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Is that ship still stuck?

istheshipstillstuck.com

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Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#641

Post by etxm »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #295
qbasic_forever wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 10…

So why are you spending all your time gabbing. Get to work!

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#642

Post by fallingknife »

wongarsu wrote: post #332
rapnie wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the middle parts of the ship it is probably not grounded, so you might have ropes below the hull with large inflatable balloons on both sides below water level, to give the ship extra lift. Then on a high tide, with oil & water removed, maybe some dredging on the sides where it needs to rotate to, and.. go!

Maybe something like those air/water tanks they attached to the side of the Costa Concordia to float it [1]. But you would have to take great care to prevent it from rolling over, so you probably can't lift it up too far. 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28288823

And if you want to know more about the Costa Concordia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9KBwqGxTI

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#643

Post by gst »

jebeng wrote: post #559
thereisnospork wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some people have suggested unloading the ship. I don't think you realize the infrastructure required to unload a ship. You're basically asking to build a port in the middle of the egyptian desert. That isn't going to happen. I say build a trebuchet on deck and start launching containers into the desert.

This is the way. Just check the contents first so there's nothing really harmful inside. Also start scaling up to multiple trebuchets as soon as possible and make it rain. Stimulate the local economy via job creation for the clean up. Monetize the live stream too. The trebuchet will save the global supply chain thanks to you.

> Monetize the live stream too.

Don't forget to sell the containers as NFTs.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#644

Post by dheera »

lhorie wrote: post #616
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…

This is a really good example of how terrible people are at judging scale. Some numbers getting thrown around downthread say there's something to the tune of 10,000 40ft containers. To give a bit of a sense of perspective, that's like trying to clear out some 200 football fields worth of semi-trucks, except they are stacked, packed full of stuff, and have no gas or wheels. And all of them are perched atop a ship that…

What if they retrofitted the propeller as a winch and connected a steel cable?

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#645

Post by bamboozled »

as-j wrote: post #571
bamboozled wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it not be easier to use Chinooks to remove cargo ?

This thing could have 20,000 containers on it. Thankfully it’s a 3rd of a mile long, so maybe you could offload 2 at a time, one helicopter on either end. At 1 container every 5 minutes....working 24 hours per day....that’s 70 days of work.

I doubt you’d have to unload the whole ship though.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#646

Post by HenryKissinger »

neither_color wrote: post #590
nabla9 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With so many ships going through every day for decades it’s a wonder this never happened before.

In its simplest form, Murphy's Law states: If anything can go wrong, it will.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#647

Post by KittenInABox »

jacquesm wrote: post #333
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…

Exactly. I'm guessing weeks rather than days, and maybe more than that. The best I can come up with is heavy lift helicopters to at least remove the front most containers to relieve some of the pressure but even that would be an enormous operation. Anything else would require major construction especially if it is to reach more than just the first four or five rows which is likely not going to be enough. https://en.w…

You can't take only the containers at the ends, however, because the uneven weight would cause the center of the ship to collapse.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#648

Post by dheera »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #545
blhack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those excavators are there for show while they try to figure out what to do. There is absolutely no chance that 2 guys with excavators are going to dredge out enough of the canal to free the ship, and the canal authorities know this. It there was even shadow of a chance that that might work, then every single excavator in Northern Africa would be on it's way to the canal to dig it out and free the ship. In fact I'd s…

> In fact I'd say that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell that that would work Damn straight, considering the law of salvage[1]: > The law of salvage is a principle of maritime law whereby any person who helps recover another person's ship or cargo in peril at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property salved. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salvage

That's not a good deal. If it was your property that was lost, you now have to pay full price in cash to get your property back?

If that was the deal, forget salvaging it, just buy a new one with the cash instead.

Just ditch the ship and buy a new one if that's the choice you face.

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#649

Post by Animats »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #496
terramex wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As this thread turned into 'post your crazy idea and get told why it would not work' here is my take: use powerful water pumps and direct streams of water to flush out the sand in spots where the ship rests on it and also around the bow. Something like that, but redirected under the ship: https://youtu.be/BIoBGZLc7wM?t=184

This is the comment that proves the rule! This is such a good idea that it actually exists and works. Look up water injection dredging.

That's very likely to be used, probably in conjunction with the suction dredge already brought in. Using compressed air or water to push around the sand you want to dredge is quite common. Sometimes ships have been un-stuck from mud by injecting compressed air near the hull to break them free of suction.

As a salvage job, this isn't that bad. No waves, a good climate, easy land and water access, hull intact, on an even keel, no leaks. It's just big.

If you want to waste time on this, look up the AIS data for all the big dredges and cranes Boskalis and Smit own, and see what's moving towards the Med. Here's the Boskalis dredger fleet.[1] If those guys decide to move sand, sand will be moved.

Smit's ships include the Smit Borneo, which is a crane ship big enough to take containers off a large container ship. It's done that before.[2] If they have to partially unload the ship in place, it can be done. Not all that fast, but it will get done.

Here's a Smit container removal job from a smaller ship, but one in much worse condition.[3]

Those guys do a lot of planning and modeling first. The idea is not to make things worse.

[1] https://boskalis.com/about-us/fleet-and-equipment/dredgers.h...

[2] https://photos.marinetraffic.com/ais/showphoto.aspx?photoid=...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ZSdVGLj-Y

Re: Is that ship still stuck?

#650

Post by dahfizz »

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?

> 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?

Because that would all be a tremendous waste of money, and would not get the ship any closer to being free.

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