Box boat aground in Suez Canal

Perhaps it is time to reactivate The Yellow Fleet ?

The 200,000-tonne Ever Given has not been partially re-floated, authorities said after providing inaccurate information about the rescue operation earlier.

Fake news is alive and well. That thing is stuck pretty good.

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Any real force applied to the vessel will probably require some fabrication of suitable attachment points as I doubt the ship fittings apart from the windlass foundations would be sufficient.
The other problem I see is the path of least resistance in freeing the vessel would be to move the ship in the same path as she followed going aground. This would mean a pull from the starboard quarter would probably be best achieved with beach gear.
Moving the bow to port could require dredging.
The sheer displacement involved is going to make this a first in salvage practice.

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At the time, strong to gale force winds were occurring over the southeastern Med Sea and portions of the Suez Canal 0600Z and 0900Z.

image

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A post was split to a new topic: The Salvage Chief

Has this ever happened before? I remember going through the canal in the Gulf War and wondering how fast winds got over that desert, and whether it complicated things much.

They forgot the Johnny Walker Black

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“Ahmed Mekawy, an assistant manager at the port agent GAC’s Egypt office, retracted an earlier statement announcing that the vessel had been partially refloated, saying the claim was based on inaccurate information.”

From Suez Canal: Stranded container ship Ever Given still aground after blocking world famous trade route | The Independent

:smile:

I saw where the statement was retracted.

Agreed, they should have coughed up the bonded stores when they had the chance.

Now it’s “So sorry, my friend”

If this was my SNAFU to untangle, I’d be busy driving 1x1 sheet piling squares on the banks (the equipment to do so must be on hand) while scrounging around for blocks and wire rope. Not that I know what I’m doing…

…but wait:

Salvage Master Björkmann to the rescue! Why don’t you head down there and show them how it’s done? If you tell them the gCaptain forum sent you, we can all be heroes!

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I have actually been to Suez >50 times for various reasons and watched the convoy show many times from shore. MS EVER GIVEN has draft 15.9 meters but the Canal is deeper, so she didn’t go aground as reported by media. She or rather her bulbous bow contacted the canal wall at an angle and got stuck. But the interesting thing is at the anchorage south of the canal (where the pilots board) where a lot of local merchants offer their services of all kind. They also board the ships and sometimes get off at Port Said after biz has been completed. Security is slack. EVER GIVEN with a crew of 20 has no chance to control who gets aboard. Maybe they forgot to fit the search light at the bow and didn’t see the side of the canal in the dark morning light? Or did they see anything at all from the bridge?

What part of this is not considered “going aground”? Is everything some sinister conspiracy to you?

That ship is most certainly aground. This was not just a “hard landing”. No media bias is needed to make that point.

Going aground means normally that the bottom gets stuck on a reef or sea floor, which didn’t happen here. No, here the ship contacted a fixed structure - the canal wall - and got stuck. We don’t know why. Accident? Or something sinister?? Or the pilot didn’t see the side of the canal in the dark? Or they forgot to switch on the Suez Canal search light? But wait! Maybe she is aground? The canal wall was sheared off and filled the canal bottom and the ship is now aground on the rubble? The displacement of the ship may be >250 000 tons and with a speed of 6 m/s the energy/force applied to the canal wall in contact was enormous. Maybe the fore peak is flooded? I wonder how long it will take to sort out this mess. The voyage data recorder should tell time, speed and direction of the contact with the canal wall. Re sand storms, when they occur, you just slow down/stop and are pushed sideways against the canal bank. It happens often.

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Here’s a pretty informative article

Yeah, this is turning out to be an expensive little mistake.

The T̶h̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶b̶i̶r̶d̶s̶ Dutch to the rescue…

Efforts to pull off the huge ship Ever Given have been delayed due to low water levels. It is too early to say exactly how long the job will take. “We cannot rule out that it could take weeks, depending on the situation,” said Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis. The Dutch company will be in Egypt from Thursday to help pull the colossus afloat.

According to the Boskalis CEO, both the bow and the stern of the ship have been lifted on both sides of the canal. “It’s like a beached whale. It’s a huge weight on the sand. We may have to work with a combination of reducing weight by taking containers, oil and water on and off the ship, dredging tugs and sand.

“The more secure the ship is, the longer such an operation will take. It can take days to weeks. Think of the supply of the equipment we need, which is not around the corner, ”says Berdowski.

“Dredgers are already clearing sand and mud from around the ship, while tugs are in charge of getting the ship moving,” said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), Ever Given’s technical manager.

The work to free the ship has previously been delayed due to low water and the unfavorable weather conditions with a lot of wind.

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I get worried when shipping media talk about a ship grounding of unknown cause in the Suez Canal and re-floating after a contact with the vertical canal wall. How can you run aground in a canal? Have they forgotten to dredge the canal? And re-float? Is the ship sunk and its hull damaged with flooded double bottom compartments? Have they sounded the tanks. And what about Covid-19??? Are all parties properly tested and vaxxed? And high/low tides in the Suez Canal? A problem?? But let’s not forget that Egypt today is an authoritarian dictatorship with no free press, etc. Corruption is everywhere. And since the cold war the Russian presence in Egypt is important. The biggest loser just now is poor Egypt itself. No canal tolls!

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