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Is that ship still stuck?

istheshipstillstuck.com

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Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#251
post #92
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see it here: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000

Yes. I notice that the two Maersk freighters behind the Ever Given are no longer there. It looks like all traffic has been cleared from the canal on both sides. Zoom out. The north end of the Gulf of Suez looks like a parking lot. So does the Med north of Port Said. So does Fayed, the lake in the middle of the canal. Smit, the big Dutch salvage firm, has been called in and already has their first heavy equipment, a d…

Or the super-extra-bad case: The ship breaks while attempting to pull it free. Pieces of ship + 20000 containers in the canal. How long would it be blocked for. Full-spectrum catastrophe!

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#253
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

If I've done the maths right, you need a force of two billion Newton to lift it, and even if you round up a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman to 1MN you still need two thousand of them. ICBMs are not that big. Use musk's starship and you need >166 of them...

Drat, we never should have given up on nuclear powered rocket engines in the 50s!

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#254
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…

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.

Sane answer: No.

The ship is 400 metres / 0.25 of a mile long. With containers, it weighs anywhere up to 199 thousand tons. One does not simply attach a few hundred cables, put some rollers under it, and pull with all the tractors you can find in Egypt.

Also, it's already in the water. It's just turned sideways and buried the bulb (by the looks) into the canal wall.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#255
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?

In fairness, the US couldn't ramp up mask or ventilator production very fast when the coronavirus was going to tank the entire economy.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#256
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you mean this case? https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/frachter-rammt-faehre-knapp-an-d... that was the very same ship EDIT: no, the incident needing 12 tugs was a different ship. see comment below.

Is that ship abnormally large or something or is this just a super wild coincidence?

It is one of the largest container ships in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#257
post #174
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a way of thinking out loud and providing an opening for someone more knowledgeable to explain what is being overlooked. It makes for interesting threads.

> It makes for interesting threads.

The threads are not particularly interesting because people make the same suggestions over and over again.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#258
Why do so many people here think they have some solution that could get this done faster? There is an entire industry that is built around heavy salvage, and their best and brightest are working around the clock to resolve the situation.

Everybody here knows what Dunning Kruger is.

If you have a solution that starts with: "Why don't they just...". The answer is either 1. They will when they can, that kind of operation is very hard to set up in the Egyptian Desert, or 2. That is a dumb/impractical/impossible thing you are suggesting.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#259
post #174
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a way of thinking out loud and providing an opening for someone more knowledgeable to explain what is being overlooked. It makes for interesting threads.

In that case... why don’t we get Elon Musk’s Submarine to get it out?

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#260
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.

It seems, though, that a partial unloading is being considered by a professional in the field according to quotes in an article in The Guardian [1]:

However, Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, a specialist dredging company that has sent a crew to the scene, said data so far suggested “it is not really possible to pull it loose” and that the ship may need to be unloaded. “We can’t exclude it might take weeks, depending on the situation,” Berdowski told Dutch television.

He said the ship’s bow and stern had been lifted up against either side of the canal. “It’s like an enormous beached whale. It’s an enormous weight on the sand. We might have to work with a combination of reducing the weight by removing containers, oil and water from the ship, tugboats and dredging of sand.”

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/suez-canal-blo...

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