

Post by eCa »

MarkMc wrote: post #523

Suez Canal Authority makes $5.6 billion per year, so a week's loss of throughput would be in the order of $100 million.

But most of the put will go through in the end, only the ones that chose to go the long way round will be the actual loss. Barring any delay discounts of course (if that is a thing).
Post reply on HN