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Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

reuters.com

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

#571

Post by bkor »

lisper wrote: post #550
andi999 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no major bullet here. Nowadays the alternative route around Africa takes 10 days only.

10 days is not a big deal if it's just one shipment. It's a huge deal if it affects every ship that would otherwise have gone through the canal, i.e. 50 ships a day, 18,000+ ships a year. That's 180,000 extra ship-days per year. That's a pretty major bullet in an economy built on just-in-time inventory control.

Aside from the additional ships, you need additional containers, employees, etc. It also costs more in bunkers, etc. For JIT it wouldn't matter too much though. As long as it arrives on schedule it would be ok.

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

#572

Post by unionpivo »

JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote: post #352
exikyut wrote: post #90

Oh hey, they fixed it, - without destroying or imposing significant additional damage to any of the cargo - without destroying or imposing significant additional damage to the ship - without taking multiple weeks - without needing to ship a trillion dollars'+ worth of equipment halfway around the world It's refreshing to see high-end engineering performed so competently.

Why wouldn't it be more cost-effective or unreasonable to destroy the ship?

because unlike videogames, object in real life don't despawn after you punch/shoot them.

if you destroy the ship, it sinks. And since its blocking shallow canal, you just made problem 10x worse.

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

#573

Post by rocqua »

kzrdude wrote: post #498
lmilcin wrote: post #459

Now, understand all those ships will take a long time to pass the canal and then even longer time processing at their ports of destination which will also have their schedules completely disrupted. Does anybody know at what percentage of capacity the canal usually operates?

Apparently they are going to double throughput for the next few days compared to normal traffic, so they had some spare capacity.

Is that mostly a matter of going for longer convoys on the sections where ships in opposite directions cannot pass?

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

#574

Post by willyt »

Jenk wrote: post #568
willyt wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh gosh why didn't the expert sailors whom all have many years of experience think about this trivial matter? Or could it be that navigating a 400mx60m, 220,000 tonne, 60m tall ship through a canal that is barely double the width with only 4m clearance is just a tad more difficult than that?

Well quite, that's why they might have waited for more favourable conditions instead of trying to take such a big ship through in force 7 'near gale' with poor visibility due to a sandstorm. Seems like a risky thing to do, no? Here's the risk assessment: Can you see where you are going? No. Is it harder to go in a straight line than normal? Yes. Is there anything nearby to hit? Yes.

But the crew of the ship never do close quarters manoeuvring anyway it is the job of the local pilot to get the ship to near to the dock and tug crews who berth it. Maybe in the future the canal will change their risk assessment to hold ships this large when the weather conditions are unfavourable. Or maybe this is at the pilot's discretion already, but there was a 'human factors' issue as there is a post elsewhere suggesting that there might have been some friction with the pilot who was meant to be giving helm orders but was refusing to do so? Who knows?

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

#575

Post by InitialLastName »

willyt wrote: post #574
Jenk wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh gosh why didn't the expert sailors whom all have many years of experience think about this trivial matter? Or could it be that navigating a 400mx60m, 220,000 tonne, 60m tall ship through a canal that is barely double the width with only 4m clearance is just a tad more difficult than that?

Well quite, that's why they might have waited for more favourable conditions instead of trying to take such a big ship through in force 7 'near gale' with poor visibility due to a sandstorm. Seems like a risky thing to do, no? Here's the risk assessment: Can you see where you are going? No. Is it harder to go in a straight line than normal? Yes. Is there anything nearby to hit? Yes. But the crew of the ship never do…

I don't know if you read this account that was posted here last week [0], but you'll note that there is quite a lot of "pilot's discretion" going on, mostly their discretion to say "that's enough cartons of cigarettes". They do mention wind conditions delaying them, but it's not clear what the threshold might be (or whether a sandstorm might kick up suddenly).

[0] http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm

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

#576

Post by shadowgovt »

kalium-xyz wrote: post #563
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…

There is one thing I cannot find an answer for: Why did it draw a penis?

Boredom. Because of covid-19 and the fact that no particular nation is required by maritime law to take on shoreleave-seekers, crews have been at sea for between 2 to 3 times a standard rotation. You find your own way to make your fun.

It is pretty funny though. I have to imagine the captain realizing his track had been discovered is every developer who ever put a comment like /* this is stupid but I'm doing it because my boss is also stupid */ somewhere in a million lines of code, thinking it would never come up in an audit.

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

#577

Post by themaninthedark »

lolc wrote: post #561
prebrov wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, how…

I don't see how the report in the linked article is related to Ever Given. It certainly isn't of the fateful trip because it's about a southbound journey.

It contains a report of the behavior of the local Pilots that are supposed guide the ship through the canal.

Last line before the report

>Read this Statement and ask yourself – can such incident lead to accident like grounding or collision?

If the professionals are not doing their job and even causing issues on the bridge;

i.e. >As soon as the master picked up the VHF and called Ismalia Port Control on Ch8, the pilot raised his volume high, started shouting, snatched the VHF from the master’s hand (which also resulted in advertently pushing the Master) and threatened that if same was reported “It will not be good for the vessel”.

>At that very moment, in his raised volume he called for fwd and aft stations and for both anchors to be lowered to water level, as he insisted on stopping the vessel and arresting vessel for faulty steering. He said vessel will be held at Bitter lake until sea trials were carried out. Fwd station was immediately manned however anchors were not lowered as ship was doing 9 knots speed.

Then it could lead to accidents.

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

#578

Post by Loughla »

itismetheidiot wrote: post #468
GordonS wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Container ships burn horrible, cheap bunker fuel, and the shipping industry is infamous for hiring crew from low-income countries like the Philippines, paying them a pittance, and treating them like modern-day slaves. I'd strongly suspect that the costs for spoilage and knock-on effects from late delivery etc would outstrip crew and fuel costs by a large margin.

Filipino Masters and Chief Engineers are being paid north of $8500/month. Evidently you are not well informed.

I'm not sure OP was talking about masters and chiefs (chiefes? Why does that look weird spelled both ways?).

I'm certain s/he was talking about juniors on the ships.

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

#579

Post by JxLS-cpgbe0 »

clarkmoody wrote: post #396
JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be more cost-effective or unreasonable to destroy the ship?

Problems with destroying the ship: - A sunken super container ship in the canal, rather than a floating one. Removing the wreckage would be at least an order of magnitude more work than floating the thing away. - Thousands of containers floating / sunk in the canal. How much damage can one of those do to the propeller of a ship?

Thank you, I know it's a dumb question. Wondering about the cost/effectiveness of demolition of the ship vs the daily costs of having the canal blocked. I thought it might be like using explosives to dispose of whale carcasses.

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

#580

Post by [deleted] »

unionpivo wrote: post #572
JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be more cost-effective or unreasonable to destroy the ship?

because unlike videogames, object in real life don't despawn after you punch/shoot them. if you destroy the ship, it sinks. And since its blocking shallow canal, you just made problem 10x worse.

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