Is that ship still stuck?(istheshipstillstuck.com)
istheshipstillstuck.com
Is that ship still stuck?
https://istheshipstillstuck.com/
1,296 comments
> 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...
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...
Perhaps the classic beached whale clearing technique [0] would work.
[0] https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34
[0] https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34
Amazing reporting, highly enjoyed the narrative.
Yes let's blow up a whale, beached as. What could possibly go wrong? Remains to be seen.
Yes let's blow up a whale, beached as. What could possibly go wrong? Remains to be seen.
This pun deserves all the upvotes it can get.
Upvoted you, too — I would have skimmed right by the (great) pun had I not noticed your comment.
Just handed out the updoots left right and sideways myself, because my points on this video comment just hit the triple digits (!!!). What a time to be alive.
Please don't do this here.
That's a pretty cheeky comment: You've got one karma and just created the account; GP has been around for awhile.
Appeal to authority based on points.
And your appeal is to what, exactly? Answer: It's to the "authority" of an opinion offered by an unidentified newcomer, with no indication why the rest of us shouldn't dismiss the opinion as unhelpful noise.
In contrast, points and longevity serve as a rough, very-democratic measure of a poster's cumulative contributions to the community here, and thus (indirectly) of how well the poster has grokked the local cultural norms. That, in turn, gives readers useful information about the weight that they might wish to consider giving to the view(s) expressed by the poster.
(Apropos of which: I see that you still have a total of -1 points for the all of five days that your account has been active.)
In contrast, points and longevity serve as a rough, very-democratic measure of a poster's cumulative contributions to the community here, and thus (indirectly) of how well the poster has grokked the local cultural norms. That, in turn, gives readers useful information about the weight that they might wish to consider giving to the view(s) expressed by the poster.
(Apropos of which: I see that you still have a total of -1 points for the all of five days that your account has been active.)
Please don't do this here.
That's actually the same ballpark as mine; thanks again for sharing it, I'm sure it'll be one of my all time favourites as the years go by.
Wow, thanks; I was wondering if anyone would notice - there was one or two a while later, and I was happy someone got it.
Then came back just then after a few busy days and had to do a massive double take at the number of upvotes; I probably shouldn't discuss the actual number, but it's my most upvoted reply ever - there must be a lot more punsters here! :)
I used the reference to the NZ "Beached As" due to its brilliance, if you haven't seen it it's a silly treat especially if you love the accent.
And again I greatly enjoyed that sardonic tone of the original video, which I saved for future repeats.
Then came back just then after a few busy days and had to do a massive double take at the number of upvotes; I probably shouldn't discuss the actual number, but it's my most upvoted reply ever - there must be a lot more punsters here! :)
I used the reference to the NZ "Beached As" due to its brilliance, if you haven't seen it it's a silly treat especially if you love the accent.
And again I greatly enjoyed that sardonic tone of the original video, which I saved for future repeats.
I don't have to click that to know what it is.
If you haven't seen it, this is a remastered version and much better than the ones I remember watching ~20 years ago.
I got my Wikipedia chops by writing the article about that video. Got the Oddball Barnstar.
holy crap amazing. Why doesn't news editorialize like this anymore like this reporter did at the end? Simple, obvious, and stated fairly. You don't always need to talk to the guy who thought the whale hailstorm was still a good idea.
Old school journalism? That kind of reporting takes too long — two minutes until the event is shown — to lay out the facts in a responsible way... giving everyone a clear idea of the initial problem, the proposed solution, and what the proposed solution was supposed to accomplish.
Aside from taking too long, it fails to manipulate the audience by giving them a prepackaged take that aligns with the viewers' preconcieved bias, enrages the opposition, and generates audience affinity with the news outlet. Where's the profit in that?
Aside from taking too long, it fails to manipulate the audience by giving them a prepackaged take that aligns with the viewers' preconcieved bias, enrages the opposition, and generates audience affinity with the news outlet. Where's the profit in that?
I'm a little confused by this take: editorializing doesn't happen anymore, which is sad. It doesn't happen anymore because editorializing occurs, which is good, because editorializing is bad?
The goal of news media is not to provide a useful information stream, but to gather repeat views (follow the money).
The news barons of the past foolishly conflated the two, or at least assumed the first was optimal at producing the second.
Today, we’ve learned better — there are far more effective strategies available, largely by exploiting our natural search for drama.
That is, the reporting was good at its goal of good reporting; but this was not the correct goal to have.
The news barons of the past foolishly conflated the two, or at least assumed the first was optimal at producing the second.
Today, we’ve learned better — there are far more effective strategies available, largely by exploiting our natural search for drama.
That is, the reporting was good at its goal of good reporting; but this was not the correct goal to have.
Fits into a tik-tok limit of 3 minutes.
Journalism, a lost art.
Thank you. I haven’t laughed that hard since the start of the pandemic.
Thank you, it's also a time capsule preserving the "hw" pronunciation of whale. (Which seems to be slowly disappearing.)
Weirdly my elementary-school-age kids were taught in kindergarten that "wh" is a separate sound from "w", and that the received pronunciation is "hw".
That's in Seattle, where al of nobody does the "hw" thing.
So that was a surprise to find in their little takehome pages. I'm guessing those handouts were first xerox'd 40 years ago...
That's in Seattle, where al of nobody does the "hw" thing.
So that was a surprise to find in their little takehome pages. I'm guessing those handouts were first xerox'd 40 years ago...
> No respectable seagull would attempt to taggle[?] [the particles of dead whale] anyway.
tackle?
I cried, fantastic.
Instead of listing possible technologies and solutions to the problem of re-floating the container ship, why not make an ordered list of worst possible outcomes and approach the problem from the least-worst?
I'll start:
1. pull the ship out of the sand by force with a fleet of tugs which tears a hole in the ship causing an angle of loll and to subsequently keel over.
I'll start:
1. pull the ship out of the sand by force with a fleet of tugs which tears a hole in the ship causing an angle of loll and to subsequently keel over.
Ok, I know it sounds crazy. But what if they put a correctly sized explosive(s) deep enough below and along the spine to blow and then fill the area with water, reducing the rheological load? We're talking about 100 feet underneath the canal bed, and do it with a shaped charge that'll be more optimal for the task. Just thinking about fast <1 week methods.
I was wondering if it is sand, can it be liquefied using vibration around the hull to help loosen it? Something like what they use to vibrate concrete while pouring it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV4sTbpa7Hc
If they can dig a tunnel along the boat a 100 feet deep, that would probably be enough to set it free. No need for a boatload of C4 then.
Elon Musk probably has a team working on it.
How do you stop the ship from collapsing onto the boring device?
So... you want to be the one responsible if it doesn't go as planned? Further blocking the canal, let alone damages to the ship and cargo on board.
Theres a reason wacky, dangerous ideas happen in the movies and not real life. The consequences of trying to look clever and failing are pretty severe.
Theres a reason wacky, dangerous ideas happen in the movies and not real life. The consequences of trying to look clever and failing are pretty severe.
Well, I'm not trying to look clever. I'm trying to figure out how the hell this can be taken care of in less than a week.
Not just a professional in the field, he works for the company that got the assignment.
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 is twice as tall and there's no suitable cranes or similar equipment anywhere near the vicinity.
If you ever seen a truck up close, you probably have an idea how tricky it is to maneuver even a single functional one on open flat ground. I can't even begin to imagine what it would take to move off even a fraction of 10,000 equivalents of bricks of the size of trucks, let alone budge the massive ship off of the sand banks.
If you ever seen a truck up close, you probably have an idea how tricky it is to maneuver even a single functional one on open flat ground. I can't even begin to imagine what it would take to move off even a fraction of 10,000 equivalents of bricks of the size of trucks, let alone budge the massive ship off of the sand banks.
For moving containers off the best bet would probably be heavy lift choppers, the ship is large enough you could have several working on it at once and then just drop them off nearby to be loaded onto barges or something. A huge undertaking but it any weight taken off the Evergreen is less digging they have to do and the time is so expensive.
Also it's less middle of nowhere there's a pretty large airbase nearby it looks like from Google Maps and a second smaller airport south of where Evergreen got stuck so there's plenty of support near.
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3371843,32.2798365,3799m/dat...
Also it's less middle of nowhere there's a pretty large airbase nearby it looks like from Google Maps and a second smaller airport south of where Evergreen got stuck so there's plenty of support near.
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3371843,32.2798365,3799m/dat...
Like the OP said, folks really aren't understanding the scale of this problem.. If they manage to do a single crate per minute, that's still just under seven days to do them all.
An empty forty foot shipping container on its own weighs about four tons and their max supported weight is 33.5 tons, so the problem is somewhere in between for every single container. A Mi-26 helicopter, a "heavy transport helicopter" can only lift 14.5 tons, so there will be crates that can't be lifted.
Even if it was possible, and ignoring the logistical issues, you can't ignore the safety issues. Doing it quickly across seven days is going to lead to human and equipment failure, and somebody's bound to get hurt or killed. Considering how many eyes are on this right now, what do you think is going to happen the first time someone dies?
An empty forty foot shipping container on its own weighs about four tons and their max supported weight is 33.5 tons, so the problem is somewhere in between for every single container. A Mi-26 helicopter, a "heavy transport helicopter" can only lift 14.5 tons, so there will be crates that can't be lifted.
Even if it was possible, and ignoring the logistical issues, you can't ignore the safety issues. Doing it quickly across seven days is going to lead to human and equipment failure, and somebody's bound to get hurt or killed. Considering how many eyes are on this right now, what do you think is going to happen the first time someone dies?
And one per minute is wildly optimistic. I guess it would be more like 20 minutes per container, which will result in a year of offloading 24/7, which is also impossible due to low resource time of helicopter engines and airframe in general (and pilot stress too).
From my experience working with helicopters in the military, I think that is wildly optimistic. Probably closer to 60-240 minutes to get each container even 100m by helicopter, with severe limits to parallel operations either in the air, or on the ground/water nearby.
Yeah, and it sounds like they can't fly that long without parts failure. It's hard to find thorough information on how long heavy lift helicopters can run for, but a new CH-54K only has an 88.6% reliability rate for missions lasting only 2.25 hours. Shit's looking bad for the helicopter idea.
However, the current estimate for mission reliability is still below the required threshold (i.e., minimally acceptable) requirement. The program office reported in November 2020 that the helicopter demonstrated an 84.5 percent reliability rate, which is short of the program’s threshold requirement and below where the program office expected the reliability to be at this point in development.15 The program office projects that the helicopter should reach mission reliability of 88.6 percent after operational testing.16 According to program officials, the main causes of the reliability shortfalls have been technical issues identified during developmental testing. For example, the reliability of the main gearbox has been one of the main factors affecting the helicopter’s overall mission reliability metric.17 As mentioned, the program office has mitigation plans in place to address many of those technical issues, but has not yet demonstrated the required level of overall helicopter mission reliability.
> Considering how many eyes are on this right now, what do you think is going to happen the first time someone dies?
Considering how many goods and how much money is being blocked up by this the response may be loud from come parties but I doubt governments will care enough to stop it.
Some estimates I saw put the estimate at 10 billion dollars of goods being held up by the jammed ship and the costs of delays caused by sailing around the Cape instead will probably put a multiple on to that number before this is all over. There are construction projects in that corner of the globe worth far less that kill far more than just a few people but that hasn't really slowed them down much has it?
Considering how many goods and how much money is being blocked up by this the response may be loud from come parties but I doubt governments will care enough to stop it.
Some estimates I saw put the estimate at 10 billion dollars of goods being held up by the jammed ship and the costs of delays caused by sailing around the Cape instead will probably put a multiple on to that number before this is all over. There are construction projects in that corner of the globe worth far less that kill far more than just a few people but that hasn't really slowed them down much has it?
From a system design perspective, it's kind of nuts that the entire planet has only one single canal connecting two major bodies of water, and it's in a country with a, shall we say, precarious government. Surely such a single point of failure is a massive risk. Granted, geography doesn't leave us many choices, but could we at least build another, parallel canal to it?
There is another alternative: going around the southern tip of Africa. While this adds a couple weeks to trip time it also saves the massive Suez Canal transit tolls.
And remember the Suez Canal was closed for 8 years after the 1967 Israel/Egypt war. https://thegamming.org/2014/08/31/how-the-closure-of-the-sue...
And remember the Suez Canal was closed for 8 years after the 1967 Israel/Egypt war. https://thegamming.org/2014/08/31/how-the-closure-of-the-sue...
Yeah and I'm under the impression that the fees are balanced so that it costs roughly the same amount to take either route. Ships only choose Suez because it's faster.
The Suez is at basically the one point it makes sense to build it. The next closest is off the Gulf of Aqaba and that's right on the border of Egypt and Israel. It really doesn't make sense for Egypt to go through the trouble of cutting a second one on the one in a million shot a ship gets stuck like this. The usual answer is just make sure they don't get stuck rather than spend the billions of dollars cutting a second canal would cost. Even if Egypt was somehow charged the losses for this screw up that probably wouldn't be enough to make it worth cutting a second backup canal.
There are actually 3 separate single-points-of-failure when you ship around the world.
Suez Canal
Panama Canal
Straight of Gibraltar- I think
Suez Canal
Panama Canal
Straight of Gibraltar- I think
When it was built, the notion that the land around it wouldn't be a colonial possession seemed unlikely.
The difference would be in the hyper-visibility of the deaths.
To show what I mean, compare the level of reporting and political backlash from [1], involving two construction workers against [2], involving 11 other deaths, that were only revealed after an audit. Visibility matters. I don't think it's unfair to say that if any deaths happen here that there would be far more global visibility than [1].
And besides, it's a silly armchair idea that doesn't make any sense whatsoever after ten minutes of scrutiny.
[1] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/rio-cycle-path... [2] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/rio-olympic-de...
To show what I mean, compare the level of reporting and political backlash from [1], involving two construction workers against [2], involving 11 other deaths, that were only revealed after an audit. Visibility matters. I don't think it's unfair to say that if any deaths happen here that there would be far more global visibility than [1].
And besides, it's a silly armchair idea that doesn't make any sense whatsoever after ten minutes of scrutiny.
[1] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/rio-cycle-path... [2] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/rio-olympic-de...
As for the weight per container issue, I would expect the heavier container to be further down in the stack, for centre of gravity considerations, e.g. you should still be able to get a significant part of the load off the ship.
The objective is to lighten the ship. Moving the light containers isn’t optimal.
Sure, but removing two light containers is easier and more useful than failing to remove one heavy one.
This also assumes good weather. Part of what caused the ship to run aground was high winds. I imagine that any winds high enough to cause that would also make it impossible to use the helicopters. How often are the winds in that area that high in that area?
If you can get 10% of the weight down in a week, that is still better than not having the 10% gone. If you can do the helicopter offloading without blocking any other progress, then why not do it immediately?
Have a look at my other post in a sister thread.. the reliability of heavy lift helicopters is... garbage.
Sounds like efforts are going into offloading fuel and water tanks while they continue to dig up sand.
Sounds like efforts are going into offloading fuel and water tanks while they continue to dig up sand.
In an optimal attack on the problem I think you would be doing all of these; water, fuel and cargo would all be unloaded simultaneously.
Losing a few percent of weight in cargo is worth it.
But in real life these things aren't optimal ;)
Losing a few percent of weight in cargo is worth it.
But in real life these things aren't optimal ;)
The people that freed the ship yesterday were apparently not bad at all at estimating scale.
"For moving containers off the best bet would probably be heavy lift choppers, the ship is large enough you could have several working on it at once a"
I thought about this. I don't think a chopper can lift the container. Depending on the size of the containers, even the biggest chopper might not be enough https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mi-26-helicopter-llft...
Get the ship moving again, I think if you pull too hard, it may fall apart. There is no infrastructure to unload it.
Gut feeling: Mount a crane on a ship and start unloading it to a smaller ship.
I thought about this. I don't think a chopper can lift the container. Depending on the size of the containers, even the biggest chopper might not be enough https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mi-26-helicopter-llft...
Get the ship moving again, I think if you pull too hard, it may fall apart. There is no infrastructure to unload it.
Gut feeling: Mount a crane on a ship and start unloading it to a smaller ship.
There's the crane lifting a crane lifting a crane method. [0]
Though I suspect another problem would be getting another ship large enough for all those cranes and strong enough to support all the weight close enough to the ship without them damaging each other by knocking into each other from waves and weight movement.
I also forgot about the matter of transporting those giant cranes onto the site. That itself would probably take weeks.
[0]https://www.constructionjunkie.com/blog/2015/8/9/watch-a-con...
Though I suspect another problem would be getting another ship large enough for all those cranes and strong enough to support all the weight close enough to the ship without them damaging each other by knocking into each other from waves and weight movement.
I also forgot about the matter of transporting those giant cranes onto the site. That itself would probably take weeks.
[0]https://www.constructionjunkie.com/blog/2015/8/9/watch-a-con...
"Though I suspect another problem would be getting another ship large enough for all those cranes and strong enough to support all the weight close enough to the ship without them damaging each other by knocking into each other from waves and weight movement."
I don't thinks this is your concern. Desperate times, desperate measures. Likely you would fix/attach the crane ship to the container ship. I am sure they are willing to salvage two ships at this time. The daily losses must be gigantic.
I don't thinks this is your concern. Desperate times, desperate measures. Likely you would fix/attach the crane ship to the container ship. I am sure they are willing to salvage two ships at this time. The daily losses must be gigantic.
I'm definitely curious to see what they end up using. If the solution ends up involving choppers, there's obviously the question of tensile load specs for all the involved parts (the chopper itself, the cables, the containers, wind considerations, etc). I don't imagine they would have enough equipment with sufficiently large specs just laying around in case of an emergency like this, especially on such a large scale (recall we're talking about airlifting truck-sized loads, possibly numbering in the hundreds or even thousands), and it's not clear to me what kinds of forces the choppers are designed to withstand, especially if we consider lateral forces due to wind or container geometry or whatever.
I mean the boat is located 90 minutes from Cairo. It’s not easy but Cairo has skyscrapers and a construction industry.
Of course there is the “what is physically possible” and “what is politically doable” and there maybe a bit of a gulf there.
Of course there is the “what is physically possible” and “what is politically doable” and there maybe a bit of a gulf there.
I mean, heavy-lifting choppers are something that I'd also expect the average NATO or (former) Warsaw Pact nation to have, and it's arguably in their best interests to make sure a key shipping route is operational (and in Egypt's best interests to accept any help possible).
Hell, Israel's close by, and I'm pretty sure they've got this sort of airpower in droves and are probably pretty heavily reliant on the Suez Canal; maybe instead of fighting with Egypt the Israelis could, say, pitch in and foster some good will? And further, it'll make up for the time when fighting between the two countries caused a Suez Canal blockage ;)
Hell, Israel's close by, and I'm pretty sure they've got this sort of airpower in droves and are probably pretty heavily reliant on the Suez Canal; maybe instead of fighting with Egypt the Israelis could, say, pitch in and foster some good will? And further, it'll make up for the time when fighting between the two countries caused a Suez Canal blockage ;)
I am afraid you underestimate the weight of those TEUs and overestimate the capabilities of the Sikorsky CH-53 (which is what Israel has). That chopper has a max payload of 32000 lbs and a 40ft TEU has a max gross weight of 67500 lbs. Maybe you get lucky... but you'd need a lot of luck.
Also, if they find this is feasible, you don't necessarily need Israel to get a few Sikorsky choppers there, at least the Incirlik air base must have some and the Sikorsky definitely has the operational range to cross over there on its own, Iran certainly has some, the Eisenhower last I checked a few weeks ago was near Italy and surely that group has at least a few Sea Dragons...
Also, if they find this is feasible, you don't necessarily need Israel to get a few Sikorsky choppers there, at least the Incirlik air base must have some and the Sikorsky definitely has the operational range to cross over there on its own, Iran certainly has some, the Eisenhower last I checked a few weeks ago was near Italy and surely that group has at least a few Sea Dragons...
> That chopper has a max payload of 32000 lbs and a 40ft TEU has a max gross weight of 67500 lbs. Maybe you get lucky... but you'd need a lot of luck.
1. This assumes that the containers are actually loaded to their maximum gross weight. That doesn't seem likely; you're much more likely to run out of volume first - even if you're deliberately "optimizing" for as much weight in those containers as possible.
1a. This assumes that the heavy containers are at the top rather than the bottom, which would be backwards from how containers are supposed to be stacked (or even allowed to be stacked per your average safety guidelines around center of mass, stack limits, etc.).
2. This assumes that multiple helicopters can't work in tandem (which they can, from what I understand).
So yeah, even if there are some containers that are too heavy to safely unload via helicopter, I strongly suspect that quite a few - most, probably - of those containers could be readily unloaded. And further, even if that ain't enough to get the ship moving again, it's at least a good start.
> the Eisenhower last I checked a few weeks ago was near Italy and surely that group has at least a few Sea Dragons...
Even better.
1. This assumes that the containers are actually loaded to their maximum gross weight. That doesn't seem likely; you're much more likely to run out of volume first - even if you're deliberately "optimizing" for as much weight in those containers as possible.
1a. This assumes that the heavy containers are at the top rather than the bottom, which would be backwards from how containers are supposed to be stacked (or even allowed to be stacked per your average safety guidelines around center of mass, stack limits, etc.).
2. This assumes that multiple helicopters can't work in tandem (which they can, from what I understand).
So yeah, even if there are some containers that are too heavy to safely unload via helicopter, I strongly suspect that quite a few - most, probably - of those containers could be readily unloaded. And further, even if that ain't enough to get the ship moving again, it's at least a good start.
> the Eisenhower last I checked a few weeks ago was near Italy and surely that group has at least a few Sea Dragons...
Even better.
> 2. This assumes that multiple helicopters can't work in tandem (which they can, from what I understand).
Do you mean two helicopters carrying a single slung load? That is not practised anywhere.
Tandem loads in military terms refer to a single helicopter carrying two slung loads, one in front of the other.
As far as I know, none of the helicopters mentioned above are rated for sling operations with 40ft containers.
Do you mean two helicopters carrying a single slung load? That is not practised anywhere.
Tandem loads in military terms refer to a single helicopter carrying two slung loads, one in front of the other.
As far as I know, none of the helicopters mentioned above are rated for sling operations with 40ft containers.
> As far as I know, none of the helicopters mentioned above are rated for sling operations with 40ft containers.
There was a sea basing study and that only looked at 20ft containers and dismissed even a theoretical upgraded CH-53X (although of course the study was looking at much longer range than just lifting it and putting it back down) but again, that was just 20ft, these 40ft ones are just too heavy for choppers.
A writeup https://www.aerotime.aero/27542-Could-helicopters-solve-the-... if anything, the Royal Jordanian Air Force operates two Mi-26s but
> For many containers, using helicopters would probably mean at least partially unloading their cargo, which is a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. The process of removing containers by helicopters would be even more difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming, so it is very, very unlikely we will see it implemented unless the situation gets really desperate.
There was a sea basing study and that only looked at 20ft containers and dismissed even a theoretical upgraded CH-53X (although of course the study was looking at much longer range than just lifting it and putting it back down) but again, that was just 20ft, these 40ft ones are just too heavy for choppers.
A writeup https://www.aerotime.aero/27542-Could-helicopters-solve-the-... if anything, the Royal Jordanian Air Force operates two Mi-26s but
> For many containers, using helicopters would probably mean at least partially unloading their cargo, which is a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. The process of removing containers by helicopters would be even more difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming, so it is very, very unlikely we will see it implemented unless the situation gets really desperate.
TEU means Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit and is a measure of container capacity. A 40-foot container is 2 TEUs.
I mean, physical existence of a chopper vs its viability for this specific operation are very different things. Think of it this way: you may have a car, and you may even be familiar with installing and maneuvering a standard size tow. But that doesn't mean that I can just ask you out of the blue to come over and tow a prefab house that you've never handled before, then ask you to do it again a dozen times over (and on the double), and expect everything to go peachy.
Right, but in this context we're talking about countries with helicopters specifically intended to haul heavy things like shipping containers (and tanks, and trucks, and military base prefabs, and stuff). Keeping the analogy, it's like if you bought a Ford F-650 and your neighbors need help pulling some broken down semi (that's blocking the whole road) off the street in front of their house. And maybe you and your neighbor ain't on the best of terms, but you decide to at least offer to help anyway, because you need to use that street, too, and what was the point of buying that big pickup truck if you ain't gonna do truck stuff?
In this case, you're Israel, your neighbor's Egypt, the street is the Suez Canal, the semi is a giant container ship, and your F-650 is about 23 CH-53-derived heavy-lifting helicopters.
In this case, you're Israel, your neighbor's Egypt, the street is the Suez Canal, the semi is a giant container ship, and your F-650 is about 23 CH-53-derived heavy-lifting helicopters.
But do they actually routinely haul shipping containers packed to the brim? And continuously for days on end? There are various people in this thread saying that they can't, either because the specs are not up to par or because the stress risks rapid/early mechanical failure.
Also, while we're at it w/ terrible analogies, consider that many people (including the CEO of the company that got called to clean up this mess) are saying this is going to take weeks. The more accurate analogy is that your F-650 is a dozen tugboats, the truck is not blocking the road, but instead sunk in a marsh an hour away from town (the suez sand bank), loaded w/ 10,000 50lb lead anvils (the containers) and all the manpower you are able to summon in order to move those anvils are a dozen highly paid software engineers (the choppers) who may or may not be inclined to take a week off to help you move the anvils off the truck, and who may or may not be actually physically capable of helping even if they wanted to spend their week hauling hundreds of 50lb anvils by hand. Oh, and you can't just drop anvils in the marsh either, even by accident, due to the risk of poisoning the water supply for the town. And you can't rule out the risk of one of the software engineers tripping and drowning. And you're not even sure your F-650 can pull the truck out without tumbling it on its side or yanking off the front axle even if you empty it out completely.
Also, while we're at it w/ terrible analogies, consider that many people (including the CEO of the company that got called to clean up this mess) are saying this is going to take weeks. The more accurate analogy is that your F-650 is a dozen tugboats, the truck is not blocking the road, but instead sunk in a marsh an hour away from town (the suez sand bank), loaded w/ 10,000 50lb lead anvils (the containers) and all the manpower you are able to summon in order to move those anvils are a dozen highly paid software engineers (the choppers) who may or may not be inclined to take a week off to help you move the anvils off the truck, and who may or may not be actually physically capable of helping even if they wanted to spend their week hauling hundreds of 50lb anvils by hand. Oh, and you can't just drop anvils in the marsh either, even by accident, due to the risk of poisoning the water supply for the town. And you can't rule out the risk of one of the software engineers tripping and drowning. And you're not even sure your F-650 can pull the truck out without tumbling it on its side or yanking off the front axle even if you empty it out completely.
Average expected teu is 30k lbs on a ship. A 20ft container is already close to the redline of these helicopters on the average. You cant max these vehicles for more than an hour or so without needing repairs. A 40ft container cant even be considered. Nearly all containers are packed to the brim to ink out max goods shipped. The whole chopper idea is just a movie fantasy for this. Real life is not pleasant to armchair theory.
> Average expected teu is 30k lbs on a ship
Yeah, average. That doesn't mean that every container - or even most containers - are loaded to that weight per TEU. Indeed, it's highly likely that they're not; the heavy containers are going to be toward the bottom, and the lighter containers are going to be toward the top. And there are probably a lot more light containers than heavy ones, because...
> Nearly all containers are packed to the brim
Volumetrically, yes. Not necessarily in terms of weight. Indeed, unless you're shipping gold ingots or something, "max goods shipped" necessarily means that you're more likely to run into volumetric limits first.
Not to mention that the max container weight in practice is usually a fair bit lower than the ISO spec, since those containers have to get to their destination - which means traveling on roads and railways with their own weight limits (both for the whole vehicle and per-axle), and on vehicles that themselves are part of that limit (and themselves have limits of their own). And further, a container can only have so much weight stacked on top of it.
> Real life is not pleasant to armchair theory.
Indeed it is not, which is why when it comes to the containers themselves I'm speaking from experience as a professional in the supply chain / logistics field :)
(But yes, admittedly my knowledge on military helicopters is less substantial, so if there's someone who's not an armchair theorist on that topic who wants to chime in, that'd be most welcome)
Yeah, average. That doesn't mean that every container - or even most containers - are loaded to that weight per TEU. Indeed, it's highly likely that they're not; the heavy containers are going to be toward the bottom, and the lighter containers are going to be toward the top. And there are probably a lot more light containers than heavy ones, because...
> Nearly all containers are packed to the brim
Volumetrically, yes. Not necessarily in terms of weight. Indeed, unless you're shipping gold ingots or something, "max goods shipped" necessarily means that you're more likely to run into volumetric limits first.
Not to mention that the max container weight in practice is usually a fair bit lower than the ISO spec, since those containers have to get to their destination - which means traveling on roads and railways with their own weight limits (both for the whole vehicle and per-axle), and on vehicles that themselves are part of that limit (and themselves have limits of their own). And further, a container can only have so much weight stacked on top of it.
> Real life is not pleasant to armchair theory.
Indeed it is not, which is why when it comes to the containers themselves I'm speaking from experience as a professional in the supply chain / logistics field :)
(But yes, admittedly my knowledge on military helicopters is less substantial, so if there's someone who's not an armchair theorist on that topic who wants to chime in, that'd be most welcome)
FYI, it is in fact not necessary to start a comment with "I mean".
I mean, regardless of necessity it ain't like it hinders parsing of the comment, FYI.
Nor “FYI”.
I suspect something more like they drop the containers in the desert. The value of the goods is irrelevant in the face of cutting off Europe from Asia.
It seems that containers may be too heavy. The most powerful chopper (the M-26) lifts up to 20,000kg (with most heavy-lift choppers probably lifting about half that), while some containers may wel exceed 30,000kg.
Wikipedia says: As of 2016, the Mi-26 still holds the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world record for the greatest mass lifted by a helicopter to 2,000 metres (6,562 ft) – 56,768.8 kilograms (125,000 lb) on a flight in 1982.
That is 56.8 to 62.5 tons, depending on the type of ton. Lift two containers at once.
Making things even easier, the shipping company knows the position and weight of every container. The containers have been carefully placed, keeping the weight low and spread evenly. The containers on top are the low-weight ones.
That is 56.8 to 62.5 tons, depending on the type of ton. Lift two containers at once.
Making things even easier, the shipping company knows the position and weight of every container. The containers have been carefully placed, keeping the weight low and spread evenly. The containers on top are the low-weight ones.
Two paragraphs earlier, Wikipedia states "the Mi-26 has a payload of up to 20 tonnes (44,000 lb)". Exceeding the documented maximum payload by almost a factor of 3 sounds like an excessive amount of overengineering, even by software standards. :-)
You're right that most of the heaviest containers would be at the bottom of the stack. That's kind of a mixed blessing though..
You're right that most of the heaviest containers would be at the bottom of the stack. That's kind of a mixed blessing though..
That's at the max takeoff weight (56,000kg), including the weight of the helicopter, fuel, crew, etc.
Depending on the temperature as the site, that could be a lot lower.
Depending on the temperature as the site, that could be a lot lower.
[deleted]
Ha, in the late 90s/early 00s, there was some buzz in Germany about building a huge freight airship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter
They went bankrupt, which is kinda sad. It had a designed lift capacity of 160t, so could theoretically lift several containers at once, given the right harness.
(Of course I have no idea if it would be have been practical to use it to unload the containers, but the idea is certainly intriguing).
They went bankrupt, which is kinda sad. It had a designed lift capacity of 160t, so could theoretically lift several containers at once, given the right harness.
(Of course I have no idea if it would be have been practical to use it to unload the containers, but the idea is certainly intriguing).
The fundamental problem/flaw with that was when dropping off something you needed to somehow get a dummy load to not float away. (releasing the helium is not an option due to economical reasons)
Have you ever tried to stack containers before? Or had to airlift something via tow on a helicopter? You can do the latter (I watched it happen in the military), but the former isn’t happening from a helicopter, not into a floating barge anyway.
There's no shortage of nearby desert not being used for anything else.
But the final goal is to put the containers back on the ship after it gets unstuck, no? I imagine the point of the containers being on the ship in the first place is that there are not enough trucks on land to get the containers off the desert to their destinations.
Right now the goal is to unblock the canal; if the entire cargo were lost in the process, that would be expensive, but I'm not confident it'd be more expensive than blocking shipping through for an extra fortnight.
@nerfhammer: Great idea, littering the canal with sharp debris pieces so the next ships will be torn to shreds :)
Dredging is the easy part. Not sure how much swimming happens in the canal. We only have to worry about cutting through steel, not skin.
Ships traveling at 7 knots over a minefield of sunken containers will happily shred their steel skin.
It sounded like they were intended to drop them on land, where one would hope no ships would be hitting them. 'Lost' would be referring to the likely chance that once put on the desert they wouldn't be retrieved.
it follows then that we should consider blowing up the ship
I suspect that might very well be on the table.
Hell, a big enough explosion might prevent ships from ever getting stuck at that spot again.
Hell, a big enough explosion might prevent ships from ever getting stuck at that spot again.
And you could recoup the costs by selling tickets to watch the explosion.
Ideally, but the value of whatever cargo is on the ship is worth less than a functioning global supply chain.
How the insurance would be settled would be interesting, I suppose it'd be the same as though the cargo was blown overboard.
How the insurance would be settled would be interesting, I suppose it'd be the same as though the cargo was blown overboard.
The ship isn't floating though, that's the problem. But I'd imagine it's very stable when trying to lift stuff of due to it being stuck.
Yep. Throw a bunch of these and a bunch of fossil fuels at the problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
There are comments further down explaining how the containers likely weigh substantially more than the lift capacity of heavy lift helicopters. They'd have to partially unload the contents of each individual container first.
And if you're unloading, the human labor cost to unload the whole container is probably cheaper than the cost of running a fleet of helicopters for weeks to months.
And if you're unloading, the human labor cost to unload the whole container is probably cheaper than the cost of running a fleet of helicopters for weeks to months.
The Skycrane helicopter that OP referred to is a true beast. It can lift heavy tanks and intact electricity towers. I won't be surprised if it gets used to lift the containers one-by-one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQrUiCd61U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQrUiCd61U
That is nowhere close to the biggest. Check out the Mi-26:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW_IxNLNvrY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Even that is not enough. It can lift 20 tons, and the 40 foot containers on this ship are heavier than that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW_IxNLNvrY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Even that is not enough. It can lift 20 tons, and the 40 foot containers on this ship are heavier than that.
Wow, the Chinook looks so tiny in comparison to the Mi-26.
40ft container maximum weight is 67,200 lbs. Skycrane max payload is 20,000 lbs and Mi-26 is 44,000 lbs. But do you think all the containers are at max weight? The ones on top are the lightest and the helicopters might be able to help with them after all, or maybe we can find a way to use two helicopters per container.
http://containertech.com/about-containers/40-standard-vs-40-...
40ft container maximum weight is 67,200 lbs. Skycrane max payload is 20,000 lbs and Mi-26 is 44,000 lbs. But do you think all the containers are at max weight? The ones on top are the lightest and the helicopters might be able to help with them after all, or maybe we can find a way to use two helicopters per container.
http://containertech.com/about-containers/40-standard-vs-40-...
> or maybe we can find a way to use two helicopters per container
Spoken like a true programmer :) That's incredibly difficult and dangerous.
Spoken like a true programmer :) That's incredibly difficult and dangerous.
Lol, Can we compose the helicopters?
Split it into many micro-helicopters, each deployed and scaled independently?
I'm picturing a fleet of a few thousand hobbyist drones.
It would sound like a massive angry swarm of bees.
It would sound like a massive angry swarm of bees.
Can be heavier than that most won't be the max gross tonage. The biggest hurdle might be knowing which ones they can pick though. In not sure if the shipping company keeps the weights of every container on file somewhere.
It can lift at least 56.8 to 62.5 tons, depending on your definition of tons. The heavy containers have been placed on the bottom of the ship for better stability, leaving the lightest ones on top.
28 tons of that is the helicopter itself though i think?
Or just blowing it up and push the pieces to the sides I would guess...
I like the way you think.
I'd buy a plane ticket to Suez to see that. Or even pay for a proper 4k stream of the event.
I'd buy a plane ticket to Suez to see that. Or even pay for a proper 4k stream of the event.
Build a pyramid on top and let scavengers do their thing
I like this scavengers idea. How far is it to Cairo, and what's unemployment like after Corona killed the tourism industy? Unlock all the containers, tell people you're paying them fifteen bucks an hour to come unload, AND they get to keep whatever they can carry off. How many people can you fit on that ship at once?
The containers are typically rated for no more than 40,000 lbs each. Skycrane can lift 20,000, so you'd use two per.
Or three per. Use a triangular spreader/yoke to keep them from having to pull laterally against (away from) each other. Single pivot point in the middle from which the load is suspended, allowing for imperfect coordination during hovering & movement. (The spreader can tilt or rotate.) Let a crawler crane and crew on the bank handle stacking/arrangement. Each container is lifted a second time into its temporary desert resting place. Has never been done before, just like space flight once. Would cost a lot and be dangerous, just like the military-industrial complex. Won't go perfectly, just like everything ever. Is inefficient, similar to but less so than losing the Suez Canal. Would take a long time, so start now. Really want to sarcastically thank all the naysayers and downvoters for policing all the dangerous creativity going on in this helicopter subthread. We must be more careful, especially considering how closely the shipping industry watches the Hacker News comments for ideas!
Yeah, i don't belive two pwe container is nearly enough. 3 or even 5 is a better idea smh, but you likely need 3 or 5 exceptionnal pilot who don't care if they die for science (and internationnal commerce).
All true, though I imagine the plan is unloading only some of the containers in conjunction with dredging, pumping out fuel, etc. Still huge scale, but I imagine getting just one of the ends out of the sand would open up more options.
Another reference is that the ship is as long as the empire state building is tall.
What if they retrofitted the propeller as a winch and connected a steel cable?
Just dragging the ship across the sand risks damaging the hull and making the situation worse
Not to mention dragging a 300,000,000 pound ship through sand is... difficult.
That's going to either snap the cable or damage the propeller. Probably both.
It looks like the people that freed the ship yesterday were not that bad at estimating scale.
[deleted](1)
Could you build a temporary barrier around the ship and the section of the canal, bring in some massive pumps, and temporarily raise the water level around the ship?
Edit: Something like this https://www.hydrologicalsolutions.com/aqua-barrier-cofferdam...
Edit: Something like this https://www.hydrologicalsolutions.com/aqua-barrier-cofferdam...
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!
Lets say they cabled a Goodyear blimp to each side of the ship One Goodyear blimp is about 5,000 m^3 and a meter^3 of seawater is about a ton, so that gives us 10,000 tones of lifting force!.
The ship weighs 220,000 so it will be riding about 4.5% higher in the water. The main channel is very narrow. Its bow is buried about 20m deep and 100m into the shallow bottom outside of the channel. They are not going to lift it out.
The ship weighs 220,000 so it will be riding about 4.5% higher in the water. The main channel is very narrow. Its bow is buried about 20m deep and 100m into the shallow bottom outside of the channel. They are not going to lift it out.
Now I want a giant sci-fi blimp to swoop in and lift it up.
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
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
Just so everyone is clear: The company that handled the salvaging of the Costa Concordia is the company that is handling the salvaging of this ship. Same exact people! You can bet that they are going to be doing the best thing that can be done.
Yes, but remember how long the Costa Concordia salvage took:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salva...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salva...
wow 15 months
And if you want to know more about the Costa Concordia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9KBwqGxTI
Using the same Concordia techniques maybe SMIT Salvage would float Evergreen to 'loosen' it a bit out of sand, loosen further by dredging, and then when high tide comes [1], Evergreen would be able to turn around with help of tug boats.
[1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/best-shot-at-unblocking-suez...
[1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/best-shot-at-unblocking-suez...
I totally came here to suggest huge balloons!
Someone get the old man and that little boy scout from Up on the phone, stat!
As the proud father of a toddler my first thought was "somebody call the paw patrol"
"Zuma, I'm going to need your boat, and Sky, I'm going to need you to unload containers onto Zuma. Paw Patrol, let's go!"
I went to Bob the Builder. That dude can fix it.
I've had the exact same idea but the canal bank is very shallow.. so you would have to build around the whole ship (as you said). This also seems like a major undertaking.
I am excited to see how they will solve the problem though!
I am excited to see how they will solve the problem though!
If the bank is very shallow and mostly sand, maybe instead of building a damn all around the ship it would be easier to just dredge a new passage that goes around the stuck ship. After all the real problem isn't that the ship is run aground, it's that the canal is blocked for everyone else.
If would be a very long diversion. The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles.
The canal itself is MASSIVE - 79ft deep and 700ft wide - and if you're turning you'd need to be wider still. We're talking about removing absolutely massive amounts of material.
The canal itself is MASSIVE - 79ft deep and 700ft wide - and if you're turning you'd need to be wider still. We're talking about removing absolutely massive amounts of material.
> The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles.
That's when under speed. If these ships don't have the unidirectional port engines like cruise ships do for maneuvering in tight spots (and they may not, I don't know), in this situation they would likely use tugboats for turning. That's what they're for.
That doesn't necessarily make a diversion feasible, but I don't think whether it's feasible or not rests on whether these ships can turn. That's really not the problem as I see it.
That's when under speed. If these ships don't have the unidirectional port engines like cruise ships do for maneuvering in tight spots (and they may not, I don't know), in this situation they would likely use tugboats for turning. That's what they're for.
That doesn't necessarily make a diversion feasible, but I don't think whether it's feasible or not rests on whether these ships can turn. That's really not the problem as I see it.
If with a zero turn radius, these ships are in excess of 1000ft long...you need a lot of clearance and a large radius just because of the physical dimensions (and so you know, we don't get a second ship wedged sideways in the canal.
We're talking about digging a diversionary channel. Making either end of that where it connects to the current channel wider to accommodate turning is trivial in comparison.
If you're talking about digging a diversionary channel, then why not just dig around the boat with the same equipment?
Excavate sand around + weight from ship pancakes sand its sitting on, gradually = ship lowers back to floating depth
Excavate sand around + weight from ship pancakes sand its sitting on, gradually = ship lowers back to floating depth
Probably very complicated since you couldn't have people in close. What if, as is not unlikely, part of the bank suddenly crumbles and the boat shifts?
Also, I doubt the sand goes down very deep...this is a costal area, not rolling dunes. You're going to hit rock quickly.
Also, I doubt the sand goes down very deep...this is a costal area, not rolling dunes. You're going to hit rock quickly.
[deleted]
Interestingly enough, the Wikipedia page for this ship says it does have two 2500kW bow thrusters. I imagine if they were worth much in this situation we wouldn’t be talking about them, though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
Looking it up a 2500kW bow thruster gives a thrust of about 30 tons (https://www.thrustmaster.net/tunnel-thrusters/electric-motor...)
which is not going to do much here. It seems the trouble with a lot of solutions - the tugs can probably tug with a force of something like 600 tons combined but the ship weights 220,000 tons which is like putting a force of 5kg on a 2 ton car which is stuck. Probably not going to budge it.
Really you want something which will shove it with a force maybe 10% of the weight, say 20,000 tons but there don't seem to be many of those lying around.
I wondered if they tied a cable from the ship to one of the other large ships nearby and fired up the main engines if that could do something?
which is not going to do much here. It seems the trouble with a lot of solutions - the tugs can probably tug with a force of something like 600 tons combined but the ship weights 220,000 tons which is like putting a force of 5kg on a 2 ton car which is stuck. Probably not going to budge it.
Really you want something which will shove it with a force maybe 10% of the weight, say 20,000 tons but there don't seem to be many of those lying around.
I wondered if they tied a cable from the ship to one of the other large ships nearby and fired up the main engines if that could do something?
I imagine they could snap the cable, but that doesn't seem very useful.
For fluid dynamic reasons those sort of thrusters are only effective when the ship is stationary
Well, at the moment the ship is _very_ stationary.
And then some other ship would get stuck while turning?
They're called azipods.
> The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles.
But do the ships actually have to turn? As long as they are floating instead of stuck in the sand, can't they be dragged sideways, either by tugboats or by stationary winches on land?
Of course, the ships would have to stop first, which would take miles of slowing down, and it would probably still be faster to fully dig the stuck ship out of the sand than to dig a diversion channel.
But do the ships actually have to turn? As long as they are floating instead of stuck in the sand, can't they be dragged sideways, either by tugboats or by stationary winches on land?
Of course, the ships would have to stop first, which would take miles of slowing down, and it would probably still be faster to fully dig the stuck ship out of the sand than to dig a diversion channel.
Well, they did it before, and without the help of the massive diggers we have currently, so it can’t be that hard, relatively speaking.
Besides, my newspaper said that the economic losses of the stuckness amount to like 400M per hour. That is a looot of money you can throw at a problem.
Besides, my newspaper said that the economic losses of the stuckness amount to like 400M per hour. That is a looot of money you can throw at a problem.
The Suez Canal took 10 years to build, with > 30,000 people working on it at any given time and over 1.5M total laborers, thousands of whom died.
I don't think we want to be waiting for 10 years. Cheaper to blow up the ship and its cargo than to re-build a whole new canal.
I don't think we want to be waiting for 10 years. Cheaper to blow up the ship and its cargo than to re-build a whole new canal.
Blowing it up isn't really a solution either, that still leaves the canal blocked, as it was for 8 years after the 6 day war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
I was being semi-facetious, but now I see that a bunch of people seem to be suggesting that in all seriousness. Poe's Law strikes again.
Actually with a well placed nuclear warhead placed directly under the ship, it could be thrown out of the canal and into the nearby desert clearing the canal route /s
Think outside the box some more. With enough nuclear warheads, trade between Asia and Europe can be made completely irrelevant!
Fun fact: the ship is larger than the fireball of a peacekeeper warhead would be (~320 meters)
Those were what, 300kiloton’s ish? So if we go to 1+ megaton we’d be good. Seems reasonable if we go up to 3-4 megatons, maybe we’d even end up with a big enough crater one of these ships could pull a three point turn next time?
Okay, something like the Tsar Bomba then? /s
May want to use two of those bad boys then
I suspect any nuke smaller than the Tsar Bomb would leave top large pieces in the way.
Dredge a new passage? These ships do not turn on a dime, it would have to be started way before this blockage, and end way after the blockage so that the entry and exit are shallow enough of an angle for even the largest ships to handle with easy.
You're basically asking why can't they just make a whole new canal in less than a week?
You're basically asking why can't they just make a whole new canal in less than a week?
I'd think that rather than dredge enough sand/dirt to create a completely new channel, it'd be easier to dredge out enough next to the ship to free it. They should only need to dredge out the bow and stern, the middle of the ship is already in deeper water.
No, just change the density. The oil industry uses cesium formate. It's relatively non-toxic. The brine can have density of 19.2 pounds per gallon. (2.3 grams/mL)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium#Petroleum_exploration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium#Petroleum_exploration
You might end up getting it stuck higher. Then what?
if we keep going then the other ships can just duck.
Submarine container ships or an underpass would be cool.
Then that is tomorrow me's problem!
I honestly think a lot of thinking works that way, where we'll let tomorrow me worry about it. To be fair, a lot of the time it makes sense. The problems a solution creates are things we need to accept when alternative is worse (think global warming vs starvation circa 1770).
I honestly think a lot of thinking works that way, where we'll let tomorrow me worry about it. To be fair, a lot of the time it makes sense. The problems a solution creates are things we need to accept when alternative is worse (think global warming vs starvation circa 1770).
I honestly think that if you are involved in an operation like this and you bring this attitude to work that you'll be fired before the day is out.
This is the kind of job you want to get right the first time.
This is the kind of job you want to get right the first time.
Build a taller barrier!
If it keeps getting stuck higher and higher at some point it will be out of the canal thus solving the problem, no?
Plus: free bridge!
Coincidence ... my town is actually installing these in anticipation of a Spring flood.
Here's a drone video I took today!
https://youtu.be/JRe2a-zHDbg
I didn't realize they were water-filled!
Here's a drone video I took today!
https://youtu.be/JRe2a-zHDbg
I didn't realize they were water-filled!
Nice video, thanks for sharing. We shall defeat the water, with water! :D
I'm not at all qualified on these matters, but that's one of the better ideas I've read.
[deleted]
Wow that link - well thats a clever system! I would have never come up with something like that yet it's so simple in hindsight!
Imagine the pressures on the temporary barrier too, and what a failure would mean. Even bigger disaster.
The pressure on the hypothetical levee wouldn't be much since we're only talking about a couple dozen feet of water depth. (Yes, some jerk is going to come along and calculate out that that's an impressive amount of total force and act like that's a big deal but it's not really that impressive when you've got a huge amount of material to spread it out over).
Digging out around the ship is going to be much less work because of the amount of material you'll need to move and how far you'll need to move it.
Digging out around the ship is going to be much less work because of the amount of material you'll need to move and how far you'll need to move it.
Hey, that's an incredible amount of force, it's too risky, not to mention it will impact the local ecosystem, and uh, stuff!
Regardless, removing cargo and/or dredging around the ship is gonna be tons (literally) less work (literally).
A dual approach might be to dig around, but just place the dirt in preparation for a temporary levy scenario.
So much cash burned per hour, a fallback wouldn't hurt, and secondary backhoes could be used, so the primaries don't slow down in their primary task, dredging.
Of course, I bet someone is, even now, trying to reduce costs, not caring that even an hour or two will wipe out all savings.
So much cash burned per hour, a fallback wouldn't hurt, and secondary backhoes could be used, so the primaries don't slow down in their primary task, dredging.
Of course, I bet someone is, even now, trying to reduce costs, not caring that even an hour or two will wipe out all savings.
That is an engineer's job, of course, to match project outcomes to schedule and cost.
An atom bomb would certainly clear the canal, but what of the cost?
An atom bomb would certainly clear the canal, but what of the cost?
A failure would mean all the water bursts out and the ship is stuck again. I don’t see how that would set us back much?
That would take weeks-to-months. It's faster to dredge around it with a mobile barge.
the land around the canal looks pretty flat, those would have to be very strong barriers
Could the containers themselves be used to help create such a temporary barrier?
[deleted]
> 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.
One thing many people are missing is the Suez Canal is not concrete, it’s sand, so the canal “walls” are not vertical they’re a relatively gentle 3:1 slope (4:1 in wider areas). Meaning only the center half of the canal is flat and “at depth”, the ship started hitting sand 30-40m from the edge of the canal. By the time it reached the visible edge it’s half-sitting on sand half wedged into it.
One thing many people are missing is the Suez Canal is not concrete, it’s sand, so the canal “walls” are not vertical they’re a relatively gentle 3:1 slope (4:1 in wider areas). Meaning only the center half of the canal is flat and “at depth”, the ship started hitting sand 30-40m from the edge of the canal. By the time it reached the visible edge it’s half-sitting on sand half wedged into it.
There are locks on either end of the canal. I wonder if the water level can be raised a little to help?
There is high tide in canal till next Thursday. It is the best window moving the ship. Once low tide, it will be much more difficult to unstuck the ship and move.
https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Suez-Egypt/tides/lat...
https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Suez-Egypt/tides/lat...
>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.
I say build a trebuchet on deck and start launching containers into the desert.
There are 20 thousand containers on that ship. No, that's not a mistake. It says it can carry 20 thousand and I assume it travels at capacity.
Even if you could somehow launch one every minute that would still take 2 weeks of non-stop bombardment.
Fascinating how much stuff you can put on a ship and the scale of loading/unloading operation.
Even if you could somehow launch one every minute that would still take 2 weeks of non-stop bombardment.
Fascinating how much stuff you can put on a ship and the scale of loading/unloading operation.
Huh, a case where using kubernetes is actually justified.
Also like kubernetes, here's a picture of 20,000 zombie containers, getting no work done.
Thank you, I needed that laugh.
Well, using helm certainly would have been advisable.
Maybe they did! Modern helm doesn't have a tiller ... seems like this explains the mid-canal steering problem!
I was thinking, no way isn’t there a 10k container limit?
Nope 300k appr ! https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/best-practices/cluster-larg...
Nope 300k appr ! https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/best-practices/cluster-larg...
It has a max capacity of 20 thousand TEU, which is "20 foot equivalents". Most of the containers on the ship appear to be 40 foot ones. So 10,000 is probably closer to the total number.
Edit: It may also not be "full". Here's a top/bottom picture with the most "full" I could find on the top, and the current situation on the bottom. https://imgur.com/a/b8neNkR
Edit: So maybe 6000 40 foot containers, current state?
Edit: It may also not be "full". Here's a top/bottom picture with the most "full" I could find on the top, and the current situation on the bottom. https://imgur.com/a/b8neNkR
Edit: So maybe 6000 40 foot containers, current state?
In the photo where it looks quite full, the visible edge containers appear to be about 10x24x28 or 6,720 not accounting for missing ones on the top layers. In a photo from today it looked closer to only 6,000. Of course this methodology may be flawed or have some bad assumptions. Like containers below the visible deck layer??!
Pretty sure they would all be above and visible. Here's the ship empty: http://www.shipspotting.com/photos/middle/7/2/1/2892127.jpg
And a good photo to confirm your 28 bow-to-stern number: https://photos.fleetmon.com/vessels/ever-given_9811000_26410...
And a good photo to confirm your 28 bow-to-stern number: https://photos.fleetmon.com/vessels/ever-given_9811000_26410...
They hold containers inside, too. Or else the ship would get too top-heavy. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/72/f2/dd72f2e14fa997abad81...
Oh wow. Not enough to double it but this could get it right to around 10,000 forty foot containers or 20,000 TEU.
Which also suggests if they start pushing containers off to lighten the load, they’ll be easy to push, but they’ll need to push off more.
Nice! There do appear to be gaps reducing that 28 a bit, too... So I can't imagine there are 6,720 containers on the ship today.
Thanks for the correction.
Then a week of bombardment. Still impressive.
Then a week of bombardment. Still impressive.
How do they load and unload these things in a port in only a couple of days?! Do the cranes take off several containers at a time? It's hard for me to imagine they can move a container off the ship and get back to another container in less than a minute.
The cranes take one container off at a time (except when the container underneath sticks to the top one, which is not good). Actually, wikipedia says some cranes do two to four containers on purpose now.
Usually the crane operator will load/unload several containers without moving along the dock; because they're all lined up, the crane only needs to travel in two dimensions (vertically and across the boat from port to starboard). The cranes are specialized to pick up containers by the top corners, which makes connecting fast. Standardized containers means the corners are at the same place (ok, there's a few sizes, but 40 ft containers are the vast majority of ocean shipping) and lining up is easy. On the dockside, there's a crew of longshoremen that move chassis (trailers) into place for the crane to drop (gently, usually) the containers on, those are then parked nearby, etc.
Depending on the ship (and the dockside staffing), you can have multiple cranes working the ship. Planning is required to keep the ship balanced and minimize the number of containers moved. These ships generally visit several ports in order, and usually both unload and load at all of them, so it's complex.
Depending on the traffic (and pandemics), the port runs up to three shifts.
Usually the crane operator will load/unload several containers without moving along the dock; because they're all lined up, the crane only needs to travel in two dimensions (vertically and across the boat from port to starboard). The cranes are specialized to pick up containers by the top corners, which makes connecting fast. Standardized containers means the corners are at the same place (ok, there's a few sizes, but 40 ft containers are the vast majority of ocean shipping) and lining up is easy. On the dockside, there's a crew of longshoremen that move chassis (trailers) into place for the crane to drop (gently, usually) the containers on, those are then parked nearby, etc.
Depending on the ship (and the dockside staffing), you can have multiple cranes working the ship. Planning is required to keep the ship balanced and minimize the number of containers moved. These ships generally visit several ports in order, and usually both unload and load at all of them, so it's complex.
Depending on the traffic (and pandemics), the port runs up to three shifts.
You can have multiple cranes working on a ship in parallel, like in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590t6mbebsc
And they are unloaded onto something that can transport them out of the way. Even in the desert, after 3,000 or so containers, finding room in the big pile to unload number 3,001 without moving the crane to make a new pile might be problematic.
This video really shows the process up close:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7ixi2lqF4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7ixi2lqF4
Yeah, and those systems are fully automated too - years if not decades before e.g. Amazon started doing something similar in their warehouses. Mind you, containers were standardized in the 60's so there's a bit of a head start there.
So no way you're doing it in less than a few months without a port facility. A year would be 1 every 25 mins which I think is more likely.
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.
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.
Oh, so that's what this was about...
http://compellingsciencefiction.com/stories/the-dirt-dances....
http://compellingsciencefiction.com/stories/the-dirt-dances....
Push enough off, then pull them onto the ground. Truck them to the local market and get whatever you can.
They are locked in place in a frame system. They have to be lifted off.
Unframe them?
When they’re unloaded, I don’t see a massive empty frame, so unframing is done at some level.
When they’re unloaded, I don’t see a massive empty frame, so unframing is done at some level.
I’m thinking a shipping container zipline.
Would it not be easier to use Chinooks to remove cargo ?
Empty weight of a 40ft ISO is around 3,700kg
Max weight of a container loaded is around 30,000kg
Max payload of a Chinook around 11,000 kg near sea level at not high temp. (correct my number here from the wrong version of the Chinook...older versions were 4,500kg)
So, if your container is a a quarter full, sure
Max payload of a Chinook around 11,000 kg near sea level at not high temp. (correct my number here from the wrong version of the Chinook...older versions were 4,500kg)
So, if your container is a a quarter full, sure
The lighter ones will be at the top anyway to keep center of gravity correct.
Shipping company should know exact weights of each container for this and billing reasons.
Shipping company should know exact weights of each container for this and billing reasons.
Two CH-53E Super Stallions should be able to handle such a container, then (max external payload capacity is about 16,000kg). Any American aircraft carriers nearby?
And this assumes that the containers are indeed loaded to their full weight capacity.
And this assumes that the containers are indeed loaded to their full weight capacity.
Okay, bring Mi-26 then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
What’s the math like if you use 4 Chinooks? One on each corner. Someone, break down the component forces.
Maybe placing 4 helicopters within 40ft of each other is not such a great idea?
I should’ve been more clear. The helicopters could be 100 feet apart. Each helicopter would hook on to the corner of each container, and pull away diagonally.
The lift capability of this setup is from the y axis. But at a reduced load. This is a physics problem.
The lift capability of this setup is from the y axis. But at a reduced load. This is a physics problem.
There are between 6 000 to 20 000 containers on this ship.
Thou reduce weight any meaningful amount you would need to remove hundreds or even thousands of containers.
I am not even sure if anyone would be willing to fly 4 helicopters tethered to each other, but even if they do, its going to be very slow for safety reasons.
And good like finding insurance company that is willing to cover, if anything goes wrong.
And enough pilots and helicopters, to do that 24/7 for a few months
> This is a physics problem no it isn't
Thou reduce weight any meaningful amount you would need to remove hundreds or even thousands of containers.
I am not even sure if anyone would be willing to fly 4 helicopters tethered to each other, but even if they do, its going to be very slow for safety reasons.
And good like finding insurance company that is willing to cover, if anything goes wrong.
And enough pilots and helicopters, to do that 24/7 for a few months
> This is a physics problem no it isn't
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.
[deleted]
Last time I heard that was the Maemo OS codename before Diablo
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
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.
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
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
That's probably what they will end up using, it's also the most compact thing they can bring to the site in short order. I mean companies like Boskalis and Mammoet have massive seaborne cranes, but it'll take a while for them to get there - I'm sure they're already on the way as well, in case the other solutions don't work or are late.
That's actually even a technique that has been used in these places in the past - Egypt used it when attacking Israeli fortifications on one of the banks during one of the conflicts in the past, just washed them away so they could cross with less resistance.
I wonder if a modified jet boat could work? A bit like those flying platforms that are built as a hose connected to the output of a jetski.
Or direct pressure up from below to liquefy the sand, quicksand-style.
If you unload 20,000 TEU's onto rail cars it takes 5000 cars, double-stacked. That's 50 100-car trains. It'll take weeks to months to load and unload all that, if a proper rail depot is available to take it. It takes huge cranes to reach across a megaship and into its hold. That'd have to be build. On sand.
The idea that there's any quick way to manage the cargo of this ship is whistling in the dark.
The idea that there's any quick way to manage the cargo of this ship is whistling in the dark.
Cranes on barges or ships, unloading the cargo into other ships is probably the most viable way to unload any significant amount of cargo.
I agree with your reasoning here. I'm genuinely interested in your interpretation of the idiom, "whistling in the dark".
I have heard this as, "whistling in the wind", taken to imply sound waves are distorted by wind patterns since sound waves use air molecules for conveyance. Whistling into the wind would tend to dampen sound waves intended for up-wind listners. Whereas, whistling with the wind tends to cause a whistle with the same decibel level as the into-the-wind variety to travel a bit further to down-wind listners.
How would the medium of light impact travel distance of sound waves? Or is there a cultural reference here that is different for me as a American english speaker?
I have heard this as, "whistling in the wind", taken to imply sound waves are distorted by wind patterns since sound waves use air molecules for conveyance. Whistling into the wind would tend to dampen sound waves intended for up-wind listners. Whereas, whistling with the wind tends to cause a whistle with the same decibel level as the into-the-wind variety to travel a bit further to down-wind listners.
How would the medium of light impact travel distance of sound waves? Or is there a cultural reference here that is different for me as a American english speaker?
Two different idioms, both fairly widely used (not sure about US vs non-US, but I've heard both as a non-American).
'Whistling in the wind' is about futility. A whistle is inaudible in the face of a massive elemental force like wind. "The lone excavator pushed on the hull of the colossal container ship, but it was whistling in the wind."
'Whistling in the dark' is about presenting a brave face in an intimidating situation: a nonchalant whistle in fear-inducing darkness. "They confidently claimed the ship would be moved in two days, I knew they were whistling in the dark."
If you care about understanding people and being understood, simply looking up idioms is way more effective than trying to construct meaning from physical principles. Just a thought :)
'Whistling in the wind' is about futility. A whistle is inaudible in the face of a massive elemental force like wind. "The lone excavator pushed on the hull of the colossal container ship, but it was whistling in the wind."
'Whistling in the dark' is about presenting a brave face in an intimidating situation: a nonchalant whistle in fear-inducing darkness. "They confidently claimed the ship would be moved in two days, I knew they were whistling in the dark."
If you care about understanding people and being understood, simply looking up idioms is way more effective than trying to construct meaning from physical principles. Just a thought :)
Why do they need to be put on rail cars ? Unload them onto the sand next to the canal.
After you hit the limit of the crane reach, where does the next one go? Stacking on unstable sand seems a bad choice. So maybe 10% can be unloaded and just set on the ground. After that, they have to be moved somewhere.
I think the idea is that they would only partially unload. Get enough weight off the bow to help move it out.
The pictures I've seen completely hide the ship's bulbous bow. It juts out seemingly like 50 feet from the front of the bow that you can see. It looks like all of that is wedged in the sand
Bingo. It's long, fat, and like the pharaohs ... buried in Egypt.
Snip snip.
Just cut the tip off.
Just cut the tip off.
Well the front's not supposed to fall off. The front fell off in this case, but it's very unusual.
What's the minimum crew requirement?
One, I suppose.
context for those who haven't seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
That's hilarious, thanks for posting
And have it sink there permanently?
Ships have watertight bulkheads behind the bow in case they run into something. The ship can definitely sail without the bow. They should just cut it off and leave it there as a reminder to others not to f* up.
It’s half a joke.
Think men in tights.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4v8BVKlAfM
But also curious of the bulb can be removed without affecting the integrity.
But also curious of the bulb can be removed without affecting the integrity.
Yes, the bulb can be removed and the ship still seaworthy.
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
Just use some thumpers and Shai-Hulud will save the day.
Classic old man and sandworm pulling the ship free.
Now that is an interesting idea.
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.
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 say that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell that that would work, China would be airdropping excavators into the area as we speak.
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 say that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell that that would work, China would be airdropping excavators into the area as we speak.
> 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
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
I'm no expert but the ship does not appear to be at sea. One could even venture so far to say that that is the crux of the matter.
Not an expert either but I found this:
>Thus, if the ship was not a under command, unable to navigate or to reach port unaided, the service will be considered salvage even though the ship was not in imminent danger of destruction.
>It was in the light of this that Gilmore posits that releasing a ship that has run aground or on reefs, breaching a ship to keep her from running on rock, raising a sunken vessel, putting out a fire, and recapture of a ship taken by pirates, are all salvage acts.
The maritime salvor as a volunteer adventurer, Nzeribe Ejimnkeonye Abangwu, International Journal of Law, Volume 3; Issue 5; September 2017
>Thus, if the ship was not a under command, unable to navigate or to reach port unaided, the service will be considered salvage even though the ship was not in imminent danger of destruction.
>It was in the light of this that Gilmore posits that releasing a ship that has run aground or on reefs, breaching a ship to keep her from running on rock, raising a sunken vessel, putting out a fire, and recapture of a ship taken by pirates, are all salvage acts.
The maritime salvor as a volunteer adventurer, Nzeribe Ejimnkeonye Abangwu, International Journal of Law, Volume 3; Issue 5; September 2017
I see what you did there
Well, the law of salvage wouldn't apply since there's no "peril at sea" involved - the ship and its crew and its cargo are in no imminent danger. They are stuck, but there's no damage or destruction expected to them that would justify salvage. Losses by ship inactivity or blocking the channel are out of scope for salvage, since these are costs to someone else, and salvage law applies when you rescue the property of the ship owner/operator, it refers only to value of ship and cargo and (recently) environmental damage like oil spills (if it would be the liability of the ship operator).
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.
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.
Oh it gets better, they could declare General Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average and then instead of buying new one of what you lost you are chipping in for everyone else on board.
It's possible the excavation is exploratory in nature. It might be hard to know how stuck the bow is without digging a little.
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?
I watch Gold Rush and one of the prospectors use a massive Volvo excavator that makes those two tiny ones they use in Suez look like tinker toys.
I think they have no idea at this moment as the tugs can't get it done.
I think they have no idea at this moment as the tugs can't get it done.
The (wo)man hour myth.
In all fairness, all the excavator in the world probably won't solve the problem, because they have to sit on land, but the ship cuts deep.
In all fairness, all the excavator in the world probably won't solve the problem, because they have to sit on land, but the ship cuts deep.
I don't think the "2 bulldozers" was a serious plan. Just what they happened to have nearby where someone thought to give it a go.
It's probably not easy to dig with excavators into the canal: they likely won't reach far enough
> 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.
Because that would all be a tremendous waste of money, and would not get the ship any closer to being free.
Is it possible someone is blocking the canal on purpose? For some geopolitical reason maybe.
Hanlons Razor I reckon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
Yeah but still doesn’t change the probability of it being on purpose or not.
Maybe someone on WSB who's built up a massive short-sell position.
Didn't most of them get in at 200-300? It's below that now.
SilasX(2)
They know they have a monopoly. There are no viable alternative routes, so they just don't care enough.
Sure there is. It's about to be busier than usual.
https://imgur.com/a/nu0CNPi
https://imgur.com/a/nu0CNPi
Historically, isn't that a "stormier" route? As the euphemism "Cape of Good Hope" replaced the "Cape of Storms".
Also, I think shipping is about to get more expensive, I guess.
Also, I think shipping is about to get more expensive, I guess.
> Historically, isn't that a "stormier" route?
I'm no expert, but I think it makes a huge difference whether you're in a flimsy, wooden ship with even flimsier sails made of cloth, or in a 400m long, extremely massive steel vessel with a reliable internal combustion engine.
I'm no expert, but I think it makes a huge difference whether you're in a flimsy, wooden ship with even flimsier sails made of cloth, or in a 400m long, extremely massive steel vessel with a reliable internal combustion engine.
Vs. storms at sea it's not a major difference, and if anything the sail boat is in better shape. The real advantage is accurate weather reports to avoid the worst of it.
> if anything the sail boat is in better shape
Why? That sounds implausible. Firstly, the larger a ship, the less affected it is by waves. Secondly, high winds will shred your sails, but without sails it's hard to maneuver .
Why? That sounds implausible. Firstly, the larger a ship, the less affected it is by waves. Secondly, high winds will shred your sails, but without sails it's hard to maneuver .
The problem with Ever Given was exactly the "sail area", since it was a big boat [1]. You can check videos of container ships in storms on Youtube.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/sail-area
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/sail-area
I did. They seem to be doing fine, even in waves which could have swallowed an entire sailing ship.
If I were South Africa, I would announce a tax on passing within 100 miles of their shore for commercial shipping...
Territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles (22 km) from a coastline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_t...
Also this would be innocent passage anyways.
And that's how you'd get a nice, friendly visit from the Sixth Fleet.
"Knock knock. It's the United States. With huge boats. With guns. Gunboats."
The US navy has a proud tradition of gunboat diplomacy going back at least as far as commodore Perry and the opening of japan.
That's indeed the reference, yep: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o
Well, that would trigger some Freedom of Navigation Operations.
If I were South Africa I would make sure that this route is as attractive as possible.
That would be illegal and if they attempted to enforce it they would be engaging in piracy.
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.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Can do up to 60 tons total weight for a bit. That should cover even the heaviest containers. At least, I hope it does, if not they're royally screwed.
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.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Can do up to 60 tons total weight for a bit. That should cover even the heaviest containers. At least, I hope it does, if not they're royally screwed.
The helicopter itself is 30 tons, leaving you 30. But 60 is the max takeoff weight. The max weight it is actually designed to operate at when carrying the maximum load is about 55 tons. With 30 for the helicopter itself, that leaves 25 tons for the load.
A container can be up to 33 tons loaded, so the heaviest will be beyond that helicopter (at least of you don't want to push it past its safe limits).
I assume that the heaviest containers are on the bottom of the stack, and that most containers aren't near the limit, so it could probably unload a substantial number of them.
A container can be up to 33 tons loaded, so the heaviest will be beyond that helicopter (at least of you don't want to push it past its safe limits).
I assume that the heaviest containers are on the bottom of the stack, and that most containers aren't near the limit, so it could probably unload a substantial number of them.
I said 'total weight'. That includes the helicopter, obviously, you're not going to magically get a zero mass helicopter.
You can't take only the containers at the ends, however, because the uneven weight would cause the center of the ship to collapse.
Not so sure about that collapse, the keel of the ship is currently supporting all of that weight and seems to be holding up just fine. It's essentially a suspension bridge at this point, but I agree that it is probably better to unload evenly, however, that will add another very substantial time penalty. If the ship would break (which I have no idea at what load imbalance that would happen) there would be a delay a lot longer so it may be worth it to play this extra safe. But there is a very large amount of pressure on the people there to get this resolved.
Weeks are measured in what I'd call, a lot of money. Is it a consolidation of funds sort of issue? Anybody responsible for getting it fixed?
They hired a company specialized in this kind of stuff (Boskalis), but as their CEO mentioned of TV it depends on how stuck it is. If you're lucky, pumping out the fuel and ballast can make the ship light enough to drag it clear with tugboats. If that doesn't work, you might have to unload some, most or all of the 20k containers from the ship to make it light enough. It can be done, but depending on how much is required it'll take a few days to a week to get the required equipment all the way to Egypt.
If I estimated right, the fuel is a few percent of the total mass (maybe around 5%). Not the most encouraging result.
If it was floating, raising it out of the water by 5% would not be insignificant, and help relieve some of the forces holding it in place.
I wonder what's the margin for raising the center of gravity too much out of the water without risking it tipping, with all that cargo on top.
The people who should be desperately trying to pay a lot of money to get the ship unstuck are maritime insurance underwriters. There is a lot of insurance against late delivery. Unless they have managed to figure out how this is an act of god, that is.
That’s what they’re claiming - it was unexpectedly heavy winds in a sandstorm that caused it to ground.
Also, they had two canal pilots on board. I’m pretty sure that this absolves the shipping company of responsibility for guiding the ship safely.
Also, they had two canal pilots on board. I’m pretty sure that this absolves the shipping company of responsibility for guiding the ship safely.
Seems it's not always so cut-and-dry.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26564849
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26564849
Egypt is bleeding money right now. It earned roughly USD 15,360,000.00/day from Suez passage fees in 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#Revenues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#Revenues
I think this is the hidden story here. Egypt doesn't have a particularly strong economy, its stock market (unlike the US) is 40% below 2018, it's currency fell more than 50% vs USD in 2016 and has only recovered a few percent, and it (like the US) appears to have significantly more debt than ever before. And the entire globe is still somewhat covid-depressed economically.
When governments, banks and major companies are highly leveraged, all it takes is temporary system shocks to collapse the whole thing. It's not just the lost canal revenue, it's tons of companies in the region that can't get their goods to international markets which slows capital flows, tax revenue, import/export tariffs, etc. Will be interesting to see the effects.
https://tradingeconomics.com/egypt/currency https://tradingeconomics.com/egypt/external-debt
When governments, banks and major companies are highly leveraged, all it takes is temporary system shocks to collapse the whole thing. It's not just the lost canal revenue, it's tons of companies in the region that can't get their goods to international markets which slows capital flows, tax revenue, import/export tariffs, etc. Will be interesting to see the effects.
https://tradingeconomics.com/egypt/currency https://tradingeconomics.com/egypt/external-debt
That's more than 5% of the total government revenue. It can definitively lead to instability in the currency because the government might be forced to print the deficit if it cannot secure funding through other means. The inflation rate is well above 2% which means that the government should cut spending and only put money into investments that net a return (cleaning up the canal nets a return).
Wow, costs $300K to transit through the canal per ship by fee alone? That is capital intensive.
It's amazing that more ships are not simply sailing around Africa.
It's amazing that more ships are not simply sailing around Africa.
The $300K cost is actually calculated to be just below the amount it would cost extra to sail around the cape, adjusting for other factors, of course.
There's actually a robust and competitive market for intercontinental shipping canals:
https://www.industryweek.com/ideaxchange/article/21965825/su...
There's actually a robust and competitive market for intercontinental shipping canals:
https://www.industryweek.com/ideaxchange/article/21965825/su...
The ship can hold 20,000 containers so the fee is only $15 each. By comparison, it costs $16 to take the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan.
Their daily operating costs are a significant fraction of the $300,000 and it saves a couple weeks.
(tens of thousands of dollars just for fuel each day)
(tens of thousands of dollars just for fuel each day)
I'd imagine it is riskier sailing all the way around Africa than through the Suez, right?
It's risky for small boats due to the huge waves down there. Huge cargo ships seem to manage ok.
They do sometimes depending on oil prices and how much of a hurry they are in https://www.imarest.org/themarineprofessional/on-the-radar/i...
Given that so many ships that are run by people who can afford $300k per trip, which could pay the annual salary for a team of analysts, it's amazing you're making this comment.
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Not really. Think of costs of fuel, costs of crew, I created insurance, slower delivery times.
Unloading is feasible, it would just take a couple of weeks. They just need a floating crane on each side and some barges to take the containers away.
I read that there aren't any tall enough cranes in that area to do it, so they're considering unloading some containers by helicopter.
Even if you could unload a container per minute you could only unload less than 1000 containers per day (assuming it's too dangerous to work at night) so at least 3 weeks of continuous helicopter operations.
Yes, that's true. It still might be faster than other options. You wouldn't likely need to unload the whole thing though, just lighten it enough to get it unstuck.
Doubt that's the case. The weight on it currently forced it deep enough into the sand. Just unloading half of it won't make it magically raise from the sands. The analogy here would be like saying pumping out Whale's stomach will make it possible to drag him back deep into the ocean.
Even though the vessel sits on sand, it still displaces a lot of water, which reduces the force of it sitting on the sand by a lot. Removing cargo, fuel, and dredging reduces it yet more.
Its most likely irrelevant. The reason why you see front so high up is because all the vessel's weight forced and smashed itself against the shallow water. At this point, rather than not the fuselage is damaged, and attempt to "ease up" the weight could only make it worse. I have been working enough around cargo vessels and at this size its never "oh he hit something, just put in reverse and you good to go". Similar if you ever get stabbed with a knife - hope never - but if you will, do not attempt to remove it on your own - you need to see a specialist who knows how to remove object it without causing internal bleeding, etc.
This vessel is most likely trash at this point. Time is of essence because tidal is pushing it against shallows and since its not perfectly centered it will eventually tip and with these amount of weight, not much tipping required for the whole thing to snawball. At this time they are figuring out how to quickly remove (save) as many containers as possible. Most likely will happen with another of these monsters to "park" close by and one by one will move the most expensive cargo first.
Another option I got from my buddy who is doing this stuff for life, is suggestion to dig up a whole big enough underneath to actually sunk the whole thing. This can be done in less than one week and is fastest most "stable" option. At this point they are not looking at saving this one vessel, but rather how to get the canal to operate again asap. You probably know it from driving on highway "move aside accident vehicles" is the most important thing to do.
This vessel is most likely trash at this point. Time is of essence because tidal is pushing it against shallows and since its not perfectly centered it will eventually tip and with these amount of weight, not much tipping required for the whole thing to snawball. At this time they are figuring out how to quickly remove (save) as many containers as possible. Most likely will happen with another of these monsters to "park" close by and one by one will move the most expensive cargo first.
Another option I got from my buddy who is doing this stuff for life, is suggestion to dig up a whole big enough underneath to actually sunk the whole thing. This can be done in less than one week and is fastest most "stable" option. At this point they are not looking at saving this one vessel, but rather how to get the canal to operate again asap. You probably know it from driving on highway "move aside accident vehicles" is the most important thing to do.
But a few days of operations, and unloading ballast/fuel, and dredging, and other efforts to refloat may be successful together.
Hm. I live in Long Beach and those guys are definitely used to working at night
In helicopters? That's the tricky part.
… in helicopters, in the desert without the infrastructure of a major harbor, no less!
3 weeks of continuous helicopter operations for what? Ship doesn't need to be empty.
Plus a couple of weeks to get the cranes there, I guess.
that "just" is doing even more work than the guy in the digger.
Maybe. That's a lot of barges. Remember that you then have to go and unload the barges, and there are 20,000 containers.
> That's a lot of barges.
Maybe bring another Evergreen ship there and move containers onto it...?
Maybe bring another Evergreen ship there and move containers onto it...?
20,000 TEU, not containers.
TEU being Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit, and containers generally are either 20ft or 40ft long.
You can see from pictures that most of the containers are 40 foot ones. Also, the ship doesn't appear to be at full capacity to me. See https://imgur.com/a/b8neNkR (top is as full a picture as I could find, bottom is current). My guess is ~6000 40 foot containers in its current state.
What's the difference, for purposes of estimating workload?
Containers are 1 or 2 TEUs, although doubles are more common for long distance, so you're probably looking at 10,000-ish containers.
Is there a reason they couldn't have a smaller crane on board and dump them over the side. Surely even losing the cargo would be cheaper than keeping it blocked at this point?
If you dump the containers over the side, you managed to remove a ship blocking the canal, but now it's blocked by containers.
Right, but you don't need to leave them there. If it's limited depth you could pull them away with barges.
How long do you think it takes to fish a 20 ton container up from the bottom of a canal and load it onto a barge? There are ~10,000 containers.
Barge? Pull it over the edge and worry about it later.
Depending on contents, some might float very well. Or even dissolve away. My dollar store salt-shakers (with salt) came from vietnam.
The top will be the lightest containers, so I’m guessing that’s where your 40 footer of ping pong balls is sitting.
Depending on contents, some might float very well. Or even dissolve away. My dollar store salt-shakers (with salt) came from vietnam.
The top will be the lightest containers, so I’m guessing that’s where your 40 footer of ping pong balls is sitting.
Yes - that's kind of what I had in mind when I first suggested it. When containers fall of ships they often wash ashore on the UK coast. Even a container of motorbikes arrived in Cornwall recently... I'm presuming that only happens because they have some natural bouyancy.
If they don't tear when they hit the water (the metal is pretty thin) they should float shouldn't they? At 77 cubic meters and 30 tonnes their density is low enough, and they're generally watertight aren't they?
Tie heavy duty straps with a small float attached to it before you dump it over the side, then use a tug to pull it away.
I think you're severely overestimating the depth of the canal. I'm too lazy to look up the depth of the specific section where it's stuck, but some sections are just 20 something meters deep.
In other words, just deep enough for ships to come through with little wiggle room. Not as tight as the Panama Canal, but it's not much bigger.
In other words, just deep enough for ships to come through with little wiggle room. Not as tight as the Panama Canal, but it's not much bigger.
Dumping things over the side, into the canal? That would rapidly block up the canal even worse.
The canal is only 24m deep.... one or two containers would essentially block it for most traffic.
[deleted]
Nature loves you!
Don't worry, there's a guy digging it out :)
https://twitter.com/SuezDiggerGuy
https://twitter.com/SuezDiggerGuy
The most impressive thing to me, reading this comment thread, is all the ways the situation could get worse.
Depending on the design and bulk heads ripping a hole in the hull can be an option. My father was a naval architect and did some work re-floating container ships and I know they did this on at least one occasion and got the ship up the west coast of Africa, past Spain and Portugal, and through the English Channel. They would have stopped earlier but the ship yards en route jacked up their prices because they assumed there was no other choice.
The interesting thing for me is going to be where that ship goes if they manage to re-float it.
The interesting thing for me is going to be where that ship goes if they manage to re-float it.
Helicopters are a thing.
And yeah, even completely empty with no fuel or ballast you will never see the bow out of the water like that. However it is more than capable of surviving being dragged along sand. It's just that they have nothing strong enough to drag it with.
Eventually someone will stake some anchors into the ground and use an industrial winch, but that's where hull design starts to suck - there's no good anchor points by which to pull it, so there'll need to be a large number of straps cradling the hull that are being pulled.
And yeah, even completely empty with no fuel or ballast you will never see the bow out of the water like that. However it is more than capable of surviving being dragged along sand. It's just that they have nothing strong enough to drag it with.
Eventually someone will stake some anchors into the ground and use an industrial winch, but that's where hull design starts to suck - there's no good anchor points by which to pull it, so there'll need to be a large number of straps cradling the hull that are being pulled.
This was my though, winchers/dozers etc pulling back the angle it went in on a high tide. Of all the solutions suggested this seems the simplest and easiest materials.
For anchor points they could easily weld additional steel plates/rings at numerous points on the hull for a many lines spread out.
Maybe place some cables under the front section attached to airbags. It would not lift it off the sand but may help with downward pressure on the pull back + the excavator work.
Also cant you vibrate/aerate sand to make it have a liquid effect? Might help pressure but no idea how that could be done at scale required... winches and cable seems easy to access fast.
For anchor points they could easily weld additional steel plates/rings at numerous points on the hull for a many lines spread out.
Maybe place some cables under the front section attached to airbags. It would not lift it off the sand but may help with downward pressure on the pull back + the excavator work.
Also cant you vibrate/aerate sand to make it have a liquid effect? Might help pressure but no idea how that could be done at scale required... winches and cable seems easy to access fast.
Just an order of magnitude viz-a-viz a winch:
-- the Ever Given has a mass of ~220,000 tons (2.2e8 kg)
-- let us very conservatively assume that it is a homogeneous block, 1/3rd of which is on sand, 2/3rds of which is on water
-- the Coulomb coefficient of friction for steel on sand is a very complex function of sand composition and size, but roughly it's about µ=0.5 and F=µR [1]
-- For the 2/3rds of the ship that are in the water assume that it moves frictionlessly in an inviscid liquid (not true at all else ships wouldn't have huge engines!)
-- You therefore need to apply a net tension of ≥0.3 x 0.5 x 2.2e8 ≈ 33 MN to a wire to have a remote chance in hell of accelerating the ship backwards
-- This is about twice the thrust of a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster at liftoff.
[1] https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sandf1972/26/4/26_4_139...
-- the Ever Given has a mass of ~220,000 tons (2.2e8 kg)
-- let us very conservatively assume that it is a homogeneous block, 1/3rd of which is on sand, 2/3rds of which is on water
-- the Coulomb coefficient of friction for steel on sand is a very complex function of sand composition and size, but roughly it's about µ=0.5 and F=µR [1]
-- For the 2/3rds of the ship that are in the water assume that it moves frictionlessly in an inviscid liquid (not true at all else ships wouldn't have huge engines!)
-- You therefore need to apply a net tension of ≥0.3 x 0.5 x 2.2e8 ≈ 33 MN to a wire to have a remote chance in hell of accelerating the ship backwards
-- This is about twice the thrust of a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster at liftoff.
[1] https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sandf1972/26/4/26_4_139...
The weight on sand equals the weight of the portion of the ship that has been raised above sea level by the collision. The bow appears to have been raised, but not the stern. The lift is by about 10% of the ships height (or less), so 5% on the average of the ships length. That cuts the above estimate by a factor of 6. The remaining required force could be provided by a number of winches of a pull of 1000 tons each operating from the opposite bank of the canal and pulling in the direction opposite to the ship. Tugs would then have to turn the ship straight as soon as it starts getting afloat.
[deleted]
How long do you think it would take to unload 20,000 40-foot containers via helicopter?
I'll start with my guess: A long time
I'll start with my guess: A long time
You would probably need to be the US military. Once you have a setup onsite; helicopters, pilots, fuel, maintenance, crew to rig containers, you could rapidly unload the containers. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08K_aEajzNA
US Military is probably the only entity that could pull this off in a timely manner. At great cost of course...
US Military is probably the only entity that could pull this off in a timely manner. At great cost of course...
Except the US Military has exactly zero helicopters capable of lifting anything that heavy.
Russian Military has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
That's the one they've used to rescue downed US helicopters :)
Russian Military has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
That's the one they've used to rescue downed US helicopters :)
Looks like your right. The US has:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-53E_Super_Stallion... as its near equivalent with a external payload of 36,000 lb. The Russian helicopter carries 8000lbs more at 44,000lb, though Wikipedia doesn't say if this is an external or internal payload.
Looks like a 40ft shipping container weights around 8000lbs empty, couldn't find a stat on full. It seems such an operation would be outside the capacity of these helicopters. Sure they could comfortably lift empty containers, but probably not full ones.
Looks like a 40ft shipping container weights around 8000lbs empty, couldn't find a stat on full. It seems such an operation would be outside the capacity of these helicopters. Sure they could comfortably lift empty containers, but probably not full ones.
Is there a chance the ship could tip over in some type of manouver, considering it's stuck both at the front and the back?
How it gets from bad to worse..
Realistic headline: As more of the bow and stern are freed from sand, ship suddenly lists and dumps 5000 containers into the canal.
Realistic headline: As more of the bow and stern are freed from sand, ship suddenly lists and dumps 5000 containers into the canal.
Apparently, if you unload containers without sufficient care, there's even a chance the ship could break in half.
That would obviously be catastrophic.
That would obviously be catastrophic.
Probably
>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 think you just need a smaller crane ship to transfer the cargo e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_crane_ship
I think you just need a smaller crane ship to transfer the cargo e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_crane_ship
Assuming the crane ship can even get into position to offload it.
The ship is stuck because the sides of the canal are quite shallow.
You are quite likely to get two stuck ships instead of one.
The ship is stuck because the sides of the canal are quite shallow.
You are quite likely to get two stuck ships instead of one.
"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.
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.
Even if so, now you've got a handful of containers on the sand and a giant ship stuck in the canal.
Sure. Just guessing that taking weight off of the end that's marooned in the sand might help.
Edit. Okay "ends".
Edit. Okay "ends".
> Just guessing that taking weight off of the end that's marooned in the sand might help.
It is crosswise and in the banks on both sides.
It is crosswise and in the banks on both sides.
How about creating a mini-dam surrounding the vessel and raising the water level so it can turn.
Or stopping the current at 90% of the ship and letting it push to the front ( if it's in the right direction), perhaps in combination with gigantic sails ( if there's enough wind) and/or sucking sand/mud from the bottom.
Or stopping the current at 90% of the ship and letting it push to the front ( if it's in the right direction), perhaps in combination with gigantic sails ( if there's enough wind) and/or sucking sand/mud from the bottom.
Apparently, there are no watertight gates anywhere near.
Filling in the entire canal is unrealistic.
Filling in the entire canal is unrealistic.
What if we could part the water at both sides of the ship? Would that suffice as makeshift gates?
The Egyptians had a bad experience with that in the past though and lost a lot of gear and many men in an incident. Might be understandable if they didn’t want to do that again.
The Egyptians had a bad experience with that in the past though and lost a lot of gear and many men in an incident. Might be understandable if they didn’t want to do that again.
Let me call moses, hold on.
Cofferdams could be viable
Relevant feedback on pro's/cons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26587692
Relevant feedback on pro's/cons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26587692
I'm not saying the entire canal. Surround the boat, make a dam somehow.
Concrete is dry in 24-48 hours. Sand and wooden poles could be enough.
Some ideas on the how, could be found in this video, on how they created a bridge in the middle ages: https://youtu.be/nJgD6gyi0Wk
I'm pretty sure engineers could find better/faster solutions than what I'm proposing.
Concrete is dry in 24-48 hours. Sand and wooden poles could be enough.
Some ideas on the how, could be found in this video, on how they created a bridge in the middle ages: https://youtu.be/nJgD6gyi0Wk
I'm pretty sure engineers could find better/faster solutions than what I'm proposing.
The canal is 200 metres wide, 25ish metres deep. Gotta think in the cube, because now you're talking volume. I have zero idea what thickness you're going to need for your dam, but I'm going to spitball and say 10 metres at the top, and 30 metres at the bottom to get a slope like you'd see on something like the Hoover Dam.
This means you need to provide .. lets see, a trapezoidal cross section is 500 square metres.. 100,000 cubic metres of filler. Twice. And then you probably need to curve it to resist the pressure, so that's a bit of a lowball figure. You can't dam any less, because the ship is stuck sideways across the canal.
Using some old numbers for concrete pours in Ireland (2016 era) per cubic metre, that's 7.5 million Euro worth of concrete. Sure, you're not going to use pure concrete like that though - you'd probably start dropping massive boulders in first, and then try to cap/fill it.
Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands to get a feel for how long it takes to lay in that much material..
And then you have to dig it all back up to reopen the canal.
This means you need to provide .. lets see, a trapezoidal cross section is 500 square metres.. 100,000 cubic metres of filler. Twice. And then you probably need to curve it to resist the pressure, so that's a bit of a lowball figure. You can't dam any less, because the ship is stuck sideways across the canal.
Using some old numbers for concrete pours in Ireland (2016 era) per cubic metre, that's 7.5 million Euro worth of concrete. Sure, you're not going to use pure concrete like that though - you'd probably start dropping massive boulders in first, and then try to cap/fill it.
Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands to get a feel for how long it takes to lay in that much material..
And then you have to dig it all back up to reopen the canal.
160 km of protection against 2m. High waves to build something on unstable soil isn't exactly the same thing as this, is it.
They need some construction which they can add water faster than it escapes the container, to raise the water level.
If stacked water based cofferdams would be a solution ( idk depending on these requirements, current, ..), it could be done quickly if they have the bags ( multiple teams, multiple locations to start and filling the coffers with water as soon as possible). The budget to fix this fast is probably pretty high. A lot would depend on how much they need to raise the water for the pressure, so it wouldn't collapse. ( Fyi, i do think water based coffers would collapse, but perhaps sand ones can be placed in top on it for 1 meter).
Palm islands needed a construction that holds multiple years and isn't the same as the issue in the Suez canal.
Tu be honest, I'm just thinkering about the variables that could make this work, instead of dismissing it immediately.
They need some construction which they can add water faster than it escapes the container, to raise the water level.
If stacked water based cofferdams would be a solution ( idk depending on these requirements, current, ..), it could be done quickly if they have the bags ( multiple teams, multiple locations to start and filling the coffers with water as soon as possible). The budget to fix this fast is probably pretty high. A lot would depend on how much they need to raise the water for the pressure, so it wouldn't collapse. ( Fyi, i do think water based coffers would collapse, but perhaps sand ones can be placed in top on it for 1 meter).
Palm islands needed a construction that holds multiple years and isn't the same as the issue in the Suez canal.
Tu be honest, I'm just thinkering about the variables that could make this work, instead of dismissing it immediately.
> Using some old numbers for concrete pours in Ireland (2016 era) per cubic metre, that's 7.5 million Euro worth of concrete.
A sister comment mentioned 400$ million per hour worth of trades being blocked by this, so the cost of this would probably recouped by the time the order is cleared.
A sister comment mentioned 400$ million per hour worth of trades being blocked by this, so the cost of this would probably recouped by the time the order is cleared.
>A sister comment mentioned 400$ million per hour worth of trades being blocked by this
but it's not $400M lost? If you ordered a $100 package from amazon and it got stuck in transit it's not a $100 loss.
but it's not $400M lost? If you ordered a $100 package from amazon and it got stuck in transit it's not a $100 loss.
Not all. But there are late fees, refunds, profits lost because your ship now has to travel a larger route and can therefore take fewer roubdtrips, increasing costs per roundtrip due to the longer route etc.. If we just assume a meager 1% actual loss, the concrete would be worth it in two hours. Even with the remaining expenses due to work, this should pay for itself rather quickly.
Quite a lot of shipped goods have tight delivery schedules requirements.
There are fees associated with lateness.
So clearly we just need.to find some sand beavers.
Lot of heavy containers that aren’t being used at the moment.
How would you remove such a dam? Sounds like it'd take weeks to build and weeks to remove?
Cofferdam are temporarily dams.
Biggest issues seem to be building ( and logistics) + deconstructing. But i saw an estimate of a cofferdam for a bridge of 640 meters ( but less deep and with a single crane) of 16 days.
Biggest issues seem to be building ( and logistics) + deconstructing. But i saw an estimate of a cofferdam for a bridge of 640 meters ( but less deep and with a single crane) of 16 days.
They need to give that canal some serious laxatives to flush that ship out. ;-]
But seriously, it looks like dredging or a king tide will be needed to get that ship flushed out of there.
Btw, it takes roughly 9-10 additional days to navigate a ship around the horn so ships would be better off steaming the long way around if time is critical.
But seriously, it looks like dredging or a king tide will be needed to get that ship flushed out of there.
Btw, it takes roughly 9-10 additional days to navigate a ship around the horn so ships would be better off steaming the long way around if time is critical.
The economic fallout will be big and it gets worse day by day. And we weren't exactly in the best shape to begin with...
Suez canal seems to be a Single Point of Failure.
Suez canal seems to be a Single Point of Failure.
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.
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.
From orbit.
It makes you wonder if anyone has an old aircraft carrier they'd be willing to use as a battering ram. Try to hit it towards the bow to dislodge it.
And if that ram breaks you'll not just have a giant container ship stuck there, but a bloody aircraft carrier as well. :D
Newport News Shipbuilding had the old Enterprise CVN 65. May be slightly contaminated.
With so many ships going through every day for decades it’s a wonder this never happened before.
We’ve had ships this big only for a few years.
In its simplest form, Murphy's Law states: If anything can go wrong, it will.
Which is what fraction of what the Fed is lending. Problem solved.
That figure is for the value of goods that traverse the canal, not the closed cost. The canal generated 5.61 billion USD in 2020 [0] so it is costing them 15 million dollars a day in lost revenue.
For the shipping companies, they can still go around Africa and the cost of doing that is probably only a little higher than paying the toll as Egypt wants to extract as much money as they can without pricing it over the cost of going around Africa otherwise the shipping companies would just do that in the first place.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#:~:text=I....
For the shipping companies, they can still go around Africa and the cost of doing that is probably only a little higher than paying the toll as Egypt wants to extract as much money as they can without pricing it over the cost of going around Africa otherwise the shipping companies would just do that in the first place.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#:~:text=I....
Slice the containers into three pieces. Take each piece by helicopter. It would probably take a month.
People think I'm joking but we should bomb it to smithereens. The crater would probably just fill up with the water flow.
Oregon tried that with a dead beached whale 50 years ago. Results hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLumsir34
Not enough bomb :[
If this had gotten stuck in 1960s Russia they would have done that already.
And 70 years later the radiation levels would be getting back to normal.
Can use this to avoid radiation :]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs
Ironically, the blast radius of that thing is still smaller than the ship that would need to be blown up. If you really want to clear the canal with an explosion, it would have to be one large enough to vaporize the ship, making sure there's no debris in the canal afterwards.
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How many tons of explosives would be required to "bomb it to smithereens" without leaving wreckage that blocks the canal? Please calculate and show your work.
This was my idea but I figured I’d get laughed out of the comments. Glad I’m not the only one considering it.
> Look at some of the photos of the front of it. Look at how far out of the water it is sitting.
I'm curious how much of this is hightide vs low. If the photo is taken at low tide you have about 1.7m drop on the stern which is going to make it look far more stuck. While if the photo is at high tide, wow.
> And what happens when that causes you to rip a hole into the hull of the ship?
I cant see sand friction ripping a hole in the steel unless there are rocks in the mix. I think the bigger risk is cracking the hull if there is too much weight at the front vs displacing this across the entire hull.
> I don't think you realize the infrastructure required to unload a ship.
To this, while absolutely it huge infrastructure Im assuming they only intends to reduce weight, not unload. So some crane choppers or whatever can make a big difference taking off 5% of containers type thing. I even wonder if they want to keep the back loaded to effectively life the front... but that might exacerbate the risk of hull breakage?
I'm curious how much of this is hightide vs low. If the photo is taken at low tide you have about 1.7m drop on the stern which is going to make it look far more stuck. While if the photo is at high tide, wow.
> And what happens when that causes you to rip a hole into the hull of the ship?
I cant see sand friction ripping a hole in the steel unless there are rocks in the mix. I think the bigger risk is cracking the hull if there is too much weight at the front vs displacing this across the entire hull.
> I don't think you realize the infrastructure required to unload a ship.
To this, while absolutely it huge infrastructure Im assuming they only intends to reduce weight, not unload. So some crane choppers or whatever can make a big difference taking off 5% of containers type thing. I even wonder if they want to keep the back loaded to effectively life the front... but that might exacerbate the risk of hull breakage?
> It's really stuck. It's probably going to take a couple of weeks to get it unstuck.
My armchair engineering would dump a load of salt into the water to increase buoyancy of the ship long enough for the tugs to get some momentum with less effort than currently.
That would be my cheap try solution to help the tugs that have already hit there limit so why not change the physics and add a load of salt.
My armchair engineering would dump a load of salt into the water to increase buoyancy of the ship long enough for the tugs to get some momentum with less effort than currently.
That would be my cheap try solution to help the tugs that have already hit there limit so why not change the physics and add a load of salt.
You could increase the buoyancy by something like 230 kilograms per cubic meter if you fully saturate it on a hot day, but I suppose you'd have to dam up both sides to keep the brine from washing away.
At this scale, even air pressure would be a factor, I'd presume a higher air pressure would be more conducive as large surface area of the water than the ship, though might be wrong.
Would that level of salinity be harmful once it reaches the sea?
Assuming you narrowly dam up the canal near the ship to contain the brine, no I don't think so. Seawater is 3% saline and saturated brine is 26% saline, so you'd probably have sufficient mixing within the canal itself once you open the dams. The canal is 120 miles long and I can't imagine you'd dam up more than a third of a mile at maximum. But it would take a whole hell of a lot of salt.
Yes since the salinity transfer from the canal into the Mediterranean Sea is already enough to make species from the Red Sea colonize the east Mediterranean. The Aswan dam reduced further the amount of freshwater coming to the area. So I would guess adding more salt wouldn’t be too good for the eastern Mediterranean.
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 tsuanmi which might not work well for the ships in it's path and may well cause another to get stuck.
So, more a form of quick kick to aid in getting the tugs an initial bite and a quick dislodge, however small, would only help and may well tip the balance.
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 tsuanmi which might not work well for the ships in it's path and may well cause another to get stuck.
So, more a form of quick kick to aid in getting the tugs an initial bite and a quick dislodge, however small, would only help and may well tip the balance.
> a few lorry loads on the edge they are trying to pull
My intuition is that at the scale of ship, and the canal, “a few lorry loads” is not going to have any noticeable effect.
My intuition is that at the scale of ship, and the canal, “a few lorry loads” is not going to have any noticeable effect.
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.
For kick of initial momentum, I suggest nuclear weapons.
Actually, double that weight. The ship weighs well over 200,000 tons.
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wouldn't too much salt damage the ship/make it rust?
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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.
Agreed.
Though, to be fair, even the CEO of Flexport initially dismissed this, saying "I assume they'll have it fixed in a day or two. And anyways there's such a backlog of ships waiting to unload at the ports of arrival that it probably won't even impact the transit times of the cargo." https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1374501965418352640
Though, to be fair, even the CEO of Flexport initially dismissed this, saying "I assume they'll have it fixed in a day or two. And anyways there's such a backlog of ships waiting to unload at the ports of arrival that it probably won't even impact the transit times of the cargo." https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1374501965418352640
Unloading it may be exactly what happens (based on comments from the Dutch salvage company brought in to deal with the mess). And yeah, it's going to take weeks (best case scenario).
I'm not familiar with shipping, but I would guess there are some type of crane ships which could be dispatched along with barges to slowly offload some of the container. Obviously it is going to take some time mustering all these specialized craft and specialists on location.
What's with the many joucular/tounge-in-cheek posts on this thread..
What's with the many joucular/tounge-in-cheek posts on this thread..
In an emergency situation like this: could they not use helicopters to lift containers off of the ship and just stack them next to the canal until they've freed the ship?
Seems pretty quick to setup and do assuming there are helicopters that can move that weight.
Seems pretty quick to setup and do assuming there are helicopters that can move that weight.
Containers are 2 (20ft) or 4 (40ft) tonnes (roughly) unloaded.
And they can (if I remember right) contain 20 tonnes or so, of cargo.
Our current chinooks can handle 10 tonnes, and the old models could carry 4, if I recall.
And probably less in desert heat.
So helicopters will not be moving any containers
And they can (if I remember right) contain 20 tonnes or so, of cargo.
Our current chinooks can handle 10 tonnes, and the old models could carry 4, if I recall.
And probably less in desert heat.
So helicopters will not be moving any containers
Can’t we just dig a new canal?
Theoretically, yes. Practically, removing this ship is faster and cheaper.
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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.
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.
Since the sides of the channel are much more shallow than the middle, it's not floating in the water as both ends of the ship are stuck on the bottom.
Is it possible to weld a large steel wire onto the ship and use some sort of explosive to pull it out of the sand?
I’m thinking a complex series of pulleys and chains set up and attached to the Great Pyramids of Giza and then like a tooth tied to a string and door - attach the chains to some of Elon’s rockets and pull that ship loose.
At the level of [un]reality in many of the comments under OP, actually the Great Pyramids were built off-site and then dragged to their present locations.
> It would be pretty cool to use the same technique that was use to build the pyramids.
I'm not saying it was aliens, but... it was aliens.
I'm not saying it was aliens, but... it was aliens.
Okay hear me out:
Somebody call Elon. Get the TBMs, and set them to work building a tunnel under the ship.
Now fill the tunnel with giant rubber bladders.
Call the Saudis and have them start shipping over helium. Fill the bladders with helium.
Okay, keep the saudis around and get them to bring over one of the high pressure water drilling rigs that they use for oil. Start digging out the sand above the bladders, and float them up to be UNDER the ship.
Okay now call the Dutch. Get them to bring over some MASSIVE water pumps and some damming equipment. The two guys on excavators can help. Dam up the canal on both sides of the ship, and pump out all the water.
The bladders become rollers. Roll that ship back into the middle of the canal.
Okay now repump the canal, and float the ship away. Bam. Done!
Somebody call Elon. Get the TBMs, and set them to work building a tunnel under the ship.
Now fill the tunnel with giant rubber bladders.
Call the Saudis and have them start shipping over helium. Fill the bladders with helium.
Okay, keep the saudis around and get them to bring over one of the high pressure water drilling rigs that they use for oil. Start digging out the sand above the bladders, and float them up to be UNDER the ship.
Okay now call the Dutch. Get them to bring over some MASSIVE water pumps and some damming equipment. The two guys on excavators can help. Dam up the canal on both sides of the ship, and pump out all the water.
The bladders become rollers. Roll that ship back into the middle of the canal.
Okay now repump the canal, and float the ship away. Bam. Done!
> Get them to bring over some MASSIVE water pumps and some damming equipment.
If you had this, then I would damn each side and pump water INTO that space. Raise water level, ship frees. Boom
If you had this, then I would damn each side and pump water INTO that space. Raise water level, ship frees. Boom
Chicago1992 is standing by ready to donate air mattresses.
Apparently it wasn’t that hard after all. HackerNews people are not shipping experts.
Not saying it can work in this scenario, but I think salvagers have used pneumatic devices to float and or manoeuver derelict ships.
>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 really stuck.
Not just that, but don't forget the inertia. The moment the ship gets unstuck the force needed to get it moving, multiplied with the ship's huge mass would create such a huge momentum that it would be very hard to stop it from hitting the other shore with the stern.
Not just that, but don't forget the inertia. The moment the ship gets unstuck the force needed to get it moving, multiplied with the ship's huge mass would create such a huge momentum that it would be very hard to stop it from hitting the other shore with the stern.
The hull looks pretty tough but it's gonna be a job getting enough pull to drag the thing.
Couldn't we just place dynamite near the front and use the explosion to push the ship off the sand/rocks and back into the water?
...
/s
...
/s
> It's probably going to take a couple of weeks to get it unstuck.
You're an optimist, that's for sure.
You're an optimist, that's for sure.
Seems like the risk assessment wasn't good if hitting the bank results in this kind of outcome.
It is really pretty amazing that this hasn't happened with more frequency in the past.
Dumb question but what about heavy lift helicopters moving containers off 1 by 1?
There are 20,000 containers on the ship. Assuming you needed to remove 1/4 of those containers to get it to rise far enough to get off of the sand, you need to move 5000 containers.
Assume that it takes 5 minute to connect a bridle to a container, hook it to a helicopter, and move it...and then also assume that the helicopters can run 24/7 and never have to refuel, that they can hot swap in pilots, and that there is never a single problem, you're talking about 25000 minutes, or about 17 days of absolutely non stop running helicopters.
And that only gets you 1/4 of the containers, and it might not even work at all.
(It's not a dumb question, and I'm sure that it was already discussed by the team who is dealing with this. It's just that the scale of what is happening here is restrictive.)
Assume that it takes 5 minute to connect a bridle to a container, hook it to a helicopter, and move it...and then also assume that the helicopters can run 24/7 and never have to refuel, that they can hot swap in pilots, and that there is never a single problem, you're talking about 25000 minutes, or about 17 days of absolutely non stop running helicopters.
And that only gets you 1/4 of the containers, and it might not even work at all.
(It's not a dumb question, and I'm sure that it was already discussed by the team who is dealing with this. It's just that the scale of what is happening here is restrictive.)
Just a small correction: 20.000 TEU is not the same as the amount of containers. TEU is the number of twenty foot equivalent. There will be enough 40 foot containers on there. If it was going to Europe there will hardly be any empty containers.
Amount of actual containers is probably the 20.000 divided by 1.6 or so, though it's not a given that any vessel is fully loaded to max capacity. Sometimes need to deal with restrictions.
Amount of actual containers is probably the 20.000 divided by 1.6 or so, though it's not a given that any vessel is fully loaded to max capacity. Sometimes need to deal with restrictions.
The weight is more of an issue. Heavy lift helis cannot lift a fully loaded 20ft container (weighing up to 67,000lbs), let alone a 40 footer.
"up to"
Those heavy ones would be evenly distributed in the bottom of the hold, down below the water line. Low-weight ones are on top, for ship stability.
Those heavy ones would be evenly distributed in the bottom of the hold, down below the water line. Low-weight ones are on top, for ship stability.
You'd also need a helicopter than can lift containers that heavy, which might be a long shot.
We really are bad at dealing with large numbers. 20 000 does not seem that much when it’s just written that way. Even looking at the pictures, this is a lot of containers, but the efforts needed to get them out of that ship are hard to imagine.
Just going off "count the candy in the jar" math from this image: https://static.vesselfinder.net/ship-photo/9811000-353136000...?
It appears to be roughly 7 x 20 x 25 containers, or 3500... (height x width x length.)
EDIT: Freezing this video I got a better view of how it's stacked today. I'm sure this is imperfect, like I said trying to count candy in a jar. But I'm curious what the real number of containers is!
H X W X L
10 X 23 X 25 ~= 5750
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship/beac...
It appears to be roughly 7 x 20 x 25 containers, or 3500... (height x width x length.)
EDIT: Freezing this video I got a better view of how it's stacked today. I'm sure this is imperfect, like I said trying to count candy in a jar. But I'm curious what the real number of containers is!
H X W X L
10 X 23 X 25 ~= 5750
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship/beac...
Your height number is off by a factor of 2; a significant factor of container storage on these large container ships is below the deck. It isn't uncommon for these large ships to have 9 to 12 containers stacked on top of eachother before the stack reaches above the deck and becomes visible from the side.
The ship is 400 meters long, you can take off multiple containers in parallel along the ship. I'd guess 4 at once.
Multithreading!
How many copters are you assuming?
Most heavy lift helicopters don't really go above 20 tons takeoff weight, while even a 20 foot container has a max allowable weight well above that. Most shipping containers will the 40 footers, so helicopters will probably be a no-go. There's also 20k of them so it would take quite a while.
That said, taking off some containers is a viable option but it'll probably have to wait for a crane ship to arrive.
That said, taking off some containers is a viable option but it'll probably have to wait for a crane ship to arrive.
The biggest choppers in the world can only lift about 20 tonnes. 20 foot containers max gross is 25 tonnes, and 40 foot containers even more.
Typically an empty 20 foot shipping container weighs between 1.8-2.2 metric tonnes (about 3,970 - 4,850 lb) and an empty 40 foot shipping container weighs 3.8 - 4.2 tonne (8,340 - 9,260 lb) depending on what kind of container it is. For example, high cube containers tend to be heavier.
Why would these containers be empty?
Yes, especially with the container shortage[1] reported earlier this week, I would be very surprised if empty containers are being sent away from where there already is a shortage.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574077
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574077
They might be empty if it had been going the other way through the canal.
Based on the information on Wikipedia, it sounds like the ship could potentially hold more than 20,000 containers. Assuming I'm understanding the article correctly, that'd be a lot of containers to move 1-by-1.
If it's fully loaded, that'd be something like ten thousand 40' containers to move.
Hooking them up to a helicopter would be a slow, dangerous process as well.
Hooking them up to a helicopter would be a slow, dangerous process as well.
It has 20,000 TEUs (twenty-foot-container-equivalent-units).
Weight-wise, the average container could be lifted with a military heavy lift helicopter: The ship carries 20,000 tons, i.e. 1 ton per TEU, and a CH-47F can lift 11 tons. Although a TEU can weigh up to 26 tons, so you couldn't lift the heaviest ones.
The problem is speed: A ship-to-shore crane at a properly equipped port can do a lift every 2 minutes. Ports can speed things up by lifting several TEUs in a single lift - but you'd also expect a helicopter to be slower, because we haven't put decades of optimisation into the process. So let's assume those cancel each other out.
If they can keep up that rate with a helicopter, and they operate 24 hours a day, it would take 28 days to unload the ship.
Weight-wise, the average container could be lifted with a military heavy lift helicopter: The ship carries 20,000 tons, i.e. 1 ton per TEU, and a CH-47F can lift 11 tons. Although a TEU can weigh up to 26 tons, so you couldn't lift the heaviest ones.
The problem is speed: A ship-to-shore crane at a properly equipped port can do a lift every 2 minutes. Ports can speed things up by lifting several TEUs in a single lift - but you'd also expect a helicopter to be slower, because we haven't put decades of optimisation into the process. So let's assume those cancel each other out.
If they can keep up that rate with a helicopter, and they operate 24 hours a day, it would take 28 days to unload the ship.
Why is everyone assuming that we can do only one container at once? The ship is long, at least few can be done in parallel.
Outside of Vietnam war movies, it's very unusual to see helicopters flying in close proximity.
I suppose it's possible you could find a bunch of pilots confident in cargo handling, landing on ships, and close formation flight all at once. Or that the ship is large enough the helicopters would practically be independent of one another?
I suppose it's possible you could find a bunch of pilots confident in cargo handling, landing on ships, and close formation flight all at once. Or that the ship is large enough the helicopters would practically be independent of one another?
Containers are apparently quite heavy. No helicopter currently in production can lift the weight of a fully loaded container on its own.
https://www.aerotime.aero/27542-Could-helicopters-solve-the-...
It's a lot of containers.
You don't need to remove all of them? Just get it light enough to float it?
Removing 10% of containers by helicopter also would take unreasonable time, removing 1% of containers might be plausible but I don't think it would make enough of a difference to justify the risks.
Helicopters also have limited capacity. So it's not like you could pick up the heaviest first. Which brings back the issue of sheer quantity.
docker-compose down ?
it's a quarter mile long. You can probably have 10 helicopters working at once while still keeping safe distances.
Each helicopter has a crew of 4 on the boat and 4 on the shore. They hook 4 chains to the 4 corner hoists of each container. Say it takes 1 minutes per container to affix the chains, 1 minute to fly to the sand, 1 minute to unhitch, and 1 minute to fly back. Thats a lot slower than agricultural helicopters, but nobody will be very practiced with this yet, so it'll be slower.
The entire ship could be unloaded with this method in 5.5 days. Perhaps less if not all the cargo needs unloading.
The job could be half done by now...
Each helicopter has a crew of 4 on the boat and 4 on the shore. They hook 4 chains to the 4 corner hoists of each container. Say it takes 1 minutes per container to affix the chains, 1 minute to fly to the sand, 1 minute to unhitch, and 1 minute to fly back. Thats a lot slower than agricultural helicopters, but nobody will be very practiced with this yet, so it'll be slower.
The entire ship could be unloaded with this method in 5.5 days. Perhaps less if not all the cargo needs unloading.
The job could be half done by now...
The worlds highest capacity heavy lift chopper (M-26, of which there are 20 operational) has a max take off weight of 44k lbs. A standard 40 ft. container can be loaded to a gross weight of 66k lbs.
It takes a purpose built crane a few minutes to unload a container, so I sort of doubt a helicopter could make it happen faster.
It takes a purpose built crane a few minutes to unload a container, so I sort of doubt a helicopter could make it happen faster.
Mi-26 has record of 56 tons lifted: https://www.fai.org/record/2174
Although I suspect you don't want to repeat that trick too many times without serious inspection/maintenance.
Although I suspect you don't want to repeat that trick too many times without serious inspection/maintenance.
Well, 56 tons in cold Russia is not AT ALL the same thing as 56 tons in Egypt. Maybe if you wait for winter?
The Mi-26 is still in production, so you could replace them with brand new ones outright.
A quarter of a mile long is a huge ship. Damn. Never really got that until now.
Coincidentally a quarter of a mile (400m) is also the length of those oval tracks around soccer fields in Europe. we used to run on them a lot in PE back in high school.
Same in the US for the tracks surrounding football fields (and soccer fields too, for that matter).
It’s really tall as well. You can’t take any quickly assembled crane to unload that.
About the height of the empire state building
Or, depending on how quick it really is, it could take months. Its easy to arm-chair speculate.
[deleted]
There are helicopters that I think can be used for (un)loading containers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
Seems to have a max take off weight of 19 tons by the look of it. The heli itself weights about 9 of those tons already, which leaves 10 tons of leeway. Those containers, from what I've read around here, can be well above 30 tons each. So that sounds like a no go. Also, they built only 31 of those helis in total according to wikipedia.
Aha, OK, I didn't realize the copter itself was included in the 19 tons.
I also saw someone mentioning 40 feet containers weighing up to max 9000 lb (ca 4 tons), but not sure it is a relevant or applicable number.
I also saw someone mentioning 40 feet containers weighing up to max 9000 lb (ca 4 tons), but not sure it is a relevant or applicable number.
And 20k containers. I guess they don't have to offload all of them, but still it is hard to imagine numbers this large.
Oh look! Everyone in these comments was way off. They dredged some sand and dragged it off - after days, not weeks.
I now wonder how regularly Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs for people on HN, really.
I now wonder how regularly Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs for people on HN, really.
Love the armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies
Just let the air out of the tires, simple.
Just bring in a Bagger 288[1] and use it to excavate a new diversion canal in front of the ship long enough to get it out of the main canal, bada-bing bada-boom. Simple!
[1]Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow
[1]Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow
That beast is really outstanding and would probably be able to do the job in reasonable time. This machine is so insanely large, it would fit into any sci-fi movie. The craziest thing is, some years back it was driven over a distance of 22 kilometers cross country to a different site, which was just mindblowing.
Put balloons around it to give extra buoyancy. That should work.
That actually is something that you can do in smaller salvage operations. The technical word for these balloons is lift bag.
I searched for the biggest ones I could find this week and it was something like several tons. So we only need about 10 thousand of them.
And the key words are "smaller salvage operations".
Or with crabs, potc style! /s
Why don't they just give me a long enough lever so I can simply lift the ship out of the canal?
Put huge hydraulic cylinders below the ship. The obvious problem is, what are those cylinders anchored to?
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.
Cunningham's Law: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
> It makes for interesting threads.
The threads are not particularly interesting because people make the same suggestions over and over again.
The threads are not particularly interesting because people make the same suggestions over and over again.
So far I haven't really seen any other suggestions saying to cut the bolbous bow off. The ship can still sail without it.
This is how every post and comment works on HN.
It's pretty great. I hope this serves as a lesson to some people
"If these jokers will talk this much about this even though they clearly know nothing at all about the tech involved, what does that say about their comments on all the other threads here?"
"If these jokers will talk this much about this even though they clearly know nothing at all about the tech involved, what does that say about their comments on all the other threads here?"
Also known as the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
In that case... why don’t we get Elon Musk’s Submarine to get it out?
I bet they could hook up a bunch of Falcon-9's or Super Heavies to the ship and launch it into orbit.
That's a pay per view event waiting to happen.
It's hilariously arrogant too.
I feel like we need a "why don't you just?" safe word, where the intent is to signify "hey I'm not being a smartass, I'm really just curious about why this seemingly simple solution won't actually work".
So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith that it makes it really hard to just have innocent conversations without being misunderstood. :-(
So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith that it makes it really hard to just have innocent conversations without being misunderstood. :-(
> So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith
... and I have to admit I’m still not able to easily recognize the difference between bad faith and utter lack of experience and/or intelligence without digging deep into the history of the individual posting such “questions”.
And the need for that extra digging makes such questions effectively the same waste of time and emotional energy as responding to a troll.
... and I have to admit I’m still not able to easily recognize the difference between bad faith and utter lack of experience and/or intelligence without digging deep into the history of the individual posting such “questions”.
And the need for that extra digging makes such questions effectively the same waste of time and emotional energy as responding to a troll.
You don’t need to do the digging if you follow the rules of the site, which include interpreting others’ comments as charitably as possible.
Same. It's super easy to know when I am communicating in good faith, but it's not so trivial to know when you are.
You know those scenes in the movies where two characters circle around each other giving the side eye like "so are you fucking with me or are we cool?"
Twitter in particular feels like a whole site of people doing that. :)
You know those scenes in the movies where two characters circle around each other giving the side eye like "so are you fucking with me or are we cool?"
Twitter in particular feels like a whole site of people doing that. :)
Agreed. I’ve thought the same for posting an interesting fact. Anymore, I want to preface every single one by saying, “hey, you may already know this; I’m just sharing it because it hasn’t been mentioned yet and I think it’s neat. If you were implying the fact already, I apologize for overlooking that.”
Why dont you just coin a new phrase? Perhaps it'll stick.
Because if it doesn’t stick, everyone else will just think you’re annoying (like the “fetch” girl in Mean Girls).
I've actually seen literal quotes before, e.g. a question like:
"Why don't you just" get a bunch of people on rafts and row real fast to push it off?
"Why don't you just" get a bunch of people on rafts and row real fast to push it off?
"Why is the following wrong:"
"What's the problem with"
"What's the problem with training every pigeon in the world to grab on and fly it out of there?"
"Why is the following wrong: They could get a shitload of muskrats and have them dig out the banks?"
Etc. Suggestions made obviously ridiculous.
"What's the problem with"
"What's the problem with training every pigeon in the world to grab on and fly it out of there?"
"Why is the following wrong: They could get a shitload of muskrats and have them dig out the banks?"
Etc. Suggestions made obviously ridiculous.
What do you think people at "billion dollar companies" do in such situation?
Exactly the same thing. Just not on a public board. Just like everyone else is doing when discussing problems they face in any line of work.
Since it's unlikely anyone here has any decision making power relevant to the Suez canal, look at this discussion as an exercise in group problem solving. Sharpening the saw.
Exactly the same thing. Just not on a public board. Just like everyone else is doing when discussing problems they face in any line of work.
Since it's unlikely anyone here has any decision making power relevant to the Suez canal, look at this discussion as an exercise in group problem solving. Sharpening the saw.
> Exactly the same thing.
Not exactly-exactly. There are (e.g.) 1000 suggested solutions.
950/1000 of them are silly, stupid, impossible, -facepalm-, etc.
25/1000 are doable.
10/25 are doable and cost less than the other 25
5/10 are faster than others
2/5 are actively being investigated, and of course they won't be announced to 'us'. They (thinkers/engineers/specialists) will have to talk to their CEOs/COOs/CFOs, insurance companies, Egypt's military, handlersof the canal, and a bunch of other key stakeholders.
(my ratios are pure guesstimates, but it makes sense that there is a selection process, and we won't figure them out from our couches)
Not exactly-exactly. There are (e.g.) 1000 suggested solutions.
950/1000 of them are silly, stupid, impossible, -facepalm-, etc.
25/1000 are doable.
10/25 are doable and cost less than the other 25
5/10 are faster than others
2/5 are actively being investigated, and of course they won't be announced to 'us'. They (thinkers/engineers/specialists) will have to talk to their CEOs/COOs/CFOs, insurance companies, Egypt's military, handlersof the canal, and a bunch of other key stakeholders.
(my ratios are pure guesstimates, but it makes sense that there is a selection process, and we won't figure them out from our couches)
And some that are doable will not be safe enough.
Maybe but maybe not.
Like the parent comment said, it’s a way of thinking out loud.
For e.g., when someone says “just dig it out, it just pull it away...”, I give them a benefit of doubt by assuming what they are really saying is “I know it’s not as simple as just pulling it out but can someone explain why we can’t though?”
Like the parent comment said, it’s a way of thinking out loud.
For e.g., when someone says “just dig it out, it just pull it away...”, I give them a benefit of doubt by assuming what they are really saying is “I know it’s not as simple as just pulling it out but can someone explain why we can’t though?”
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That's what some scientists said about mRNA research
If this was space engineers I would build a crane drone and offload it unto nearby ships. Or build giant trucks to help the ship get unstuck.
Or just tow it outside the environment...
Or just tow it outside the environment...
> Or just tow it outside the environment...
For those who haven't seen this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
For those who haven't seen this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
Where is Elon when you need him?
That ship is never going to fit in that submarine.
How many Raptor engines would we need here?...
We have the luxury of just throwing around ideas and not caring about the consequences (because nobody in power will read it). It's just fun to think about how you'd solve a problem like this.
For example I'd try to attach a two Raptor engines to the ship and blow it back to the water :)
For example I'd try to attach a two Raptor engines to the ship and blow it back to the water :)
Or tear the ship apart :). Which makes me think - why not cut the ship in half? Two pieces will be easier to dislodge and tow away :).
Someone actually is trying that idea in Georgia right now (https://www.thedrive.com/news/34648/capsized-cargo-ship-in-g...) but it really is not easy!
Many likely problems: equipment avilability to do so, time it will take, debris falling off and from the operations, risk of capsizing, probably need to load pieces on barges/crane but canal is not much large
Many likely problems: equipment avilability to do so, time it will take, debris falling off and from the operations, risk of capsizing, probably need to load pieces on barges/crane but canal is not much large
in half? I would not go for less than nine pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ENOJBLVgjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ENOJBLVgjw
What a fascinating watch! That they were able to produce such clean cuts through the entire ship with the cutting wire is absolutely incredible.
The salvage company hired to fix this problem is probably just reading this thread and nodding along like yeah that could work. Great idea HN!
but did they try turning it off and on again?
The canal or the ship?
Maybe if you kill the ship it respawns at its port of origin?
Maybe if you kill the ship it respawns at its port of origin?
[deleted]
That's how a lot of billion dollar companies got started.
I think there's still room for suggesting potential solutions that might work, even if they make the operation of the cargo ship (even more?) unprofitable for its owners.
That said, the ones mentioned there don't pass the smell test.
That said, the ones mentioned there don't pass the smell test.
Detonate a small but still relatively powerful bomb upstream (or maybe multiple small but staggered ones), to create a small tsunami-like wave, which in turn will move at least the ship's aft/stern (as the ship creates in the canal a "V"-like shape which will therefore concentrate most of the wave's force in that area) when it hits it. Almost guaranteed to work, theoretically.
Or more likely, it will break the hull apart and then there are 5000 containers stuck in the bottom of the canal.
IIRC the banks of the canal aren't very high above the water level.
Raising the banks for say 1/2 mile on either end of the ship might not be impossible? Maybe?
So you are complaining that on a startup forum people are trying to solve billion dollar questions?
Besides, billion dollar companies often miss things. Yes, they have the more relevant experts and much better data than we, but they have to content with internal and external politics and have fewer people throwing around ideas. Sometimes the answer is to "why haven't you done X" is simply "nobody with a voice to be heard had that idea". If billion dollar companies were the infallible giants you make them out to be then startups straight up couldn't work.
Besides, billion dollar companies often miss things. Yes, they have the more relevant experts and much better data than we, but they have to content with internal and external politics and have fewer people throwing around ideas. Sometimes the answer is to "why haven't you done X" is simply "nobody with a voice to be heard had that idea". If billion dollar companies were the infallible giants you make them out to be then startups straight up couldn't work.
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> 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 <x> 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 many bores in this thread.
I don't think this latter group _seriously_ thinks they know better than experts, and I have found the various ideas and counterarguments interesting to read.
There are 2 types of armchair engineers.
The ones who sneer and say, "If they just <x> 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 many bores in this thread.
I don't think this latter group _seriously_ thinks they know better than experts, and I have found the various ideas and counterarguments interesting to read.
Congrats! You've discovered that engineers like to stretch their imaginations and theorize about solutions to problems for their own fun and enjoyment
Yes, most here are armchair engineers, though quite a few actual engineers around, so you never know. But the embarassing point is: the billion dollar companies currently also don't seem to have an idea about the possible solution :p. I am pretty optimistic that they will come up with a reasonable plan soon, but there is a nonzero chance that someone here will come up with a good idea. Sometimes it quite helps to be at a distance.
From the actual engineers
https://www.tradewindsnews.com/casualties/salvors-warn-ever-...
https://www.tradewindsnews.com/casualties/salvors-warn-ever-...
Billion dollar companies are filled with people. Nothing special about billion dollar companies except money. I wish money equated to great ideas.
Outfits like SMIT also have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, plus some equipment.
Why didn't anyone think of this before? Internet commenting is over folks. This guy realised its not productive.
I assume you're The Person that Googles the answer to every discussion you have with your friends rather than having a little fun with it.
It's entertaining. I think a big winch or two to drag it off.
Proposing ideas shouldn’t be taken as suggesting that the poster is confident the ideas are correct, but rather as an invitation to talk through whether it would work and maybe learn something interesting.
xwdv(1)
Why not just CUT IT APART and clean up the mess after?
Like this: https://jalopnik.com/a-chain-just-cut-through-a-capsized-car...
Like this: https://jalopnik.com/a-chain-just-cut-through-a-capsized-car...
>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.
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.
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.
One would expect lightest containers on top, heaviest at the bottom. CH53 can lift 15ton, so probably it can unload several top layers.
Just set up a ski lift-like structure on both sides of a canal, and run it with containers instead of skiers
You can't possibly have 10 helis safely unloading cargo at once from a single ship, that'd be an invitation for disaster. Also, doing that in the dark would simply not work. 10 sorties/hour is also unrealistic; with proper cranes and infrastructure at port it would take something like 10 minutes, with choppers it would take more time.
IMHO if helis would even work (which is debatable and debated here), the optimistic estimate is that you could unload something like 20 containers per hour, 300 containers per day, so 30 days for the cargo. It seems plausible that you can dredge the banks and drag the ship out much quicker than that.
IMHO if helis would even work (which is debatable and debated here), the optimistic estimate is that you could unload something like 20 containers per hour, 300 containers per day, so 30 days for the cargo. It seems plausible that you can dredge the banks and drag the ship out much quicker than that.
>You can't possibly have 10 helis safely unloading cargo at once from a single ship
5 loading at a time, while the other 5 unloading on the ground - plenty of space as ship is 1300 feet long.
> doing that in the dark would simply not work
you flood the ship and the space around with light. Almost 30 years ago we did a night ship unload at an unprepared location - no issues.
>10 sorties/hour is also unrealistic
doing it with crane we did about 15+ - we weren't union operation though - we were paid for performance, not time :) and being young we were moving fast. With chopper not much different if weather is ok.
5 loading at a time, while the other 5 unloading on the ground - plenty of space as ship is 1300 feet long.
> doing that in the dark would simply not work
you flood the ship and the space around with light. Almost 30 years ago we did a night ship unload at an unprepared location - no issues.
>10 sorties/hour is also unrealistic
doing it with crane we did about 15+ - we weren't union operation though - we were paid for performance, not time :) and being young we were moving fast. With chopper not much different if weather is ok.
This ship thing is a perfect metaphor for the current US government.
Military does it all the time with helicopters. Not cheap or easy but probably the most likely outcome
Dumb question: How about evacuating and then blowing up the ship?
Yes, the loss of the ship and all its cargo will be immense, but that seems to be dwarfed by the damage the blocked canal causes.
Yes, the loss of the ship and all its cargo will be immense, but that seems to be dwarfed by the damage the blocked canal causes.
Then how do you clean up 220,000 tons of debris?
Turns out: the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out. And its already packed and loaded.
Turns out: the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out. And its already packed and loaded.
I mean, the 220,000 tons of debris are at least not a single solid object - so maybe they'd be moved by the current (if there is any) or could be pushed to the sides by smaller vessels. Then the actual cleanup can happen while the canal is already back in operation.
> the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out.
Well, evidently not if it is stuck.
> the container ship __itself__ is the easiest way to move all of that debris out.
Well, evidently not if it is stuck.
You'd need a nuclear-level explosion to blow this ship up into small, practically movable pieces that aren't connected anymore. Everything on that ship is steel. Conventional explosions would just blow a few holes in it, and deform everything enough that moving things becomes impossible.
> You'd need a nuclear-level explosion
Yup.
...I mean, come on. After the last five years, it wouldn't even be the craziest thing to happen.
I admit, fallout could be a problem though, especially with all the other ships in close proximity.
Yup.
...I mean, come on. After the last five years, it wouldn't even be the craziest thing to happen.
I admit, fallout could be a problem though, especially with all the other ships in close proximity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads
A nuclear explosion probably would damage the canal itself. But its said that USS LSM-60's pieces were never found again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LSM-60
Just 170 yards away was USS Arkansas, a battleship. The hull mostly survived (though was deformed and melted).
A nuclear explosion probably would damage the canal itself. But its said that USS LSM-60's pieces were never found again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LSM-60
Just 170 yards away was USS Arkansas, a battleship. The hull mostly survived (though was deformed and melted).
Build a huge cover all around the ship, plant the nuke under the keel, boom we have a splash and the ship evaporates , canal is deeper and wider there
Bunch of these ?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs
Won't work. Thermobaric weapons are very good at killing people, and breaking equipment, but aren't particularly good at evacuating material.
I was going by the amount of tnt/bomb payload. It’s about 44 tonnes of tnt.
Yup, I get it. The energy released by a thermobaric weapon is spread out over a very, very large distance. Inside the blast, people will be killed and equipment will be rendered interoperable by the extreme temperature and the over pressure. Outside the blast you have a very strong (but subsonic) blast wave. But inside the blast, the pressure will envelope stuff, and push on it from both sides. With regards to blasting away a very large ship, thermobaric weapons are not particularly effective.
I understand that it’s not the ideal bomb, but it’s the strongest non nuclear option. Enough of these bombs could disappear the ship and the debris
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A pile of steel that used to be a ship, won't float anymore. It would have to get dredged out of the canal piece by piece.
you just have to blow it up REALLY HARD
Like that old Mythbusters episode where they blow up a car twice
I think the Earth could use just ONE MORE nuclear crater..
Like that old Mythbusters episode where they blow up a car twice
I think the Earth could use just ONE MORE nuclear crater..
I think you've overestimating how much stuff an explosion removes, as opposed to breaks. Explosions are very good at making a functional thing not function anymore, but they're not as good as you think they are at evacuating an area.
Look at the aftermath of the Beirut explosion. The metal frame of the building the explosion happened in is still lying there.
The blast radius of an explosion scales with the cube root of the energy of the explosion. So if you want to make the hole twice as big, you need eight times as much explosives. To create a hole the size of a large container ship, you'll need a nuke. A pretty big one too. The Ever Given is 400m long, the crater left by the Trinity test (22kt) was 390m across.
Look at the aftermath of the Beirut explosion. The metal frame of the building the explosion happened in is still lying there.
The blast radius of an explosion scales with the cube root of the energy of the explosion. So if you want to make the hole twice as big, you need eight times as much explosives. To create a hole the size of a large container ship, you'll need a nuke. A pretty big one too. The Ever Given is 400m long, the crater left by the Trinity test (22kt) was 390m across.
Why not use a nuke?
Modern weapons can be very clean. :]
Modern weapons can be very clean. :]
Because you still need to use the canal afterwards. And you need to convince the crews of the ships that the radiation won't be a problem. And the authorities of the ports they go to. And so on.
If Elon Musk solves this with some combination of space gadgetry and boring machines, we're going to have to declare him Earth Emperor.
The wreck would continue to sit in the canal...
Wonder how the data for the actual position of the ship is obtained or if it’s estimated and just hard coded on to the map?
I always love sites that are question in the domain with answers in the webpage as the main content.
I always love sites that are question in the domain with answers in the webpage as the main content.
VesselFinder and MarineTraffic use the data broadcast by vessels on AIS[0]. The AIS devices can be programmed with the dimensions of the vessel, location of the AIS GPS antenna relative to the vessel (ie, is it right aft, or in the middle, etcetera), and uses sensor data from the network bus to get direction, speed and the like. So yeah, if the ship's AIS is saying "I'm at latitude, longitude doing 0 knots, last reported course was 73 degrees", the websites can generate a somewhat accurate picture.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
This is one particular outlet[1] for that data but, AFAIK, all modern commercial vessels continuously report their location via satellite or, preferably, coastal AIS. That data is collected by something then APIs happen along with aggregation and probably more APIs and... after all that, the data is pretty widely available.
Ship location isn't considered privileged security information which was a bit surprising to me since pirates are still a thing, but yea - that's the state of the world.
Edit: Apparently I forgot to include the link, here it is:
1. https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:32.5/cente...
Ship location isn't considered privileged security information which was a bit surprising to me since pirates are still a thing, but yea - that's the state of the world.
Edit: Apparently I forgot to include the link, here it is:
1. https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:32.5/cente...
As a small vessel (10 metres) owner and operator, it's quite nice that AIS operates over VHF. I can install an AIS receiver and see precisely what's coming my way, and the instrumentation available to me can predict whether I might collide with the ship, or if I'll pass ahead/behind (I prefer behind). Useful in the dark when distance is hard to gauge.
Saw on twitter the other day that one vessel going past the east coast of Africa had changed their info field (destination I think) to "ARMED GUARD ONBOARD"..
Saw on twitter the other day that one vessel going past the east coast of Africa had changed their info field (destination I think) to "ARMED GUARD ONBOARD"..
It's super useful to know the location, speed and course of other vessels nearby for navigational purposes. For those few regions where piracy is a serious issue, vessels are either escorted by navy ships in convoys, arrange private security contractors or turn off AIS. The benefits of hiding yourself don't outweigh the downsides though, especially not in "civilized" oceans.
> isn’t considered privileged information
Not only that, but Bloomberg terminals have the ship locations in real time because it impacts trading a lot: Petrol, ore, cereals, etc.
Not only that, but Bloomberg terminals have the ship locations in real time because it impacts trading a lot: Petrol, ore, cereals, etc.
[deleted]
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 dredger, on site. "Days to weeks" is all they'll say. The good case is that they pump fuel and ballast water out of the ship, plus some dredging, and it floats free. The not so good case is they bring in a big crane and start unloading containers. The bad case is that the ship is partly sunk and will have to be patched and refloated. The really bad case is that the hull is so badly damaged that the ship has to be cut apart in place.
Meanwhile, shipping from China to Europe is now US$4000/TEU. Usually it's around US$1000. China's "Belt and Road" rail plan may pay off.
Smit, the big Dutch salvage firm, has been called in and already has their first heavy equipment, a dredger, on site. "Days to weeks" is all they'll say. The good case is that they pump fuel and ballast water out of the ship, plus some dredging, and it floats free. The not so good case is they bring in a big crane and start unloading containers. The bad case is that the ship is partly sunk and will have to be patched and refloated. The really bad case is that the hull is so badly damaged that the ship has to be cut apart in place.
Meanwhile, shipping from China to Europe is now US$4000/TEU. Usually it's around US$1000. China's "Belt and Road" rail plan may pay off.
> China's "Belt and Road" rail plan may pay off.
That’s great conspiracy theory fodder right there. :)
Edit: perhaps it’s not so far fetched, if the boat drew a giant penis before getting stuck.
That’s great conspiracy theory fodder right there. :)
Edit: perhaps it’s not so far fetched, if the boat drew a giant penis before getting stuck.
Removing ballast from a ship with such a heavy top load is super risky. That could turn 'days or weeks' into 'months or years'.
I know very little about boat data but I was also curious; it looks like it is using Vesselfinder which in turn uses data from this AIS system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
There is as much information as a normal human could want to know about how ship location data is tracked ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
There is as much information as a normal human could want to know about how ship location data is tracked ;-)
On iOS you can use Vessel Finder Pro. It provides a real-time world map of all (for some reasonable definition of all) ships. Most of maps views I have seen of this ship are just screen shots from this app. I paid the $10 just to confirm this fact yesterday as Ship Finder, my old standby, didn’t have it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste...
See the "Broadcast information" section.
Position, heading, speed, unique ID, etc. are all broadcast "every 2 to 10 seconds".
See the "Broadcast information" section.
Position, heading, speed, unique ID, etc. are all broadcast "every 2 to 10 seconds".
~15% of the World's trade is dependent on it and this is taking much longer than expected. Why?
Nine women can't make a baby in a month. Some things just take time, regardless of how much resources you throw at it.
> Nine women can't make a baby in a month.
This is my new favorite phrase.
Somebody just have to come up with a good idea.... IE: blow up a boat load of C4 on the side of it...
I'm pretty certain if you nuked the container ship you'd solve the first problem - it'd be messy and expensive but if you could explosively throw chunks out of the canal you could probably resume service.
And just imagine how badass the canal would look if we glassed the banks and lined them with some LEDs!
(please don't do this)
And just imagine how badass the canal would look if we glassed the banks and lined them with some LEDs!
(please don't do this)
I think you might inadvertently create a few new problems if you did this.
I was thinking the same thing - that glassed canal would probably be so scenic that you'd cause several future traffic jams from private vessels and romantic cruises charting a path through the already near-capacity canal.
The canal is just 10 metres deeper than the ship and it's more than 10 metres high, so just blowing up the ship is not enough to clear the canal. You also need to take away the 200 million kg of steel afterwards. At that point it's easier to just wait for the Really Big Tugboats to come over.
not if you blow up so hard that there is a massive crater. Then let nature fill it up. Isn't the canal connected to large waterways on both ends
Something like this? Is this why they’ve asked all other ships to back up? https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1699656-world-war-iii
Worst case you end up with a nice replacement for Arecibo.
That's not exactly the problem here.
You can dance on your head as hard as you can but nine women won't make a baby in one month.
It's stuck like a couch in a stairwell.
Except it's a couch with a bulbous bow that got buried into the side of the stairwell, which just happens to be made of clay. I assume the stern is stuck, too.
And all you have to remove it is a pin. So, this is going to take a while.
And all you have to remove it is a pin. So, this is going to take a while.
Do you think getting David Schwimmer to come yell "Pivot!" would help?
Pivot!
My question, for those who know more about this domain than me, is this a problem that enough money could fix? If the governments of the world wrote a $1 trillion blank check, would that be enough to get the ship out in the next 24 hours?
Or is this a problem that money alone can't solve?
Or is this a problem that money alone can't solve?
We're discussing a ship that is 400 metres long, 59 metres wide, and has a draft of 16 metres[0]. It's carrying somewhere over 18,000 containers, each of which could weight up to 27,000 kg[1]. It's unlikely that all of them weigh that much, but still, they can be heavy.
The load has been very carefully placed on the ship to ensure maximum stability. So the heavy loads are probably deeper in the hull and the lighter loads are higher up. When ships get unloaded in port, it's unlikely that all the containers are for that port, so an intricate dance starts - offloading some containers, moving other ones to maintain the balance, and loading new ones. At all times, you have to keep the load within tolerances so that your ship doesn't go "I'm out!" and roll over.
So yeah, money alone can't solve this in 24 hours. They've got to calculate the load changes when they offload containers, so that you don't accidentally cause the ship to roll over in the canal. You're not going to stop that happening with a few bits of rope tied to some concrete pillars in the ground..
[0] https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/EVER-GIVEN-IMO-9811000-...
[1] https://www.dsv.com/en/our-solutions/modes-of-transport/sea-...
The load has been very carefully placed on the ship to ensure maximum stability. So the heavy loads are probably deeper in the hull and the lighter loads are higher up. When ships get unloaded in port, it's unlikely that all the containers are for that port, so an intricate dance starts - offloading some containers, moving other ones to maintain the balance, and loading new ones. At all times, you have to keep the load within tolerances so that your ship doesn't go "I'm out!" and roll over.
So yeah, money alone can't solve this in 24 hours. They've got to calculate the load changes when they offload containers, so that you don't accidentally cause the ship to roll over in the canal. You're not going to stop that happening with a few bits of rope tied to some concrete pillars in the ground..
[0] https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/EVER-GIVEN-IMO-9811000-...
[1] https://www.dsv.com/en/our-solutions/modes-of-transport/sea-...
And as a bit more context, the cranes that are used at ports are capable of moving 60+ tonnes[0] - physics becomes a bit of a problem when your crane is a lever..
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_crane
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_crane
Is it even that easy to get any containers off the ship, without the machinery and infrastructure at ports?
Is it common at all to get containers off a ship outside of docking areas?
Is it common at all to get containers off a ship outside of docking areas?
Well, they fall off of ships all the time, especially in rough weather (all the time is hyperbole, but it absolutely happens). So sure, you can probably push one off with a pretty big lever, but shipping containers are actually designed to "clip" together to an extent, to make the load more solid. Problem is, the canal is only about 24 metres deep, so you're going to end up blocking the canal with containers instead if you just push them off.
The modern shipping world is all about containers, container cranes, and container ships. 99 Percent Invisible hosted some episodes of the Containers podcast [0] that will probably provide some insight.
0: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/containers-ships-tugs...
The modern shipping world is all about containers, container cranes, and container ships. 99 Percent Invisible hosted some episodes of the Containers podcast [0] that will probably provide some insight.
0: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/containers-ships-tugs...
This baby can do it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
It will take time but that thing has the capacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
It will take time but that thing has the capacity.
Certainly not common, but it can be done with specialized vessels.
I'm also just speculating but my understanding is that there is already a lot of money behind this and that it simply takes time for companies specialized in salvaging ships to physically get there with their equipment and also develop a solution that works.
I don't think more money would make those companies work faster and I don't think there is some reasonable alternative solution available other than using these companies.
I don't think more money would make those companies work faster and I don't think there is some reasonable alternative solution available other than using these companies.
There is a limited number of people that have the expertise, and equipment to pull it off, and it takes them time even if they had been standing by at the accident site. Money isn't the issue right now. I'm a mariner, but not a salvage law expert, but the ship and the cargo on it are effectively the collateral for whoever removes this thing, so money is likely not an issue.
This is now an engineering and logisitics problem. What is necessary for the ship to be floating again? And what equipment is needed for that to happen? If it isn't already at hand, how can they get the equipment there (there is navigable water nearby, but there may be no way to unload heavy equipment onto the land).
This is now an engineering and logisitics problem. What is necessary for the ship to be floating again? And what equipment is needed for that to happen? If it isn't already at hand, how can they get the equipment there (there is navigable water nearby, but there may be no way to unload heavy equipment onto the land).
Money can do very little here. The problem is, the solution probably requires rather heavy equipment. Like floating cranes to unload the containers or giant excavators. This equipment exists and the costs for doing the operations would be miniscule compared to the costs of the blocked channel. But the problem is moving such equipment to Egypt. These floating cranes might be in the Netherlands right now and the only way to get them to Suez is to drive them there at perhaps 20kph. So it could take like 2 weeks at minimum to get the equipment there. This is a very fundamental problem. Transport by road or railroad still would take like a week but is limited to things which are not much larger than containers and the maximum weight a helicopter can lift is like 10 tons. The largest aircraft can lift over 300 tons but only as long as the freight fits into the aircraft. Oh, and there is only one of it :p. So anything larger has to literally shipped to the location. The only good news is, the site is reachable by oceangoing vessels :)
So there are two fundamental challenges:
- come up with a good plan how to get the ship out of there
- transport the necessary equipment quickly to the site. This step can easily take weeks.
So there are two fundamental challenges:
- come up with a good plan how to get the ship out of there
- transport the necessary equipment quickly to the site. This step can easily take weeks.
Well it's a question of odds. Hard to imagine you couldn't get a big auger, drill a bunch of holes, put a bunch of telephone poles into the holes and start running steel cables + winch from each one to the end of the ship. Repeat on the other end of the canal/ship and start applying ever more force to realign the ship with the canal.
Question is, what would happen? Would the ship move the sand it's embedded in, realign with the deepest part of the channel and move off?
Or would the (potentially already damaged) hull breach?
Question is, what would happen? Would the ship move the sand it's embedded in, realign with the deepest part of the channel and move off?
Or would the (potentially already damaged) hull breach?
For $1trn you could maybe nuke it and then rebuild the ship plus adjacent bits of Egypt? I'm not sure health and safety would approve.
At some point no amount of money is enough to overcome Physics.
Let the answers to your question be a caution to all the Musk and Star Trek fans around here: like this ship, not matter how much money you throw at mars terra-forming, FTL drives and climate change reversal or control technology some things have non-negotiable deadlines.
For real. Why haven’t they just mobilized hacker news?
"We should take the ship, AND PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE" :D [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0sTNLdNhuE
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0sTNLdNhuE
You can trust that I don’t need to follow that link, brother.
So yes it affects a lot of trade. But it can be worked around. Ships can sail around Africa or goods can be shipped across the Pacific and across the Panama Canal or via rail across America. Obviously those are more expensive, but the goods will still be transported.
Because it's, you know, stuck. If they accidentally sink it, the cleanup will be even more messy.
I think it would be very, very difficult to sink. Quite aside from the (hopefully) large number of bulkheads and other such safety measures, the ship will be close to maximum draft for the canal and as such would only be able to sink a metre or two anyway. True, you'd then need to refloat it in situ, which would not be fun ... and it would probably just become more stuck rather than less.
I think it's just going to take time and lots of digging.
I think it's just going to take time and lots of digging.
Yes, it probably wouldn’t irreparably sink or something like that. Still, specialized recovery work would take even more time. Not to mention the possibility of containers falling down.
Best to take it slow and steady.
Best to take it slow and steady.
Suez canal is 24 meters deep. i count 9 iso containers stacked high on the deck (an iso container is 2.59m high).
Smit will be making bank on this.
Smit will be making bank on this.
One of the largest ships in the world has run aground. How long did you expect it would take to salvage it?
Extrapolating from the 2014 extensions, building a 2nd backup canal would cost >$8B.
Considering it earns $10B/year to Egypt, I don't know if this short downtime will justify the cost to them.
Considering it earns $10B/year to Egypt, I don't know if this short downtime will justify the cost to them.
It is costing much more than that to shipping companies and the broader industry. If that is an option, I am sure they’ll find the money. That probably would take much longer than un-sticking the ship, assuming this is possible.
Much longer than expected by whom? Have you seen some scenario planning documentation by canal authorities or others for this sort of situation? Or what are you basing you claim on?
[deleted]
Because it’s hard
Just dig a new canal around the ship?
A quarter mile diversion can't take that long to dig. The whole canal is 120 miles, so an extra quarter mile they should be able to dig in a few days I would think?
A quarter mile diversion can't take that long to dig. The whole canal is 120 miles, so an extra quarter mile they should be able to dig in a few days I would think?
This sounds eerily similar to "Just add the new feature, it can't take that long". Things are complicated.
I mean it is just typing... how hard can it be?
Volume is ^3 of the linear size. To get a clear picture of how much it is do this:
- launch minecraft in creative mode and make 40x40 pad of steel blocks, 1 block high. You should do it in a few minutes.
- now do a 40x40x40 cube. Good luck for the rest of your day.
- launch minecraft in creative mode and make 40x40 pad of steel blocks, 1 block high. You should do it in a few minutes.
- now do a 40x40x40 cube. Good luck for the rest of your day.
"Quarter mile" is a linear dimension. What is the width?
If you had to estimate the volume of earth in that 'quarter mile', and then estimate the size of an excavator bucket, and the capacity of a dump truck, and the availability of all those things at any given time (even if you ship them in), you'd soon realize that just digging out that earth will take more time.
On top of that, there's going to be FLOW in the canal - what will your diversion to for erosion, pressure on the locks, etc.
You risk damaging the canal itself to deal with a temporary problem if you think you can just 'dig around it' in 5 days. My bet is you've never seen how long it takes to plan something with this much risk involved.
This isn't software, you aren't going to Agile it away if you screw it up.
If you had to estimate the volume of earth in that 'quarter mile', and then estimate the size of an excavator bucket, and the capacity of a dump truck, and the availability of all those things at any given time (even if you ship them in), you'd soon realize that just digging out that earth will take more time.
On top of that, there's going to be FLOW in the canal - what will your diversion to for erosion, pressure on the locks, etc.
You risk damaging the canal itself to deal with a temporary problem if you think you can just 'dig around it' in 5 days. My bet is you've never seen how long it takes to plan something with this much risk involved.
This isn't software, you aren't going to Agile it away if you screw it up.
This man doesn't infrastructure.
(If you think it's that easy, pop over and ask if you can have a go on the JCB)
(If you think it's that easy, pop over and ask if you can have a go on the JCB)
I actually spent a few weeks of my life driving a JCB commercially...
> The whole canal is 120 miles, so an extra quarter mile they should be able to dig in a few days I would think?
Uh, what? Why would the length of the canal as a whole tell you anything about how long digging a quarter-mile section would take? If the canal as a whole was longer or shorter, would that somehow change your estimate?
Uh, what? Why would the length of the canal as a whole tell you anything about how long digging a quarter-mile section would take? If the canal as a whole was longer or shorter, would that somehow change your estimate?
Yes it would... I know the suez canal was a once-per-century type infrastructure investment for Egypt. Doing that same investment again probbaly isn't feasible. But doing 0.2% of the work again is starting to sound pretty affordable...
> suez canal was a once-per-century type infrastructure investment for Egypt.
Once-per-century investment for France. It was, like the Eurotunnel, nominally privately funded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Company but with significant political cover.
Once-per-century investment for France. It was, like the Eurotunnel, nominally privately funded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Company but with significant political cover.
Just get people who know what they are doing to sort it out.
[deleted]
Lol no
Sounds easier to just dig through the ship.
You're swapping moving a mostly hollow ship with containers for moving a far larger volume of solid earth.
"Just" widen the canal so it can continue pivoting around the most stuck end until its straight again.
~30% of World container traffic goes trough it.
Many bulk carriers exceed Suezmax limits and can't go trough.
Many bulk carriers exceed Suezmax limits and can't go trough.
Is this taking longer than expected?
Because your expectations were far too high.
Had rockets not been so regulated, this problem could have easily been solved. It would not be cheap but with a 150million insurance budget it is doable. Egypt is losing 400million in trade every hour. The ship weighs 200 000 tons. You only need to drag it out of the sand, not bring it to LEO. Another option would be a lot of shaped charges but the side effects are much more catastrophic if things go wrong. In the olden days, they would just use nuclear (See project Plowshare for the Panama Canal).
Before you downvote, do the math.
Before you downvote, do the math.
Egypt is losing transit fees.
A typical bulk carrier pays about $200,000 per transit.
51 ships transit the canal each day, on average.
Egypt is losing $10m per day.
Edit: the canal generated $5.85billion in revenue in 2018, or $16million per day.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-egypt-economy-suezcanal-i...
A typical bulk carrier pays about $200,000 per transit.
51 ships transit the canal each day, on average.
Egypt is losing $10m per day.
Edit: the canal generated $5.85billion in revenue in 2018, or $16million per day.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-egypt-economy-suezcanal-i...
Egypt could claim the lost fees from the ship owner, maybe?
> Egypt is losing 400million in trade every hour
this seems excessive, if they made 400M in trade per hour that would be 3T per year, but Egypt's GDP is ~1T.
this seems excessive, if they made 400M in trade per hour that would be 3T per year, but Egypt's GDP is ~1T.
"The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of container blubber fell everywhere."
"the blast blew blubber beyond any believe boundaries"
The original source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPuaSY0cMK8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPuaSY0cMK8
tehjoker(1)
Denvercoder9(1)
At the very least, why aren't they using helicopters to take the containers off one-by-one. That would reduce the overall weight, and it'd be easier to move an empty ship than one weighed down by cargo.
The worlds highest capacity heavy lift helicopter can lift 44k lbs (russian M-26, estimated to be 20 in working condition). An empty 40 ft. container weighs 9k lbs. With a max loading of 66k lbs gross. The Ever Given has a capacity of 20k TEU, or 10k 40 ft. containers.
Being generous, you could move maybe 5 per hour. Probably 1 per hour would be realistic. But give them the benefit of the doubt and say they could move 20 per hour for some reason, including fuel and maintenance stops.
So assuming that they could work 24 hours per day, they could do 480 containers per day (again assuming that all of the containers are 22k lbs lighter than capacity). They should be able to get this helicopter unloading done in 20 days of around the clock work with a bunch of highly optimistic assumptions.
Plus they have to stay out of the way of the dozens of salvage workers trying to move the actual ship, while operating a soviet era machine in a VERY harsh desert environment with no infrastructure.
If they need the ship to float higher, they would start by removing ballast, fuel, crew water, etc.
Large salvage operations are notoriously expensive, tricky, dangerous, and often don't make sense to outsiders. There's a reason that there's really only about half a dozen firms worldwide that have the expertise and equipment to pull something like this off.
Being generous, you could move maybe 5 per hour. Probably 1 per hour would be realistic. But give them the benefit of the doubt and say they could move 20 per hour for some reason, including fuel and maintenance stops.
So assuming that they could work 24 hours per day, they could do 480 containers per day (again assuming that all of the containers are 22k lbs lighter than capacity). They should be able to get this helicopter unloading done in 20 days of around the clock work with a bunch of highly optimistic assumptions.
Plus they have to stay out of the way of the dozens of salvage workers trying to move the actual ship, while operating a soviet era machine in a VERY harsh desert environment with no infrastructure.
If they need the ship to float higher, they would start by removing ballast, fuel, crew water, etc.
Large salvage operations are notoriously expensive, tricky, dangerous, and often don't make sense to outsiders. There's a reason that there's really only about half a dozen firms worldwide that have the expertise and equipment to pull something like this off.
It looks like there might be a kind of priority difference going on here...
To all the ship owners and cargo owners, this blockage is a big problem and massive amounts of money should be spent to solve it.
But to the canal owners, they are only losing relatively small amounts of revenue by the canal being shut, so while they are sending all their boats to try pull it free, they aren't yet at the stage of calling in the army helicopters to help unload the ship.
At some point Egypts government will probably get involved, and then the army will show up with tanks with a lot of pulling power, massive winches installed on the shoreline, and helicopters for unloading.
To all the ship owners and cargo owners, this blockage is a big problem and massive amounts of money should be spent to solve it.
But to the canal owners, they are only losing relatively small amounts of revenue by the canal being shut, so while they are sending all their boats to try pull it free, they aren't yet at the stage of calling in the army helicopters to help unload the ship.
At some point Egypts government will probably get involved, and then the army will show up with tanks with a lot of pulling power, massive winches installed on the shoreline, and helicopters for unloading.
An entire fleet of tug-boats seem unable to move the ship. I don't think tanks would fare much better.
The proper solution is probably (?? I'm not an engineer, just spitballing here) a system of pulleys. See Archemedies and The Syracusia: Archemedies allegedly moved a ship powered only with his own muscles using only a system of pulleys as an assist.
I realize that the Syracusia is probably smaller than this container ship in the canal. Still though: a system of pulleys is probably cheaper and stronger than what a team of Tanks would do.
-------------
They're at least in a situation where there's a ton of land nearby that can serve as an anchor point. I mean... the problem right now is probably just figuring out where and how to safely pull the ship. They need to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force in a way that:
1. Won't break the ship apart
2. Successfully dislodges it
Its a relatively simple problem to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force. But doing it in such a way to keep the ship floating... that's the hard part.
The proper solution is probably (?? I'm not an engineer, just spitballing here) a system of pulleys. See Archemedies and The Syracusia: Archemedies allegedly moved a ship powered only with his own muscles using only a system of pulleys as an assist.
I realize that the Syracusia is probably smaller than this container ship in the canal. Still though: a system of pulleys is probably cheaper and stronger than what a team of Tanks would do.
-------------
They're at least in a situation where there's a ton of land nearby that can serve as an anchor point. I mean... the problem right now is probably just figuring out where and how to safely pull the ship. They need to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force in a way that:
1. Won't break the ship apart
2. Successfully dislodges it
Its a relatively simple problem to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force. But doing it in such a way to keep the ship floating... that's the hard part.
Just to throw some numbers out there, last year the canal grossed ~15 million USD/day in revenue from the toll charge.
Not sure if that's possible. Some quick Googling told me a typical 40' cargo container has a capacity of 30 tons, but the largest commercial cargo helicopter (the Mi-26) can carry only 22 tons.
It has something like 20000 containers on it. Even if helicopters would lift a container off every 10 minutes, it wouldn't make any meaningful difference.
Also, you can't do the maneuvering they were trying to with the tugs at the same time you're doing something like that, unless you want to kill someone.
Unloading such a ship to empty would take a long time even if it's in port facilities under many cranes.
Also, you can't do the maneuvering they were trying to with the tugs at the same time you're doing something like that, unless you want to kill someone.
Unloading such a ship to empty would take a long time even if it's in port facilities under many cranes.
I don't know the specifics of this one ship, but I thought container ships had hundreds, if not thousands of containers.
Are there helicopters capable of lifting a fully loaded cargo container?
No. The absolute heaviest-lift helicopter, the MI-26, can lift a little over 20 short tons. Most helicopters can carry a ton or two at most.
In comparison, unloaded shipping containers are already a few tons. Loaded ones are all over the place, of course, but max out at around 30.
In comparison, unloaded shipping containers are already a few tons. Loaded ones are all over the place, of course, but max out at around 30.
In addition to the weight issues, there are up to 20k of them on board.
Do you know why half of the internet is using evergiven when on all the photos is written evergreen?
Because Evergreen is the name of the company that operates the ship [1] and Ever Given is the name of the ship [2].
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Marine
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Marine
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
Evergreen is the company name, Ever Given (which does appear on the ship in much smaller letters) is the ship's name.
Evergreen is the company, all their ships are named "Ever X" where "X" is some word that begins with "G".
Like how some people name all their kids with the same first letter. I know, weird.
Like how some people name all their kids with the same first letter. I know, weird.
This confused me, too, at first.
The vessel name (on the bow) is Ever Given.
The company operating it, emblazoned on the side in large letters, is Evergreen.
The vessel name (on the bow) is Ever Given.
The company operating it, emblazoned on the side in large letters, is Evergreen.
[deleted]
Evergreen is the company, Evergiven is the name of the ship.
Evergreen Marine Corporation owns the ship named Ever Given.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Hi. pm me and I can explain you
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.
A bit off topic, but anyone who ever played SnowRunner or MudRunner can probably relate. Quite often when you try to rescue a truck, you flip it over, and now require another truck with a crane to come over and load the cargo again.
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 years back on the Elbe in Germany, in the end it took 12 (!) of the largest tugs they had to get it loose.
Apparently they had a similar case (same size of ship) a few years back on the Elbe in Germany, in the end it took 12 (!) of the largest tugs they had to get it loose.
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.
that was the very same ship
EDIT: no, the incident needing 12 tugs was a different ship. see comment below.
I don't read German, but I can find reports of the same SIZE chip getting stuck on the Elbe and requiring 12 tugs to free it. The ship was called the CSCL Indian Ocean.
yep, thanks
>On February 3, 2016 CSCL Indian Ocean grounded in the River Elbe, while approaching Hamburg, Germany. Her rudder controls were reported to have malfunctioned. It took almost a week to free her from the sandbank, because she grounded at high-tide. Her fuel was unloaded, and she was finally freed, February 9, six days later, during the next spring tide. Twelve tugboats were required to assist in freeing her. Two dredgers had helped cut away at the sandbank, near the grounding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSCL_Indian_Ocean
>On February 3, 2016 CSCL Indian Ocean grounded in the River Elbe, while approaching Hamburg, Germany. Her rudder controls were reported to have malfunctioned. It took almost a week to free her from the sandbank, because she grounded at high-tide. Her fuel was unloaded, and she was finally freed, February 9, six days later, during the next spring tide. Twelve tugboats were required to assist in freeing her. Two dredgers had helped cut away at the sandbank, near the grounding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSCL_Indian_Ocean
Sounds quite similar. This one also grounded at a high tide but a higher one is coming.
Thats.. almost literally unbelievable. I almost want to suspect that that's a code name? For any sufficiently large ship that blocks a major waterway? Incredible.
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...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...
Why are all these within a few cm of 400m? Is there something special about this length?
There are limits to how big a ship can be and still transit a specific route, usually defined by the radius of curves in a canal or the length of a lock.
In this case, 400m is the max length required for the Suez (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suezmax)
In this case, 400m is the max length required for the Suez (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suezmax)
From the article:
Furthermore, some of the world's main waterways such as the Suez Canal and Singapore Strait also restrict the maximum dimensions of a ship that can pass through them
Furthermore, some of the world's main waterways such as the Suez Canal and Singapore Strait also restrict the maximum dimensions of a ship that can pass through them
And again a strong wind was blamed. Maybe there's a limit to how big these ships can be built?
the problem was the slow speed. i think even a small ship gets pushed by the wind at slow speeds. however a small ship can speed up faster, and it doesn't cause as much damage if it does crash into something.
Oh my god who is driving this thing?
When the wind picks up, nobody, which seems to be the problem.
Reminds me of this which happened last year:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/truck-crash-causes-havoc-on-au...
Freak gust of wind tipped a truck over on a major bridge taking out a support beam. Took weeks to fix and jammed up traffic really bad.
Shit happens.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/truck-crash-causes-havoc-on-au...
Freak gust of wind tipped a truck over on a major bridge taking out a support beam. Took weeks to fix and jammed up traffic really bad.
Shit happens.
Very strange that it was the same ship, very strange!
This gave me a good laugh.
Perhaps Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses is driving this one.
I’ve always wondered what something like this costs and who is responsible for paying the bill?
You'd think there would be liability insurance like with cars.
I have the same question. I would think EverGreen as they are the root cause of problem. And it seems they cause regularly. (similar thing happened a few years ago by the very same ship)
Smit salvage have got this. I just hope they had enough notice to to take their film crew with them:
https://www.youtube.com/c/SmitSalvageTowage/videos
https://www.youtube.com/c/SmitSalvageTowage/videos
MarineTraffic direct URL: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:5630138/zoo...
Looking at how stuck the ship is, this could also be a new terrorist vector to attack the channel via such a „derailed“ ship.
It does legitimately seem like you can do tremendous damage by derailing a few ships in the right spots. Bringing bombs or other small ships or something else seems doable for a terrorist organization on the face of it.
This is true more generally. When I lived in London and the IRA campaign was going on I never understood why they didn't just set fire to a few stolen vans on Euston road/City road/Waterloo bridge every morning rather than actually killing people. Would have been more effective.
What freedom fighter would throw away their life to cause a traffic jam?
And what government would cave to whats essentially a minor inconvenience
And what government would cave to whats essentially a minor inconvenience
At the time, London transport was pretty much at gridlock anyway and made the city pretty hard to live in IMO. It wouldn't have taken much to threaten the major income-generating source of the country (look up the economics of the city of London).
I don't even think it requires you to throw your life away. It could just be classified as civil disobedience.
To be clear, I had no sympathy at all with the IRAs violent campaign. I'm just pointing out that committed civil disobedience could be pretty effective if you have people committed enough that they will already kill people and go to prison quite often (or blow themselves up for that matter).
I don't even think it requires you to throw your life away. It could just be classified as civil disobedience.
To be clear, I had no sympathy at all with the IRAs violent campaign. I'm just pointing out that committed civil disobedience could be pretty effective if you have people committed enough that they will already kill people and go to prison quite often (or blow themselves up for that matter).
randompwd(1)
Wasn’t this the plot of an Ian Banks novel? Canal dreams. Imagine die hard, with the Bruce Willis part being a middle-aged, female, Japanese cellist.
Shh! The modern world is based on the fact a few really mad stupid people don't realise how brittle the hacks we built society on are.
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I suppose I'll kick off the usual "why don't they just do X" thread.
It seems to me that if they can't move it by any normal means, they could just start pushing cargo containers overboard and fish them out until it's light enough to move.
I could also a lot of plausible reasons why they wouldn't do that:
- it wouldn't work (no equipment to move containers)
- the ship's owner doesn't want to do that and no one has the authority to force them
- the ship's owner wants to do that, but the owner of the cargo doesn't want them to
- the cost of lost cargo is more than the cost of delaying other ships
- it would take too long or be too messy to clean up
It seems to me that if they can't move it by any normal means, they could just start pushing cargo containers overboard and fish them out until it's light enough to move.
I could also a lot of plausible reasons why they wouldn't do that:
- it wouldn't work (no equipment to move containers)
- the ship's owner doesn't want to do that and no one has the authority to force them
- the ship's owner wants to do that, but the owner of the cargo doesn't want them to
- the cost of lost cargo is more than the cost of delaying other ships
- it would take too long or be too messy to clean up
The carrier can announce a general average [1] which allows it to throw the containers overboard if they believe it will help the ship get moving.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average
A general average requires an imminent danger which the ship is clearly no in, since it's just stuck.
You also can't argue that they have to dump it overboard because of the costs that the delays will cause, because such costs are explicitly excluded in the 2004 rules on general averages [1]
[1] Rule C, paragraph 3 https://shippingandfreightresource.com/wp-content/uploads/20...
You also can't argue that they have to dump it overboard because of the costs that the delays will cause, because such costs are explicitly excluded in the 2004 rules on general averages [1]
[1] Rule C, paragraph 3 https://shippingandfreightresource.com/wp-content/uploads/20...
I could not find a reference to imminent danger in Rule C. Could you please quote the passage you're referring to?
Rule C is about indirect damages.
The iminent danger i refered to is rule A:
>RULE A1.There is a general average act when, and only when, any extraordinary sacrifice or expenditure is intentionally and reasonably made or incurred for the common safety for the purpose of preserving from peril the property involved in a common maritime adventure.
While imminent danger is not used, the rule itself can only be applied when the jettisoning of cargo is essential to the common safety. This most often happens when the vessel is in imminent danger of sinking and needs to shed weight.
If the only way to get the ship unstuck from there were to jettison stuff out, and there were no way to otherwise free the ship (or safely unload the cargo) then maybe you'd be able to argue in favor of a general average, but given the circumstances that is not the case.
The ship isn't exactly stuck in antartica, so safely unloading, although expensive, is an option that would preclude jettisoning (and therefore the general average)
The iminent danger i refered to is rule A:
>RULE A1.There is a general average act when, and only when, any extraordinary sacrifice or expenditure is intentionally and reasonably made or incurred for the common safety for the purpose of preserving from peril the property involved in a common maritime adventure.
While imminent danger is not used, the rule itself can only be applied when the jettisoning of cargo is essential to the common safety. This most often happens when the vessel is in imminent danger of sinking and needs to shed weight.
If the only way to get the ship unstuck from there were to jettison stuff out, and there were no way to otherwise free the ship (or safely unload the cargo) then maybe you'd be able to argue in favor of a general average, but given the circumstances that is not the case.
The ship isn't exactly stuck in antartica, so safely unloading, although expensive, is an option that would preclude jettisoning (and therefore the general average)
Perhaps most importantly: the channel is only a couple dozen meters deep, which is part of the problem. Dropping a bunch of containers down there would almost certainly create a new obstacle for this and other ships
I had assumed the containers would be retrieved by tugboats or whatever works.
Depending on what's in the containers, I'd expect most would probably float, at least for a little while until water leaks in. Maybe long enough to drag them out of the way; either to the sides of the channel or out of the water altogether.
Depending on what's in the containers, I'd expect most would probably float, at least for a little while until water leaks in. Maybe long enough to drag them out of the way; either to the sides of the channel or out of the water altogether.
> they could just start pushing cargo containers overboard and fish them out until it's light enough to move
Light boats are less stable. One of the few that could make this situation worse would be the damn thing capsizing.
Light boats are less stable. One of the few that could make this situation worse would be the damn thing capsizing.
Yes. Unloading is a science, also, if you want to avoid capsizing. And the risk is increased because they don’t know on which sand the boat rests (it may be balanced at some point just by one bank + the pressure of the flow of water) and the tides add some random every 6 hrs.
The center of gravity on that ship looks like it could only be improved by chucking containers overboard. On the other hand, chucking them over the side one by one might be harder than just pushing a whole column over but making that kind of sudden weight change might not be good.
I wonder what the options even are for removing the containers? I assume they're very securely strapped on most of the time, and maybe there's not any reasonable way to get any of the containers loose outside of a port without making the whole pile unstable.
I wonder what the options even are for removing the containers? I assume they're very securely strapped on most of the time, and maybe there's not any reasonable way to get any of the containers loose outside of a port without making the whole pile unstable.
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?
If I understand [1] properly, the Chinook can lift 13 tons[2].
The Evergiven's maximum weight is 200000 tons. So that would be 15000+ Chinooks lifting it. A sight to behold.
Added: Only about 1200 were ever produced, so that won't fly.
[1] https://www.army.mil/article/137584/ch_47_chinook_helicopter
[2] 26000 pounds
The Evergiven's maximum weight is 200000 tons. So that would be 15000+ Chinooks lifting it. A sight to behold.
Added: Only about 1200 were ever produced, so that won't fly.
[1] https://www.army.mil/article/137584/ch_47_chinook_helicopter
[2] 26000 pounds
I desperately want someone to photoshop this.
Perhaps mention it to Wren
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZsp1tgXkUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZsp1tgXkUI
Okay but what about rockets?
Well, according to[1] elsewhere in this thread, we can use 130 tons as an approximation for lift capacity. So for 200000 tons, that would require 1500 ICMBs connected to the ship and launched at the same time.
Probably more expensive than most other solutions, and I doubt that the Evergiven will be in a good condition afterwards.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586189
Probably more expensive than most other solutions, and I doubt that the Evergiven will be in a good condition afterwards.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586189
Apparently I can’t spell ICBM.
Someone call Elon!
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It has a 20,000 container capacity, so if it's full and you could unload them at a rate of 1 per minute (assuming multiple choppers) it would take 2 weeks with no stopping, but I assume the frequency would be much lower than that so you're talking possibly months to unload even a fraction of them.
Also - it's quite possible it'd further beach itself during the unloading unless you replaced the mass in an easily removable manner... To which end I'd like to suggest self-launching lead trebuchets.
I understand this is all not realistic, but since we're just spitballing here, before I realized how many containers we're even talking about here, I had rather wondered if lifting off a lesser number of containers in the right place would be exactly right to shift the weight/balance for the ship to get unstuck.
That might be the case - also, just for the serious - a less silly recommendation. This is what ballast does (sorta) and replacing the containers with water (i.e. in inflatable reservoirs) that can quickly be pumped out might be a reasonable way to Inidiana Jones your way into tricking the rolling boulder and/or listing vessel.
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 100 m, so a circumference of 1000 m, and that we can wrap a wire 100,000 times around it, to give total wire length l = 10^8 m.
- m = 200,000 metric tonne = 2 * 10^8 kg (we assume magic wire that is massless).
- g = 10 m/s^2.
Solving for I yields I = mg/Bl = 2 * 10^5 A. That's a lot of current.
If we assume the wire has a diameter of 10 cm (which is ridiculously high considering we just wrapped it 100,000 times around the ship, but whatever) and is made out of copper, it has a resistance of ~200 Ohms. Necessary power to generate such a current is P = I^2*R = 8*10^12 W (= 8000 TW). That's about half the total energy consumption of humanity.
The largest nuclear power plant puts out about 8000 MW, so you'd need a 1000 of them.
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 100 m, so a circumference of 1000 m, and that we can wrap a wire 100,000 times around it, to give total wire length l = 10^8 m.
- m = 200,000 metric tonne = 2 * 10^8 kg (we assume magic wire that is massless).
- g = 10 m/s^2.
Solving for I yields I = mg/Bl = 2 * 10^5 A. That's a lot of current.
If we assume the wire has a diameter of 10 cm (which is ridiculously high considering we just wrapped it 100,000 times around the ship, but whatever) and is made out of copper, it has a resistance of ~200 Ohms. Necessary power to generate such a current is P = I^2*R = 8*10^12 W (= 8000 TW). That's about half the total energy consumption of humanity.
The largest nuclear power plant puts out about 8000 MW, so you'd need a 1000 of them.
Well, on the bright side once we free it with this incredible contraption then we've also solved all of humanity's power needs for a few more centuries. :)
Upvoting you just due to username
Discussions like these are why I love HN. Sorry for non-constructive response, but this time I just had to say it. Great laugh.
The most important thing here is the magicness of the wire. The ship is 60m wide and 30m tall, that makes a circumference of 180m. 0.05m radius, 100000 windings, made of copper with a density of approx. 8900kg/m^3 gives a total mass of approx. 1.3*10^6 tons for the cable alone.
Yeah, the wire would be heavier than the ship.
That is a relatively fundamental result. With current materials, it's pretty much impossible to levitate anything against Earth's magnetic field. You can't put enough current through a wire to create a force bigger than its own gravity without using unreasonable amounts of power. Even if you put in that power, you'd melt the wire.
That is a relatively fundamental result. With current materials, it's pretty much impossible to levitate anything against Earth's magnetic field. You can't put enough current through a wire to create a force bigger than its own gravity without using unreasonable amounts of power. Even if you put in that power, you'd melt the wire.
Why don't we just melt the ship? If we turn the whole thing into a liquid it could flow down the canal.
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Add another 40,000 tonnes for the empty containers, then probably that again for whatever is in them. Plus probably another 10,000 tonnes for fuel.
Really it may be conservative to say another 100,000 tonnes for all the stuff other than the 200,000 tonnes of the ship itself.
Really it may be conservative to say another 100,000 tonnes for all the stuff other than the 200,000 tonnes of the ship itself.
The 200,000 metric tonne figure was derived from the deadweight tonnage, which is the weight of fuel and cargo a ship can carry, but excludes the weight of the empty ship itself. Wikipedia doesn't list displacement (which is weight of the ship plus cargo) for the Ever Given, but empty weight of modern container ships is on the order of 10% of their capacity, so ignoring the ships empty weight isn't the worst approximation used.
So why are you spending all your time gabbing. Get to work!
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.
If you actually want to accelerate it upward to any meaningful speed, you'd need even more power.
I've now got the most amazing image in my head of a container ship being fired at the moon.
Hah or if we reverse the polarity maybe we can crush it into something the size of an aluminum can.
Better Cold War option:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
The ship’s a total loss, but Egypt also gets a new lake!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
The ship’s a total loss, but Egypt also gets a new lake!
You know there's probably someone doing the cost-benefit analysis right now to see if just digging a new canal channel around the ship would be faster and cheaper than removing it.
Why dig when you can blast?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chagan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chagan
I see you like to blast things hah. That canal was built in 10 years.
Peter Thiel would ask "ok, but how would build it in 6 months?"
The canal expansion in 2014 was actually completed in one year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Area_Development_Pr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Area_Development_Pr...
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Those passing through the area afterwards might not like that idea.
Even more whimsical option: Evangelion is set in 2015, which means if we were following their projected technology timeline, we could just unload the ship by Eva. Probably unit 0, because Rei tends to get the crappy jobs. Not Asuka, she'd turn it into a contest of who could sink the most tugboats by throwing containers at them or something like that.
The Evas can be airlifted anywhere in the world, but IIRC they have about five minutes of battery power. So, the biggest logistical problem would be getting suitable power on site. What are the voltage/current/frequency requirements of an Eva charger? How many months/years would it take to charge an Eva with a J1772 port or whatever they use in that part of the world? Looks like the nearest Tesla superchargers are in Israel and Jordan, which is too far even if they were compatible. Maybe NERV has a mobile generator?
The Jet Alone folks could put in a competing bid, but their robot would just get sabotaged again.
The Evas can be airlifted anywhere in the world, but IIRC they have about five minutes of battery power. So, the biggest logistical problem would be getting suitable power on site. What are the voltage/current/frequency requirements of an Eva charger? How many months/years would it take to charge an Eva with a J1772 port or whatever they use in that part of the world? Looks like the nearest Tesla superchargers are in Israel and Jordan, which is too far even if they were compatible. Maybe NERV has a mobile generator?
The Jet Alone folks could put in a competing bid, but their robot would just get sabotaged again.
This looks like a job for demilitarised Jaegers.
Not a chance. 224,000 tons. But you could use those to lift containers off one-by-one. Then you still have to move the ship but maybe when it is unloaded it can be done.
Not even close. This ship is absolutely giant.
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...
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!
Ya no. An ICBM like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas has a launch thrust of only 1,300 kN, or about 130 tons. That would lift about 4 of the 20000 containers aboard.
Forget it.
Let's just nuke it, them nuclear weapons have to be disposed of somehow, and the channel needs some expansion, it seems.
Let's just nuke it, them nuclear weapons have to be disposed of somehow, and the channel needs some expansion, it seems.
well lets just dig out the old mothballed project plowshare out of the coldwar toolbox and see what we can do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
ICBMs won't do it, we need something stronger.
I cannot find how much ship weights itself, but deadweight tonnage which is about 200000t. Let's assume 300000t. Thrust of Saturn V S-IC stage is 3300t, with diameter of 10m, empty mass of 130t and 2150t of propellant for 150s burn time. It would need nearly 300 fully fuelled S-IC stages to lift it! Which is a bit too much, as with 400x60m ship area we can only fit about 240 stages. But as we're definitely not going into orbit anyway we can reduce propellant amount for shorter burn time. Cutting propellant by half reducing burn time to 75s we only need around 143 stages, fitting on ship with room to spare.
So in that regard it is doable. But there's problem of what to do with all the exhaust, as rockets obviously aren't designed for pulling load attached to the bottom...
I cannot find how much ship weights itself, but deadweight tonnage which is about 200000t. Let's assume 300000t. Thrust of Saturn V S-IC stage is 3300t, with diameter of 10m, empty mass of 130t and 2150t of propellant for 150s burn time. It would need nearly 300 fully fuelled S-IC stages to lift it! Which is a bit too much, as with 400x60m ship area we can only fit about 240 stages. But as we're definitely not going into orbit anyway we can reduce propellant amount for shorter burn time. Cutting propellant by half reducing burn time to 75s we only need around 143 stages, fitting on ship with room to spare.
So in that regard it is doable. But there's problem of what to do with all the exhaust, as rockets obviously aren't designed for pulling load attached to the bottom...
We'll dig down beneath the ship hundreds and hundreds of feet to build the rocket from below, with huge exhaust shafts to let the pressure exit.
What about setting off a nuclear bomb underneath the ship?
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Kessler has entered the chat.
I'd be amazed if the density of weight on the ship is such that an arbitrarily large fleet of Chinooks could actually safely accomplish this. And helicopters flying in a dense formation under strain is quite likely to result in a lot of really big problems.
Yeah because what we really need to fix this situation is several hundred giant blenders exploding in mid air fireball of high velocity steel on top of the jammed ship
Absolutely glorious, though I'm wondering what recent synced drones could do for that instead of faking foreworks.
The rotor wash beneath it all would be breathtaking.. and might blow all the water out of the canal. :)
Somebody get Randall Munroe on the phone - I think we've found the next What-If topic.
Which makes me think - what about using all these choppers to blow the water in - and keep it there? :).
(I assume this is an equivalent problem to the lifting problem, as the extra pressure they'd be fighting would be that of the ship displacing water.)
(I assume this is an equivalent problem to the lifting problem, as the extra pressure they'd be fighting would be that of the ship displacing water.)
That's actually an interesting idea - set up a temporary lock/dam on either side of the ship to float it. If, instead of a boring dam made out of concrete or something "normal" we used a fleet of Chinooks then all the better!
I do believe this is probably one of the solutions that's being investigated but I also believe it's
1. Super expensive to construct an impromptu dam under water
2. Floating a listing ship can result in more severe listing if you're not careful (See, for instance, the fact that when a ship beaches itself while the tide is out it's initially bad news - and when the tide starts to come back in it becomes significantly worse news.
Learning and humor are fun together!
I do believe this is probably one of the solutions that's being investigated but I also believe it's
1. Super expensive to construct an impromptu dam under water
2. Floating a listing ship can result in more severe listing if you're not careful (See, for instance, the fact that when a ship beaches itself while the tide is out it's initially bad news - and when the tide starts to come back in it becomes significantly worse news.
Learning and humor are fun together!
Now I wonder...
Let's assume it was possible. Would the force of lifting that much mass be enough to shift the earth in a measurable way? (I'm assuming it would be a lot stronger lifting it into the air than what floating on the water produces, but have no idea what the math would be)
Let's assume it was possible. Would the force of lifting that much mass be enough to shift the earth in a measurable way? (I'm assuming it would be a lot stronger lifting it into the air than what floating on the water produces, but have no idea what the math would be)
F=ma no matter what, so if things aren't accelerating, the force isn't changing, it's just being transferred to the earth by other means. In this case, it would be through the air rather than the water.
It is as it's lifted though, right?
I don't understand the question. Try restating the question without using the word "it".
The ship is accelerating as it's lifted though, right?
Yes, but the ship is already being accelerated upwards by the surface of the earth at 9.8 m/s^2. If you were to lift it, you'd do it very, very slowly, so you'd increase the acceleration (temporarily) to, say, 9.8000001 m/s^2. The extra force required to do that is very small.
Note that ships actually are accelerated up and down in the Panama canal, which has locks. (The Suez doesn't.) That amounts to pretty much the same thing. It doesn't matter whether the forces are transferred to the earth via a column of water or a column of air.
Note that ships actually are accelerated up and down in the Panama canal, which has locks. (The Suez doesn't.) That amounts to pretty much the same thing. It doesn't matter whether the forces are transferred to the earth via a column of water or a column of air.
Because this is physics I wanted to clarify that the ship is not being accelerated upwards by the surface of the earth at 9.8 m/s^2 it is being effected by a static force that is countering an opposing force that would cause it to accelerate downwards at 9.8 m/s^2 that causes it to remain in a state of rest. To lift the ship off the ground you not only need to out pace the difference between the static force in agreement and the opposing force - but the static force will not contribute to motion so you do correctly need a force that would result in an acceleration of 9.800001 m/s^2 in the absence of gravity.
Since the static force in opposition won't contribute towards upward motion you actually need to supply the full amount of force to lift it - not just enough to barely nudge the need by .00001 m/s^2
In terms of whether that force would cause any effect the answer is yes (because everything is an effect) and effectively no since as ridiculously heavy as this container ship is it is absolute peanuts compared to the mass of the earth nuclear explosions that produce megatons of force are still immensely negligible, ditto for super massive volcanoes. A volcanic explosion large enough to derail the earth's rotation by a day would definitely be an extinction level event for all of the complex life forms on earth. But, that said, every little thing does contribute in its little way.
Lastly - yea, the presence of locks in the panama canal does mean that ships are regularly accelerated upwards and downwards without any noticeable effect - if that change in elevation was executed by explosives or chinooks there would be slight variations in the force but they'd be mostly inconsequential on the scale of things.
Since the static force in opposition won't contribute towards upward motion you actually need to supply the full amount of force to lift it - not just enough to barely nudge the need by .00001 m/s^2
In terms of whether that force would cause any effect the answer is yes (because everything is an effect) and effectively no since as ridiculously heavy as this container ship is it is absolute peanuts compared to the mass of the earth nuclear explosions that produce megatons of force are still immensely negligible, ditto for super massive volcanoes. A volcanic explosion large enough to derail the earth's rotation by a day would definitely be an extinction level event for all of the complex life forms on earth. But, that said, every little thing does contribute in its little way.
Lastly - yea, the presence of locks in the panama canal does mean that ships are regularly accelerated upwards and downwards without any noticeable effect - if that change in elevation was executed by explosives or chinooks there would be slight variations in the force but they'd be mostly inconsequential on the scale of things.
> the ship is not being accelerated upwards by the surface of the earth at 9.8 m/s^2
Actually it is:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/einsteins-experimental-...
Actually it is:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/einsteins-experimental-...
[deleted]
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!
With levers you trade force for time. How long would a lever like that take to complete its arc?
Assume the lever is steel.
The speed of sound in steel is approx. 10,000 ft/s.
The distance from Suez to Beijing is approx. 25,000,000 feet.
The time for a force to be applied in Beijing and a reaction in Suez would be ~2,500 seconds - or 1.7 days.
The speed of sound in steel is approx. 10,000 ft/s.
The distance from Suez to Beijing is approx. 25,000,000 feet.
The time for a force to be applied in Beijing and a reaction in Suez would be ~2,500 seconds - or 1.7 days.
(200,000 short tons) / (130,000 pounds lifting capacity) =
3,076 Spruce... Geese.
I'm imagining an incredible system of hooks setup so that the fleet of Spruce Gooses pass over at low altitude and speed, snare the hooks, and YOINK pull it right out in one pass.
Just use the Philadelphia Experiment technology to teleport it to another dimension
Now that's an idea I can get behind, but unfortunately, the guy with classification authority over that material didn't write down where it was eventually stored...
In fact we can't find him anywhere...
In fact we can't find him anywhere...
Just attach some thrusters to the dang thing and we are good - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPg4JP1WzQc
The Mil V-12 was built to lift ICBMs, and could easily lift any container.
https://youtu.be/yOApFeEgHcE
https://youtu.be/yOApFeEgHcE
An entire fleet of Chinook helecopters would blow a mighty draft of air downward onto the ship, holding it in place.
Visited this on my phone and it said "No.". I yelped. Turns out there's just an issue with the site on mobile! Still stuck.
The site provides a tongue-in-cheek warning for this: "Tornado Guard warnings apply."
https://xkcd.com/937
https://xkcd.com/937
How does liability work here? Who is liable for all the work required to get the ship dug out? Who keeps the insurance that will pay for all this?
Genuine question: why not simply pull its back in the reverse direction it was going, until its front is unstuck?
Because the momentum of a huge ship dug quite deeply into the sides of the canal quite hard, so it's no longer floating.
It's nowhere close to floating currently, and a ship can't be pulled with arbitrarily large forces without damage.
It's nowhere close to floating currently, and a ship can't be pulled with arbitrarily large forces without damage.
Both ends are jammed now.
the stern is stuck already in the other bank
Needs a counter for ongoing cost. An experienced military logistics person I know estimated yesterday that the bill for this is up to about $40 billion already.
That might be the total value of impacted shipping, but nobody is going to get a $40 billion bill for this.
There will not be a single bill of that size, and directly insured costs are likely to top out at a 1-200 million. But the knock-on shipping delays are likely not insured and will weigh heavily on the charter sector (who rent space on the ships by the day): https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL113625...
An interesting stat there is that on the Ever Given alone there are ~20,000 boxes (cargo containers) with an average 20 shipments (from different people) in each. So that's ~400,000 commercial deliveries held up on one ship alone.
An interesting stat there is that on the Ever Given alone there are ~20,000 boxes (cargo containers) with an average 20 shipments (from different people) in each. So that's ~400,000 commercial deliveries held up on one ship alone.
Do they have deadlines for delivery and late fees? I’ve heard a quarter of the worldwide cargo capacity will be delayed by this event, this could rise very fast.
Could anyone end up being liable for this? For example, could delayed ships sue canal operators who in turn sue the owners of Ever Given? Alternatively, would an event like this be covered by any insurance policies?
Don't know about liability but per my sibling comment, only about 10% of shipments are covered for delays.
I wonder if they could build a dam around the ship and lift it with water.
Physically that would work, but this ship has a draught of 14.5 meters. You'd need to build a pretty high dam. It would need to cross the canal twice, as otherwise the water level inside the dam would never be higher than the current water level, and you'd need to pump in the water. Then, once the ship floats, you'd somehow need to move it out of your small artificial lake into the canal, and remove the dam you created in the canal.
It's easier to lighten the ship.
It's easier to lighten the ship.
Two temporary dams across the canal, above and below the ship; basically creating a temporary lock in the canal. Sandbags and tarpaulin, or two huge balloons you fill with water so they squeeze themselves stuck against the sides. (In both cases, with suitable temporary support structures on the outer sides. For a base, use a big empty ship or three on each end, run them up against the dam and scuttle them, then refloat when all is done?) Then fill the lock you just built with water pumped in from the canal, and the ship should float. When it's upright in the middle of the canal, dismantle the lock again. It doesn't have to be all that super tight or anything; as long as your pumps can outrun the leakage, just keep running them for the duration.
The GP is only the second such suggestion I see here. The first was on the second sub-page of comments (close to a comment about lifting the ship with a hydrogen balloon, for a search term; combining them is where I got the water balloon idea in stead of sandbags). Mine would have been the third.
Quite honestly and seriously seems far from unfeasible. And perhaps, depending on how fast you can get enough sandbags (or just the bags; sand should be available nearby?), tarpaulins, and pumps there, faster than most other suggestions.
The GP is only the second such suggestion I see here. The first was on the second sub-page of comments (close to a comment about lifting the ship with a hydrogen balloon, for a search term; combining them is where I got the water balloon idea in stead of sandbags). Mine would have been the third.
Quite honestly and seriously seems far from unfeasible. And perhaps, depending on how fast you can get enough sandbags (or just the bags; sand should be available nearby?), tarpaulins, and pumps there, faster than most other suggestions.
Smit are like the Winston Wolf of the shipping business. No problem too big to solve.
Recent and related:
Suez canal blocked by a massive ship - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560319 - March 2021 (419 comments)
Also ongoing:
It 'Might Take Weeks' to Free Ship Stuck in Suez Canal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26585480 - March 2021 (23 comments)
Suez Canal: How are they trying to free the Ever Given? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586278 - March 2021 (44 comments)
Suez canal blocked by a massive ship - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560319 - March 2021 (419 comments)
Also ongoing:
It 'Might Take Weeks' to Free Ship Stuck in Suez Canal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26585480 - March 2021 (23 comments)
Suez Canal: How are they trying to free the Ever Given? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586278 - March 2021 (44 comments)
The ship stuck (Ever Given) is build to Suezmax limits. It fits, but barely.
Ever Given (Suezmax limit)
Ever Given (Suezmax limit)
length: 399.94 m (400 m)
tonnage: 199,629 DWT (200,000 DWT)Job interview question: how many helicopters would it take to lift it?
15,000 Chinooks. Good luck finding that many, though.
How about the Skycrane?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQrUiCd61U
Or Volvo trucks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQrUiCd61U
Or Volvo trucks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4
Anybody know at what point the backed up ships start taking the long way around? (Around Africa!)
It might be already happening? https://twitter.com/AriaCallaghan/status/1375154205233721348
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A balloon half a kilometer in radius filled with hydrogen should be able to float the ship.
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Great minds think alike:
https://isthesuezcanalblocked.com
https://isthesuezcanalblocked.com
Is it naive to suggest that they start digging a detour around this roadblock? I feel like it would take less time to do that than to try to move the ship out of the way.
The Army Corps of Engineers can build waterways and levies like it's nobody's business.
The Army Corps of Engineers can build waterways and levies like it's nobody's business.
Dig it with what? By the time you could get anything in place and start digging any sort of a detour, you'll get this ship removed.
This is not a small detour. These ships can't turn well so any detour would need to be very long and would take months to dig out (even if you had infrastructure in place to do it).
You could nuke it though. Throw a bunch of nukes in a line and you are good to go. :D
This is not a small detour. These ships can't turn well so any detour would need to be very long and would take months to dig out (even if you had infrastructure in place to do it).
You could nuke it though. Throw a bunch of nukes in a line and you are good to go. :D
> You could nuke it though. Throw a bunch of nukes in a line and you are good to go. :D
I don't know if you're joking or not but there were tactical demolition nukes in the 60's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Mu...
I don't know if you're joking or not but there were tactical demolition nukes in the 60's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Mu...
When in doubt, C4. But it wouldn’t even help: It is shallow and there isn’t enough water to fill such a hole.
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.
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.
Drop salt around the ship to increase the buoyancy of the water...
One peaceful nuclear explosion would do the trick.
They need to pump out sand from beneath the ship. If it is indeed sand.
It will be weeks before this ship is free.
Fuel and oil can be pumped out but that only makes up a fraction of the total weight of the vessel. Containers can be unloaded but again the lightest will be at the top so a significant number will need to be removed to make a big enough difference. And unloading them will be a slow process. You can maybe unload a few per hour with helicopters. There doesn't exist any infrastructure which could get to that location and lift off containers. You could build a custom crane barge but that would take at least a month to fabricate and get to the site. The easiest way to remove containers will be using cutting equipment, winches and possibly explosives. It won't be easy and will likely take several weeks to unload a significant number of containers, the ship and containers will be damaged in the process.
That leaves dredging the sand under the ship. Again the infrastructure to do this rapidly doesn't exist. You can dig out the sand around the ship but there is a huge amount that the ship is resting on. It will take specialist dredging equipment to start removing this sand.
Fuel and oil can be pumped out but that only makes up a fraction of the total weight of the vessel. Containers can be unloaded but again the lightest will be at the top so a significant number will need to be removed to make a big enough difference. And unloading them will be a slow process. You can maybe unload a few per hour with helicopters. There doesn't exist any infrastructure which could get to that location and lift off containers. You could build a custom crane barge but that would take at least a month to fabricate and get to the site. The easiest way to remove containers will be using cutting equipment, winches and possibly explosives. It won't be easy and will likely take several weeks to unload a significant number of containers, the ship and containers will be damaged in the process.
That leaves dredging the sand under the ship. Again the infrastructure to do this rapidly doesn't exist. You can dig out the sand around the ship but there is a huge amount that the ship is resting on. It will take specialist dredging equipment to start removing this sand.
Could you replace dredging with just a whole lot of flowing water? Pump water under the hull, let the sand turn into mud, have the weight of the ship push the mud to the side. As the ship gets lower and lower, less of its weight becomes supported by the sand.
The mud would still flow to the sides. You might wanna do some dredging over there to give the mud somewhere to go, and make more manouvring space. But in any case, this way you can move a whole lot of sand with very basic equipment. You can't move it far, or move it "up" but you can move it.
The mud would still flow to the sides. You might wanna do some dredging over there to give the mud somewhere to go, and make more manouvring space. But in any case, this way you can move a whole lot of sand with very basic equipment. You can't move it far, or move it "up" but you can move it.
How about sectioning off a part of the canal around the ship and pumping water in?
That sounds so crazy, it might just work. One would need to build a wall, possibly out of sand, around the ship, including blocking off the suez Canal itself at two spots.
It’sa bit like that Ceasar built two rings of walls when he was besieging the Gauls but was in turn besieged by the Gaul relief army, greatly and suspencefully explained in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68
It’sa bit like that Ceasar built two rings of walls when he was besieging the Gauls but was in turn besieged by the Gaul relief army, greatly and suspencefully explained in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68
> Again the infrastructure to do this rapidly doesn't exist.
The UAE used several sand-vacuuming ships to build their artificial islands, wouldn't those do the job?
The UAE used several sand-vacuuming ships to build their artificial islands, wouldn't those do the job?
The dredging for that project was done by a Belgian and a Dutch company, and I don't think they left their ships and equipment there afterwards.
That Dutch company has now been called in to fix this, though.
That company is the same one that raised the Kursk!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ6IMREvz8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ6IMREvz8
What a fascinating watch. To think this was possible in 2001, I wonder how the capabilities have improved since.
It also took many years.
They may have a shot Mar 30th - there's a high tide coming.
Should we also count the effort needed to put these containers back to vessel? Same for fuel.
No. The blockage is the problem; anything on that ship is basically irrelevant from an economical perspective. Especially when we're talking about weeks of downtime.
Who internalizes those costs though?
Only the owner of the ship is allowed to harm it and the owner would like the cargo to remain undamaged. I suppose the many other entities which would like to use the canal could pay the owner enough to make damaging the ship and cargo economical?
Egypt might be able to unilaterally decide to destroy the ship but I don't know how much benefit Egypt gets from keeping the canal open, they might not have a strong incentive either way.
I agree with you that collectively we should be able to say the safety of the ship is unimportant compared to all the other cargo which needs to get through that canal. However, 2020 should have made it clear that we're not good at solving that kind of coordination problem.
Only the owner of the ship is allowed to harm it and the owner would like the cargo to remain undamaged. I suppose the many other entities which would like to use the canal could pay the owner enough to make damaging the ship and cargo economical?
Egypt might be able to unilaterally decide to destroy the ship but I don't know how much benefit Egypt gets from keeping the canal open, they might not have a strong incentive either way.
I agree with you that collectively we should be able to say the safety of the ship is unimportant compared to all the other cargo which needs to get through that canal. However, 2020 should have made it clear that we're not good at solving that kind of coordination problem.
I feel like theres a lot of international and maritime laws Egypt would violate if they just decide to blow the cargo ship without consent from all parties. This would make further trade relations with anyone... sour?
Trade relations with the country which controls the Suez canal? I would guess no nation depending on international trade would rather have the canal free. So no one would blame Egypt, if they decided to blow up the ship.
However, blowing up the ship is likely to create a even bigger mess, so that is the biggest reason that it is still there.
However, blowing up the ship is likely to create a even bigger mess, so that is the biggest reason that it is still there.
It is Egyptian water so I don't think international maritime law applies.
However, the ship is more important then the cargo according to maritime law. The commander have the right to let go of the cargo if there is a need.
However, the ship is more important then the cargo according to maritime law. The commander have the right to let go of the cargo if there is a need.
The excavators make sense as the first stage of a dredging operation.
How about doing nothing? Just let the canal be blocked. Go the long way. All about the journey not thw destination. Give the container owners an NFT of their missing container.
Wait for sea-level rise to do the work. According to some, it won't be more than twelve years for 3m rise.
Edward Teller: How big is Antarctica?
Edward Teller: How big is Antarctica?
Why not roll the containers off the ship - like a stone block of a pyramid? "All you need" is a ramp (or a hole in the side).
Some of the containers are upwards of 10t in weight. It's a good idea, but it's not feasible because of how slowly a ramp structure capable of holding that much could be deployed.
I wonder how expensive and complicated it would be to let it there and dig another lane to bypass it.
I believe this will be the option they take. Not sure how else they plan to clear the canal of obstacles if the Ever Given ends up capsizing and spilling its cargo.
At that point, you may as well have begun digging a new canal anyways.
At that point, you may as well have begun digging a new canal anyways.
Very - there's another thread discussing this. Big ships need a lot of room to turn, so the bypass lane would need to be really long.
If you can dig a whole lane why not dig the current one out?
An image showing an excavator near the pointy end.
I'm sure the overwhelming scale is reduced at this proximity.
https://i.imgur.com/aAyrXub.jpeg
I'm sure the overwhelming scale is reduced at this proximity.
https://i.imgur.com/aAyrXub.jpeg
I feel like this whole thing is a perfect metaphor for the current US government
Apparently, the ship drew a giant penis before getting stuck:
https://nypost.com/2021/03/24/cargo-ship-drew-penis-before-g...
OT: is it a given that the person responsible (the captain?) will be fired once this is over? Can the org running the Suez Canal deny entry to vessels by black listing the captain?
My non-techie wife just said to me, "We need to NFT this situation somehow."
She's been down that rabbit hole ever since reading about the Beeple piece.
She's been down that rabbit hole ever since reading about the Beeple piece.
I hope she reads the article about Beeple fraud. Buyer and owner of that art are basically investors in the same nft comp, there is no transaction either. It's just a PR.
I feel like everyone was going through massive amounts mental gymnastics to justify how NFTs are not just a scam like they look on the surface but how they are actually legitimate. News companies chipped in with the "well um actually value is just made up anyway"
But no, in the end it was just another crypto scam.
But no, in the end it was just another crypto scam.
She needs to read this to come up with an equally genius marketing plan for her NFT.
An NFT is about marketing. The products value is how well the product is marketed and nothing else. It’s purified capitalism!
An NFT is about marketing. The products value is how well the product is marketed and nothing else. It’s purified capitalism!
Maybe some kind of trustless crypto lotto about when the ahip will be freed?
The ship is named “Ever Given”, but the huge text on the side says “EVERGREEN”, which is confusingly similar. Does anyone know why?
All of that company's ships names start with 'Ever'.
Evergreen is the company, they probably just want to show that more then the ship name
"Ever Given" is the ship's name
Evergreen is the company that owns (manages?) the ship
Evergreen is the company that owns (manages?) the ship
[deleted]
The company name is Evergreen, the name of the ship is Ever Given.
How long before this gets made into a Netflix series?
We'll need a plot twist then, what would it be?
This thread reminds me similar threads here and elsewhere when Deep Water Horizon’s well head was spewing hydrocarbons into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks. The immense scale (depth, pressure, etc) and logistics (distance from shore, open ocean) exceeds everyone’s intuitive high-school grasp of physics. The ideas presented are laughable and immediately shot down by people armed with just a few facts (plenty again given the scale and logistics involved).
I’m eager to see what clever solution the engineers eventually pick.
I’m eager to see what clever solution the engineers eventually pick.
Eureka! Make the water sufficiently dense by dissolving salt or another chemical into it. And/or chilling it.
Earlier today By clicking on some "dots" queued up on that map I think that I saw a ship tagged to transport "livestock" => that might become a small tragedy if they don't manage to clear quickly the channel - those chicken/goats/dont_know_what might be due to die anyway once they reach their destination, but dying of hunger/thirst packed aboard a ship might be worse... :(
[deleted]
I wonder how much economic damage is caused every day that ship is stuck.
The canal generated 5.61 billion USD in 2020 [0] so it is costing them 15 million dollars a day in lost revenue. Shipping companies now have to go around Africa which costs uses more fuel and has other costs but now they don't have to pay the toll and I'm betting the spread between the toll price and the additional cost of going around Africa isn't very large or Egypt is leaving free money on the table.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#:~:text=I...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#:~:text=I...
That's lost revenue for Egypt - there is also the losses all along the supply lines for all the goods that aren't reaching their destination.
Oh, and some of the goods may even be perishable, so they may be lost completely...
Oh, and some of the goods may even be perishable, so they may be lost completely...
How about the COSCO ship that's been parked by the bay bridge forever?
As bad as this seems, it's still a long way from the ships that were trapped in the Suez for ... eight years. Yep, eight years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DiXRCo7eBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DiXRCo7eBs
At this point just fill in that section of the canal, leave the ship there, and dig a new canal.
Given how important this canal is, I would have thought multiple countries have literally wargamed how to remove a blockade from the canal in a way that makes it still usable for shipping.
Maybe disassemble part of the ship to disgorge its contents closer to equipment?
Nuke the thing. Crater fills with water. Continue.
Sort of like blowing up a dead, beached whale? :)
p.s. if that doesn't ring a bell with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLumsir34
Yes, exactly like that, which I had been thinking of. :)
This reminds me a lot of an immersive art installation I saw in Turkey 6 years ago of an imagined future where an oil tanker got stuck in the Bosphorous and permanently changed local society.
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/ccehp/strait...
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/ccehp/strait...
Moving sand is easier than moving a ship+20K containers or removing the 20K containers in hopes of refloating the ship.
So the easiest solution would be to widen the canal at this point - where the ship is currently located and where the ship will need to go as it refloats and turns. Move the banks further back. In effect create a place with enough room for a ship of this size to turnaround.
The canal isn't that deep. Dredgers can be brought on both banks in front and behind the ship. Four dredging teams ought to knock this out pretty quickly.
So the easiest solution would be to widen the canal at this point - where the ship is currently located and where the ship will need to go as it refloats and turns. Move the banks further back. In effect create a place with enough room for a ship of this size to turnaround.
The canal isn't that deep. Dredgers can be brought on both banks in front and behind the ship. Four dredging teams ought to knock this out pretty quickly.
How do you get the ship to fall into the hole at the right moment?
Can't wait for elon to offer a solution...
Which citizen and insult will he come up with next
This time perhaps he’ll hire a private investigator who isn’t a total huckster.
Better yet just hire dozens and wait until one shakes something loose that way he can substantiate his bullshit before he spews it.
Better yet just hire dozens and wait until one shakes something loose that way he can substantiate his bullshit before he spews it.
Tell him Egypt is planning to use a hundred Ford F150s to drag the boat, and see how quick he can get a comparable number of Cybertrucks and/or model Ss and 3s to show up.
(Realistically, Egypt would probably use bulldozers if they actually wanted to go that route.)
(Realistically, Egypt would probably use bulldozers if they actually wanted to go that route.)
I mean, a single Volvo semi was able to move 750 tons, and it's in production, unlike the Tesla Semi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4
If we're going to pick vaporware for the job why not use the Tesla semi?
Check this out, its real and not vaporware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4
Yeah, having a granny gear would help out a lot. I assume the Tesla is most likely to be direct-drive.
That demo with the Volvo was 750 tons. According to Wikipedia, the Ever Given has a deadweight tonage of just under 200,000 tons. That's the cargo capacity, not including the ship itself. Let's say the ship and cargo is around 250,000 tons, that means you'd need about 333 of those Volvo trucks to drag it, assuming about the same amount of friction pulling the ship as a truck pulling a trailer. That's probably optimistic, so you might need more like 500 to 1,000 trucks to get it unstuck.
In terms of realistic options, at this point I'm thinking they're most likely to get it out by pulling it with a lot of heavy earthmoving equipment and/or tugboats while they bring in some dredging equipment to shift the sand or whatever it's stuck on out of the way. If it's run aground on something solid they can't vaccum up with dredging equipment, I don't know what they'll do. It'll probably just be stuck for a long time until they can unload it or something.
On the other hand, maybe it'll just come loose at some high tide. I mean, however it got stuck it seems like it should be at least theoretically possible to get unstuck.
That demo with the Volvo was 750 tons. According to Wikipedia, the Ever Given has a deadweight tonage of just under 200,000 tons. That's the cargo capacity, not including the ship itself. Let's say the ship and cargo is around 250,000 tons, that means you'd need about 333 of those Volvo trucks to drag it, assuming about the same amount of friction pulling the ship as a truck pulling a trailer. That's probably optimistic, so you might need more like 500 to 1,000 trucks to get it unstuck.
In terms of realistic options, at this point I'm thinking they're most likely to get it out by pulling it with a lot of heavy earthmoving equipment and/or tugboats while they bring in some dredging equipment to shift the sand or whatever it's stuck on out of the way. If it's run aground on something solid they can't vaccum up with dredging equipment, I don't know what they'll do. It'll probably just be stuck for a long time until they can unload it or something.
On the other hand, maybe it'll just come loose at some high tide. I mean, however it got stuck it seems like it should be at least theoretically possible to get unstuck.
> you'd need about 333 of those Volvo trucks to drag it
You can re-use the trucks tho, the operation doesn't have to be in parallel (and it can't anyway, because the containers are stacked).
You can re-use the trucks tho, the operation doesn't have to be in parallel (and it can't anyway, because the containers are stacked).
I guess it depends how many prototypes of either vehicle exist, and how long it would take to get them to Egypt. Rounding up a hundred of something that's already in production like the S or the 3 would be easier. (They'd have to add trailer hitches or something, though.)
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586145.
It would be some decent PR to send over some Boring Company equipment
Wherever the anchor attaches is likely to be designed for quite a bit of force.
I just meant for digging the ground
I know that is a joke but if you wanted to generate enough force to push the ship off the bank, a rocket is one of the few technologies that would do the trick. I wouldn't want to stand downwind, though.
you are thinking 1.0 scale. you need to start thinking starlink scale enterprising. quantity not quality. one rocket would rip the ship into pieces. what's actually needed is a long 2d matrix of rockets, distributed broadly the across EVER GIVEN, pushing the bow in, the stern out & back. out like she came.
Except that the side of the ship isn't load bearing. Not sure how'd that work out.
This is starting to really resemble how people build ships in Space Engineers. :)
The number of thruster used there is more of a limitation in thrust power than in rigidity, grids don't flex and thruster off center placement don't generate momentum
Might as well make them fireworks while you’re at it so there can either be a celebration at the end or, even better, a celebration of failure.
Strap it to a Falcon Heavy.
How many falcon heavies would we need to lift 200,000 metric tons?
Apparently Falcon Heavy has 5 million lbs of thrust, so about 88 Falcon Heavies?
SuperHeavy will have 17 million lbs of thrust so if Elon could deliver 25 SuperHeavy boosters with a total of 700 Raptor engines it could lift the Ever Given? Someone should simulate this in Kerbal.
SuperHeavy will have 17 million lbs of thrust so if Elon could deliver 25 SuperHeavy boosters with a total of 700 Raptor engines it could lift the Ever Given? Someone should simulate this in Kerbal.
If we're going unrealistic, there are even better plans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag&t=123s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag&t=123s
I'm no naval architect, but wouldn't the ship break in two once the robot tries to pick it up? It would for sure break apart due to centrifugal force while being swung.
I like movies where I can suspend belief (monsters and giant robots), but I hate it when they get the regular real stuff wrong.
I like movies where I can suspend belief (monsters and giant robots), but I hate it when they get the regular real stuff wrong.
You mean those tiny helicopters that can each lift thousands of tons of super robot mass, right ? And they can do that while flying in perfect formation! ;-)
To be clear, 200,000 tons is the weight of the cargo+fuel this ship carries, not counting the structure of the ship itself. I haven't found a good number for the displacement (the total weight, including the ship), and would be curious to know what it is.
Wikipedia says the Triple-E class container ships have an empty displacement of 55Kt. Assuming the Golden class is similar, with a summer deadweight of 200Kt, it seems a loaded displacement of 250Kt is possible.
I read in a random news story that the Ever Given's displacement on this voyage is about 220Kt.
Note that the units are long tons, which means that ship weighs close to 250,000 american tons, or five hundred million pounds.
I read in a random news story that the Ever Given's displacement on this voyage is about 220Kt.
Note that the units are long tons, which means that ship weighs close to 250,000 american tons, or five hundred million pounds.
I feel like it’s generally more helpful to stick with SI units if you’re already there :)
I agree, and I think these weights are in fact now reported as metric tons, not imperial long tons. The difference is insignificant for purposes of casual conversation.
Thank you, that is exactly the sort of info I was looking for!
So what do I buy or sell or short to protect my portfolio?
Why not some large pumps, suck up water from the canal and use jets to blast the sand out from under the bow. Slowly shift the sand around.
Granted they might have to dredge to clear that sand out of the canal.
Surely it's been thought of....
Granted they might have to dredge to clear that sand out of the canal.
Surely it's been thought of....
Just another non-expert, but I wonder if the simplest approach might be to pump water under it to wash away the sand it's beached on.
Googling, it seems that this is a recognised technique for dredging: https://www.iadc-dredging.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fac... Whether it works might be dependent on what kind of soil its sitting on and whether the current is strong enough to take away the dislodged particles.
I guess it would also be hard to work out exactly what you've removed and hence whether you leaving the ship in a position that will stress its structure too much.
Googling, it seems that this is a recognised technique for dredging: https://www.iadc-dredging.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fac... Whether it works might be dependent on what kind of soil its sitting on and whether the current is strong enough to take away the dislodged particles.
I guess it would also be hard to work out exactly what you've removed and hence whether you leaving the ship in a position that will stress its structure too much.
Can someone explain why dredging alone isn't sufficient? Is it too slow?
I expect dredging will be the main solution. Dredges are just slow moving, so they’ve taken a while to arrive.
I’d also expect some long reach excavators and/or draglines to be working from the shore and/or barges.
They probably just underestimated the stuckedness at first. Throw in some ineptitude and corruption, and you have this royal mess.
I’d also expect some long reach excavators and/or draglines to be working from the shore and/or barges.
They probably just underestimated the stuckedness at first. Throw in some ineptitude and corruption, and you have this royal mess.
Really deep keel in not much water. At shore zero water. Ie It’s properly stuck
[deleted]
Are dredges normally expected to access underneath a ship? I thought under the typical use cases they have a clear work area.
Don't earthquakes cause liquefaction? Any possibility that you could introduce enough energy (possibly sound) in the correct frequency to make the sand act liquid enough that you could rotate the ship until it is free?
I was thinking the same. Get lots of pumps in, drill into the sand bar and pump water to fluidize it. But it's probably still a scale thing, all the proportions involved in this problem are ludicrous.
Can someone here run the numbers on coating the whole thing in a half inch of peanut butter and unleashing an army of hungry squirrels to eat their way through? I’m not saying it’s the perfect solution, but it’s the best shot we’ve got.
I guess it's pretty complicated, but if it were less stuck, I wonder if they could use the anchors to winch it out of the tricky spot it's in. Use a tug to drop one on the other side of the canal, then pull it in to move the boat sideways.
You're breaking the anchor chain or housing in that case. The problem with just trying to pull the thing out is it's extremely likely to cause a leak and then becomes even harder to move.
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_liquefaction
It's probably gonna be stuck for a while. I'd suggest that all other ships get started on the scenic detour. Set course for Cape of Good Hope.
People are talking about excavators but why isn't anyone talking about bulldozers? Sure the sand won't be amazing to pull against but it's a lot less movable than water.
It's a Canal not the middle of the ocean. Should be able to get 20+ bulldozers on each side to try and straighten things out. They've got the gears and they've got the tracks. It might not work but it's got a lot better chances than tugs.
It's a Canal not the middle of the ocean. Should be able to get 20+ bulldozers on each side to try and straighten things out. They've got the gears and they've got the tracks. It might not work but it's got a lot better chances than tugs.
Quite the arrogance here of mostly software devs trying to out -solutionize marine/shipping experts who undoubtedly have been consulted and are already looking for the quickest way to resolve the situation. With billions of dollars in stake, I'm sure even the most expensive experts are involved.
Maybe people just find it to be an interesting problem and are having fun thinking out loud about it.
I'm not even commenting and enjoying reading these ideas.
Looks to me like everyone here is just having fun theorizing about it, I don’t see much, if any, real arrogance.
I'm not sure it's arrogance. I'm reading these theories and suggestions as a fun thought experiment. I also like comparing the real solution, whatever it is, with my memory of the arm-chair solutions to see how far off the mark they are.
Better than the coronavirus takes I've seen from software devs...
Like that guy who wrote a blog post about not waiting around after taking a COVID vaccine because it's a much greater risk than checking for an allergic reaction?
Characteristic of any forum. We're nuanced wikipedia experts on every conceivable topic under the sun.
I think the people chatting would have to be involved in some way for amateur theories to be problematic.
Yeah they flew in a 10 man team from Netherlands pretty much immediately
Bikeshedding can look like that sometimes.
[deleted]
No need to leave a comment then.
Kind of like geohot fixing covid
Kubernetes memes we got out of this are pure gold though.
Yeah it was a cluster fuck
It’s damn fun and
I’m looking forward to the n-gate analysis of this thread. In the mean time nuke that ship! Or more seriously what creating a parallel canal around that but for now.
With dynamite.
We're kind of like physicists: https://xkcd.com/793/
“Now consider a spherical ship…”
I don't like the spherical cow meme because it misses the point. The assumption isn't that the cow is a sphere but rather that all cows have 4 legs, all cows give milk, there are lots of cows, etc. From a cursory glance these may look completely reasonable, until they aren't. Some cows injured their legs and can't walk. There are male "cows" that don't give milk. Sometimes there is only one cow. Meanwhile the spherical cow meme implies that there was never any truth to it in the first place.
The complexity of life throws a wrench into everything.
The complexity of life throws a wrench into everything.
Is it totally implausible that ordinary intelligent people might have some ideas better than "put some tug boats on one end, and a single backhoe on the other end"? Because that's what your expensive experts have come up with so far.
For my brilliant idea: Announce that everything on the ship is free, including the ship itself, and watch all the ragamuffins of Egypt strip it to nothing in a day.
For my brilliant idea: Announce that everything on the ship is free, including the ship itself, and watch all the ragamuffins of Egypt strip it to nothing in a day.
as an Arab myself, I've done a fair bit of ship stripping and this may be a great idea. I may have enough tools in my backyard to strip a container ship and so does my neighbour Abdul Mohamed.
Ah yes, the solution isn't to consult experts, but to step back and expect racist stereotypes to solve the problem!
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
I can understand your reaction, but the commenter might not have been thinking about racism that way. It's not crazy to think that poor people near a waterway might know a thing or two about strip salvaging. It was just phrased poorly, I think.
You are a total imbecile, Sir.
Weeks? My 0.02 is dig a bypass using dredges/pumps, then it's a 'days' problem.
Of course it won't help this ship, but at least the canal functions.
Of course it won't help this ship, but at least the canal functions.
Digging a bypass is not a days problem, that's a years problem. Everything about this problem is massive.
The shipping lane of the Suez canal is 20 m deep and 77 m wide. The maximum ship length is 400 m, so the turning radius required to get into the bypass is literally miles long.
The shipping lane of the Suez canal is 20 m deep and 77 m wide. The maximum ship length is 400 m, so the turning radius required to get into the bypass is literally miles long.
It would be a lot shorter to "just" dig a canal in front of the ship and park it in there forever, but would still probably take too long.
Site author here, I guess this is why the New York Times API keeps hitting rate limits.
Interesting project. WOndering if you could write a blog about building that site.
I could, though it would be summarised in about one sentence: "NextJS and Vercel make everything stupidly easy."
haha thanks man!
Cool! How much traffic are you handling at the moment / at peak?
I actually have no idea. It was just a bit of fun so I haven't got any logs/analytics set up at all.
Surprised nobody has suggested blowing it up yet haha
Get Elon's boring machines to dig in the right location(s) ...
Forgive me if this comment only belongs on Reddit but it's worth noting Vice[0] thinks this captain was being a little caviler for the lulz of his GPS waypoints.
[0] NSFW https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqwn8/suez-canal-ms-ever-gi...
[0] NSFW https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqwn8/suez-canal-ms-ever-gi...
They could set up pumps to put water on the two spots where it is stuck, and at the same time pump out the water/sand mixture.
This way it will increase the depth and width of the canal just where it is needed.
This way it will increase the depth and width of the canal just where it is needed.
On the same topic, this is an excellent read: https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-seacowboys/
Elon, we need you ;)
Since it might takes weeks to clear the canal, can anyone here comment on the implications this will have on world trade?
Apparently the Suez shaves off 3 days of travel time and saves $360,000 of fuel.
If we're talking weeks to get unstuck, they better head around the tip of Africa.
If we're talking weeks to get unstuck, they better head around the tip of Africa.
Summary of this thread: A bunch of people with no experience or knowledge of the problem come up with some half-arsed "solutions" because they think that they are smarter than people who do.
Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah - Elon Musk rescuing people from a flooded cave.
Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah - Elon Musk rescuing people from a flooded cave.
Every question with a binary answer should have its own website like this. I would, in particular, like a website for every room in my house with the question "are my car keys in this room?"
Then I would create an rss feed of each site and subscribe to them.
Then I would create an rss feed of each site and subscribe to them.
That’s an O(n) car key search, if you instead asked the question “are my car keys in this half of the house?” you could perform a binary search O(log n).
I would still need N sites to ultimately resolve the specific room the keys are located it, and it would complicated my RSS feed because more than one would resolve to "yes". No, each room in my house must have its own sue & domain.
Actually I would need more sites under that method: an 8 room house would need a site for each side of the 4/4 split, then another for each 2/2 split, then 1 for each room.
Actually I would need more sites under that method: an 8 room house would need a site for each side of the 4/4 split, then another for each 2/2 split, then 1 for each room.
The tile device works for members of my family who misplace their keys OR their phone:
https://www.thetileapp.com/
https://www.thetileapp.com/
A bit off-topic but I think worth noting. The VesselFinder map on this website is incredibly smooth and responsive! Every time I open up Google Maps, I feel how bloated it is despite running on the Pixel 5, Google's very own latest flagship device! It seems to me Google doesn't care much about Maps' performance if I feel more comfortable navigating maps using some random, web embed. After looking around the embed a bit, turns out it's powered by OSM! Even though I have never used OSM before, I should have guessed. Truly nice work on this OSM and VesselFinder. It's honestly euphoric to find software which performs so well despite not having access to billions of dollars in resources.
It's using OpenLayers.
https://openlayers.org/
https://openlayers.org/
OpenLayers uses OSM. If you go to the VesselFinder website, you can see them give credit to OSM in that map and the OpenLayers website mentions they use OSM. Guess I should have mentioned OpenLayers too since it actually implements the map UI so ty.
OSM is primarily just a datasource. Different consumers of the data will have different UIs and performance.
It was only a matter of time https://twitter.com/addiiceland/status/1374634903321649154
You'd think Elon would call the captain some awful names and then claim he can free it with his flamethrower and submarine!
solution: Honk the fog horn until the sand vibrates away from the sound.
Has anyone checked the ship’s manifest? Maybe we’ll get lucky and find out it’s carrying 20,000 containers of thermite.
[deleted]
Panama Canal Authority soon to announce widening capital works.
> As Relay's chief competitor in this region, we of Windsong have benefited modestly from the overflow; however, until now we thought it inappropriate to propose a coordinated response to the problem.
> As Relay's chief competitor in this region, we of Windsong have benefited modestly from the overflow; however, until now we thought it inappropriate to propose a coordinated response to the problem.
What's the estimated economic impact of the blockage? Will other ships have to wait or is reroute even an option?
I know that the ship's crew doesn't actually dock the ship in ports, and each port has dedicated pilots that board the vessel and handle that aspect of the shipment. Is the same true for the canal? It seems it would ostensibly be this pilot's "fault" if that were the case, but I don't actually know who the pilots work for.
The movie rights should pay for some of the salvage costs
You can also text for status: (586) 800-BOAT
https://twitter.com/kelleyrobinson/status/137519912243366298...
https://twitter.com/kelleyrobinson/status/137519912243366298...
Pulleys man. Millions and millions of pulleys. Such a magnificent system of pulleys that a 3 year old could pull it.
Or hydraulic arms? such that a squirrel could pull it then.
How does liability work in a situation like this? Can other shipping companies sue the at fault company for damages?
I assume the ship had a pilot from the canal authority which should absolve the shipping company from liability.
There's another thread about a private sailboat transiting the canal and it mentioned several pilot changeovers; I have to imagine a giant container ship had something similar.
Disclaimer: I know nearly nothing about the shipping/canal business.
There's another thread about a private sailboat transiting the canal and it mentioned several pilot changeovers; I have to imagine a giant container ship had something similar.
Disclaimer: I know nearly nothing about the shipping/canal business.
I’d like to understand why this hasn’t happened before. What was special about this ship, this passage, etc.?
Fun facts:
1. The owner is Japanese
2. The operator is Taiwanese
3. The flag is Panamanian
4. The cargo is Chinese
5. The insurer is British
6. The crew is Indian
7. The canal is Egyptian and was built with forced labor by the French
8. The dredgers/salvage op managers are Dutch
1. The owner is Japanese
2. The operator is Taiwanese
3. The flag is Panamanian
4. The cargo is Chinese
5. The insurer is British
6. The crew is Indian
7. The canal is Egyptian and was built with forced labor by the French
8. The dredgers/salvage op managers are Dutch
9. The destination is the Netherlands (Rotterdam).
While we're at it, the 1956 Suez canal crisis marked the end of the traditional colonial powers when the USSR threatened to nuke London and Paris if they don't let Egypt regain control of the canal.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/yes-1956-suez-crisi...
While we're at it, the 1956 Suez canal crisis marked the end of the traditional colonial powers when the USSR threatened to nuke London and Paris if they don't let Egypt regain control of the canal.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/yes-1956-suez-crisi...
Small correction. Egypt do not regain the canal, they seized the canal.
Not egypt, but the Suez Canal company was was not the legitimate owner of the canal.
Interestingly, it was the disapproval of the US under Eisenhower that stopped the military action of Britain and France that ended their intervention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Company
Not egypt, but the Suez Canal company was was not the legitimate owner of the canal.
Interestingly, it was the disapproval of the US under Eisenhower that stopped the military action of Britain and France that ended their intervention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Company
Britain didn't really distinguish itself overthrowing the democratic government in Iran to protect BPs profits in 1953. I guess Eisenhower thought enough of this stuff.
well, they gained control by seizing the canal then lost it due to the invasion, hence why I said 'regain'. Both the Soviet and US pressure resulted in the stop of the invasion, but certainly the USSR had an important role, if anything to distract the media from its invasion of Hungary.
10. The technical manager is German (BS Shipmanagement)
Go, go gadget globalisation!
Seriously though that's pretty amazing.
Fun fact: corporations used to exist for a limit period of time, to solve a particular problem, and were then dissolved. With the introduction of indefinite corporations, we end up with cool setups like those /u/throwawaybutwhy has highlighted.
Seriously though that's pretty amazing.
Fun fact: corporations used to exist for a limit period of time, to solve a particular problem, and were then dissolved. With the introduction of indefinite corporations, we end up with cool setups like those /u/throwawaybutwhy has highlighted.
When and where did they exist for a limited period of time? It never even occurred to me that this was an option
The first European joint-stock corporations were for single voyages. Everyone would band together and fund a ship to go somewhere, then split the earnings and dissolve the corporation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company#Early_join...
It's pretty much still like that now, except the last step is "go work for Google for a few years in golden handcuffs".
Apparently, in the Philippines until it was revised in 2019 companies are required to have a limited lifespan with a maximum lifespan of 50 years. (https://www.pwc.com/ph/en/taxwise-or-otherwise/2020/on-the-l...)
Railways.
> The flag is Panamanian
That's an interesting way to say tax evasion.
That's an interesting way to say tax evasion.
Try telling Panama they don't have a right to create their own tax laws. If they want to incentivize ships to register in their country, they're a sovereign nation and can do that.
At least in the northeast, it's common in the US OTR trucking industry to register the trailers in Maine. Registration fees in Maine are significantly less than in neighboring states. You'll also see a lot of recreational trailers (boats, RVs) registered in Maine.
And avoiding minimum wage and maintenance requirements too.
That’s not tax evasion. Tax evasion is explicitly illegal and if you do it you get arrested/fined an outsized amount.
The term you’re looking for is “tax avoidance”.
The term you’re looking for is “tax avoidance”.
That's an interesting way to say we should obliged to all the shitfuckery the goverments do and not look for better countries for what we want to do. Competition between goverments to end their shitfuckery would be so horrible.
Pretty much summed up the current world order...
9. Everybody is fucked
Can they drive pilings on the edge of the canal, and attach cables from the pilings to the boat at various points? Seems like driving pilings is an operation which can be done in parallel, while unloading the containers is mostly serialized. I’m also assuming that wenches connected to pilings are able to pull harder than tug boats.
Why not send thousands of men with shovels? That's how canals were dug in the past.
Just like Austin Powers:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/IGiQOCX9UbM
https://www.youtube.com/embed/IGiQOCX9UbM
This is an awful amount of weight to be moved. But one thing it has going is that all of the weight is on a vessel that is designed to float. We have canal locks that can lift ships this size.
So my crazy idea is to build a reverse cofferdam around the ship with Larssen steel pilings and pump water into it until the ship floats and straighten the ship and remove the pilings.
So my crazy idea is to build a reverse cofferdam around the ship with Larssen steel pilings and pump water into it until the ship floats and straighten the ship and remove the pilings.
Some of the news stories like this: https://nypost.com/2021/03/24/giant-container-ship-blocking-... are claiming that ship is partially free, what does it mean ? I am confused ....
I think there were some false reports. It's still stuck.
It’s refreshing to see a problem that’s easy to identify.
Is there a website where I can find the historical data of ships in the area? Are they still waiting for the ship to get unstuck or are now going around southern Africa?
Is it strange to anyone that we load ships to this capacity? Is this the standard procedure?
I’m essentially wondering why this is more cost-effective than building more, smaller ships.
I’m essentially wondering why this is more cost-effective than building more, smaller ships.
If you can guarantee that the ship can be routinely filled to capacity, it's almost always economical to build the biggest ship you can. These things are often built to the maximum size that will fit into the canal that they transit.
I thought I remember reading that this ship was designed to meet the Suez canal specs.
I thought I remember reading that this ship was designed to meet the Suez canal specs.
Where is Superman when you need one . They should make this part of the next movie.
n00b question: how tough is to steer the ship through the canal? Is this a silly mistake or a genuine mistake? Will the Captain of the ship get fined? Who will foot the bill of this whole rescue operation? Also, how much extra cost & days will it take for a ship to take the other (longer) route?
Smit Salvage's current plan is to dredge around the bow and pump out enough fuel to make the ship float higher.[1] More equipment will be brought in.
[1] https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-03-26-the-dredgin...
[1] https://www.tellerreport.com/business/2021-03-26-the-dredgin...
The canal, for how important it is, sure hasn't seen much in the way of investment, it seems.
They could have two lanes of concrete-lined canal I'm sure, but it's just a ditch with a tiny excavator.
They could have two lanes of concrete-lined canal I'm sure, but it's just a ditch with a tiny excavator.
There has been some https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Bypass_expansion
$9bn in 2014
$9bn in 2014
You can even text now to get its status
https://twitter.com/kelleyrobinson/status/137519912243366298...
https://twitter.com/kelleyrobinson/status/137519912243366298...
How about hard fixing heavy duty winches on the ship itself, attach the other end of cables to the shore and make the ship to pull itself in unstuck direction gradually?
Who designed this critical piece of infrastructure with a single point of failure?
It doesn't have "a single point of failure", it has infinite points of failure: Put a big ship on ground at any (infinitesimally adjacent, so infinite in number) point along the length of the canal, and it's blocked.
It's kind of evolved starting from the ancient canals of 500 BC or so. They've upgraded some of it to 2 parallel channels but not the bit the Ever Given is stuck in yet unfortunately.
Has Elon Musk volunteered to fly out there with a portable submarine yet?
Not sure how much time it took to build the website, but I assume the author bets on a long shelf life. :)
[deleted]
I know meta-posts are discouraged, but folks, you were supposed to be micro dosing.
Reading through the comments where people come up with solutions, really shows to me that software engineering education is lacking in terms of teaching general engineering principles.
Some of these proposals can be seen as being completely off reality by some basic order of magnitude estimations. Which is something that should be front and center of every engineering education.
Some of these proposals can be seen as being completely off reality by some basic order of magnitude estimations. Which is something that should be front and center of every engineering education.
> really shows to me that software engineering education is lacking in terms of teaching general engineering principles
Correct me if I’m wrong but Hacker News isn’t comprised solely of software engineers.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Hacker News isn’t comprised solely of software engineers.
You are obviously correct (I'm not one myself), but I would suspect that we have a disproportionately high number of them compared to other type of engineers.
Archimedes would have a solution for this.
Can you implement an API for that? ;)
You are all missing the simple solution: construct another canal next to it, so the other ships can continue to pass.
( I'm joking, do not take this as a serious solution )
( I'm joking, do not take this as a serious solution )
I actually don't understand why this isn't the best option right now. The east bank is mostly empty, and the channel is pretty shallow. You could probably construct a 1km detour within a few weeks with relatively low cost. Seems like a good way to hedge the bet of getting it unstuck.
> within a few weeks
Haha, no. Just no.
Haha, no. Just no.
Do you have anything to base your skepticism on?
The length of the whole canal is 200km and it took 10 years to build. I don't claim that it's exactly linear, but it sounds reasonable to assume a few weeks for just a 1km segment. The soil is soft and the canal isn't deep.
The length of the whole canal is 200km and it took 10 years to build. I don't claim that it's exactly linear, but it sounds reasonable to assume a few weeks for just a 1km segment. The soil is soft and the canal isn't deep.
Egypt State Income: ca 95.8 billion
Canal Revenue: 27.2 billion
Makes per revenue per day 74.520.547
74 Million dollars Tax Revenue consumed by ship so far * days: 4 days * 74.520.547 = 298.082.191
If this blockade lasts for 12 days it has reached 1 billion loss >= 1/100 of the egypt household. That household is already under stress from the "escape from cairo"-plans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Administrative_Capital) and covid.
If this blockade lasts for 12 days it has reached 1 billion loss >= 1/100 of the egypt household. That household is already under stress from the "escape from cairo"-plans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Administrative_Capital) and covid.
It's not that dramatic:
> In 2020, the total revenue generated amounted to 5.61 billion USD and 18,829 ships with a total net tonnage of 1.17 billion passed through the canal. [1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#Revenues
> In 2020, the total revenue generated amounted to 5.61 billion USD and 18,829 ships with a total net tonnage of 1.17 billion passed through the canal. [1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal_Authority#Revenues
This is the moment for Egypt to learn about backups. Dig a secondary canals next to the existing one. Under normal operations, have one serve the southbound traffic and the other one serving northbound traffic. In crisis, one can be blocked while the other switches direction every six hours or so.
Yes, it is expensive. But not as expensive as having a canal blocked is for the world economy and the Egyptian government.
Yes, it is expensive. But not as expensive as having a canal blocked is for the world economy and the Egyptian government.
They're missing the attribution to OpenStreetMap.
It seems to me that this is more a problem of the embed from vesselfinder.com.
I just noted this here: https://github.com/grischard/osm-lacking-attribution/issues/...
I just noted this here: https://github.com/grischard/osm-lacking-attribution/issues/...
Slap a "free to a good home" sign on it and let the people take back what is rightfully theirs. Ever Given Day shall be celebrated every year commemorating the moment when the free market failed.
"Mommy, did you really get a shipping container full of crockpots when you were my age?" "Yes, my child. We cooked like kings for many a season."
"Mommy, did you really get a shipping container full of crockpots when you were my age?" "Yes, my child. We cooked like kings for many a season."
This sounds like a great "how ww3 started" intro story for a game
I wonder whether it has had an impact on drugs price in the streets
I’d like to question the premise of the financial impact of this... figures like “$400m/hour” are being bandied around as a measure of the lost trade. But this isn’t necessarily lost trade - merely deferred trade.
So surely the financial impact should be proportional to the interest you’d pay on $400m/hour?
At ~3% interest, we’re talking less than $1m/day.
And so solutions that involve destroying the ship look less attractive.
So surely the financial impact should be proportional to the interest you’d pay on $400m/hour?
At ~3% interest, we’re talking less than $1m/day.
And so solutions that involve destroying the ship look less attractive.
Some goods are perishable. Modern logistics can have very tight deadlines.
Perishable goods go by plane though. Containers are often held up in ports for weeks due to customs checks. I’d expect the vast majority of sea-shipped goods to be non-time-critical and unharmed by waiting for a couple of weeks.
I think you underestimate the volume of the perishable goods. Most are transported in containers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerated_container
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerated_container
very hard to measure.
some goods like food expire. scary to think what about the livestock.
other goods lose value due to delays, etc.
In hindsight, was it a good idea to allow ships that big through the canal?
In the future, could they perhaps widen the canal and disallow ships large enough to block it?
In the future, could they perhaps widen the canal and disallow ships large enough to block it?
Why do I have the suspicion that an engineer raised a concern at some point but was shot down by someone with quotas to meet.
> It has cost us $30 billion dollars, so far...
This valuation is based on Lloyd's list's valuation of Suez traffic at ~$10 billion / day, but surely that would require all traffic to be permanently lost (rather than delayed) to add up to a concrete loss. Spoilage might be an issue with some cargo, plus there's other costs to delay, but I can't imagine the eventual loss will be anything close to $10 billion / day (excepting obvious large unknowns like market speculation).
This valuation is based on Lloyd's list's valuation of Suez traffic at ~$10 billion / day, but surely that would require all traffic to be permanently lost (rather than delayed) to add up to a concrete loss. Spoilage might be an issue with some cargo, plus there's other costs to delay, but I can't imagine the eventual loss will be anything close to $10 billion / day (excepting obvious large unknowns like market speculation).
Would a good old ship camel work? Position some huge water-filled tanks underneath the ship, pump the water out and replace with air, to lift the ship up. Then hopefully it becomes unstuck enough to tow it clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_camel
In comparison with other proposed solutions I've seen, it would probably not rip the ship apart if distributed evenly over the hull. Yes, the ship is huge, but plain plastic containers and pumps scale quite nicely. Although in good armchair engineering tradition, I have not run the numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_camel
In comparison with other proposed solutions I've seen, it would probably not rip the ship apart if distributed evenly over the hull. Yes, the ship is huge, but plain plastic containers and pumps scale quite nicely. Although in good armchair engineering tradition, I have not run the numbers.
Dig a bypass canal and leave the ship there.
Now just think how easy some terrorists can block the canal by just putting a hole in that sitting ship...
This photo gives some perspective
https://globalnews.ca/news/7719176/suez-canal-ship-digger-ex...
https://globalnews.ca/news/7719176/suez-canal-ship-digger-ex...
One nuclear bomb could fix this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
Writing off the entire ship would cost far less than the delays cost in a day.
Writing off the entire ship would cost far less than the delays cost in a day.
I wonder if we could liquify the soil and float the ship out of the mud.
One could imagine 15 pile drivers pounding on the shore and a couple of tugs reversing the ship.
One could imagine 15 pile drivers pounding on the shore and a couple of tugs reversing the ship.
If fire a bomb from one side of ship, Does the wave can push out ship stuck ?
One missing part of the discussion is how this large ship got stuck. Brenden Greely of The Financial Times had a good possible take the other day on the Bank Effect:
https://www.ft.com/content/171c92ec-0a44-4dc5-acab-81ee2620d...
Essentially, Bernoulli's Principle makes these large ships susceptible to jack-knifing in narrow canals.
Faster moving water creates a lower pressure zone. Water moves fastest near the stern of the boat. This is why the bow will tend to rise when a ship is moving quickly; the stern can bee seen as being sucked down almost.
In the Suez the 24m deep bed of the canal makes the water move very fast near the stern of the ship. This will also occur near the banks of the canal. With these very large ships, the effect is more pronounced, as there is less cross-sectional area for the water to move past.
If a ship gets near the banks, then you'll get the fast low pressure water acting on the bank-side of the stern and the bottom. Add your force vectors up, the ship torques, and does a 'wheelie' off the bank, jack-knifing the canal.
The big problem here is that these superships all are susceptible to this. It's a matter of hydrodynamics. The bigger the ship, the worse it gets. Meaning that economics comes crashing into physics, and we all know who will win that fight.
https://www.ft.com/content/171c92ec-0a44-4dc5-acab-81ee2620d...
Essentially, Bernoulli's Principle makes these large ships susceptible to jack-knifing in narrow canals.
Faster moving water creates a lower pressure zone. Water moves fastest near the stern of the boat. This is why the bow will tend to rise when a ship is moving quickly; the stern can bee seen as being sucked down almost.
In the Suez the 24m deep bed of the canal makes the water move very fast near the stern of the ship. This will also occur near the banks of the canal. With these very large ships, the effect is more pronounced, as there is less cross-sectional area for the water to move past.
If a ship gets near the banks, then you'll get the fast low pressure water acting on the bank-side of the stern and the bottom. Add your force vectors up, the ship torques, and does a 'wheelie' off the bank, jack-knifing the canal.
The big problem here is that these superships all are susceptible to this. It's a matter of hydrodynamics. The bigger the ship, the worse it gets. Meaning that economics comes crashing into physics, and we all know who will win that fight.
How insane would it be to flood the area around the ship with levees?
People on here pretending they are going to move the ship with all the liability and competing cargo claims.
In 3 months that ship will still be there and they will have dug a new divert to move the canal around it.
With modern methods and tools they could probably divert a 3 mile section of the canal in less time than it would take to move this ship and its cargo.
In 3 months that ship will still be there and they will have dug a new divert to move the canal around it.
With modern methods and tools they could probably divert a 3 mile section of the canal in less time than it would take to move this ship and its cargo.
Just adding a random voice to this cluster of a thread.
Lots of talk about lifting via crane or chopper. And it's not clear that it's possible. I just saw a photo of the rear (side?) Of ship that makes me wonder: how much lateral force would you need? Could you jack a container up an inch and then slide it off?
Lots of talk about lifting via crane or chopper. And it's not clear that it's possible. I just saw a photo of the rear (side?) Of ship that makes me wonder: how much lateral force would you need? Could you jack a container up an inch and then slide it off?
I'm curious how fixing these sorts of events gets funded. I imagine the expense is massive. Is it insurance? Is the allocated amount anywhere near proportional to the money being lost to being stuck? Who eventually bears the cost?
Between this and COVID maybe it's long overdue to rethink global JIT strategies?
Why don't they just remove some weight from the front of the ship, this way the ship will pitch towards its back, and then it will slide into the canal bed.
Another option is to close the canal around the ship with sand bags or just sand, then fill it with water, once the ship float and untucked itself, move it to the canal bed with the help of tugboats.
I find simple website extremely fascinating. Just answering one question
Another similar one is http://www.isnasdaqopen.com/ This tells your if the stock market is open or not
Another similar one is http://www.isnasdaqopen.com/ This tells your if the stock market is open or not
This is probably not going to be read by anyone, but:
Now that the ship is unstuck, this website says "no. What a relief" and links to an xkcd comic (611, Disaster Voyeurism). I typically append the m. To make it the mobile site (easier to get the alt text on the image). So I did, read the comic, hit back, which took me to the desktop site, hit back again... And it took me to the YouTube rickroll video?!
First I thought this was hilarious. I hit back again which took me to the istheshipstillstuck.com.
To confirm, I tried the above routine again. And it won't take me to the rickroll video anymore! I am not sure what's happening.
Has this happened to anybody else? What's going on? I'm using the Brave browser on Android (whatever the latest flavor is on Samsung devices). It's hilarious, but it also makes me concerned. Anybody?
First I thought this was hilarious. I hit back again which took me to the istheshipstillstuck.com.
To confirm, I tried the above routine again. And it won't take me to the rickroll video anymore! I am not sure what's happening.
Has this happened to anybody else? What's going on? I'm using the Brave browser on Android (whatever the latest flavor is on Samsung devices). It's hilarious, but it also makes me concerned. Anybody?
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 really stuck.
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.
It's really stuck. It's probably going to take a couple of weeks to get it unstuck.