Box boat aground in Suez Canal

13 knots is a half bell on these ships. When the vessel is too large for the infrastructure it uses these things happen.

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I have been to Suez and Port Said 1980-2007 many times and seen the ships in the canal from shore coming and going. Of course the ship speed is 7-9 knots with a fair distance between each ship. If you go too fast you will run into the ship ahead. There is no hurry. If there is a sand storm and the view is blocked you just slow down and your ship drifts against the canal side. I has happened to my ships. When the storm is gone, you just speed up again. Why you need a “pilot” at all is a mystery. Just sail between the buoys and avoid the canal side.
I feel sorry for the Japanese owner making some “deal” with the SCA. Easiest is to declare CTL and let H&M or P&I pay the owner the losses.
The mysteries are (1) SCA arresting the ship, (2) the shipping industry/insurances not complaining, (3) media reporting nonsense, (4) officers and crews shutting up, etc.
If the shipping industry had some guts they should stop using the canal for 30 days asking SCA to explain itself.

No mystery there at all. Shippers don’t want the rules to change and are more than happy to negotiate a payment to the SCA to keep the status quo. Should the carriers balk at a payment the SCA will either increase tariffs, restrict, or ban ULCVs altogether. No matter what the SCA gets their piece, and they should because it’s their country, and it’s their canal, and it’s their rules. The front offices are beyond clear about this even if shipboard personnel are not.

Actually Egypt is a military dictatorship that also controls the SCA. To me it is a mystery why SCA arrested the ship/crew/cargo and asked for ransom money.

a huge block of flats in huge wind has to go x speed in x small channel, I’m sure the pilot and captain agreed.
Word on the street is there might be a wind speed limit for these huge ships entering.

But this is done every day in the Suez Canal without problems since many years. If the wind is strong, you just stop and drift against the canal side. No mooring fees or tugs required.No damages caused. Here we talk about a ship that increased its speed 50% in good weather, turned starboard and ran up on the eastern canal side.

A conspiracy, no doubt. I’m all ears.

A conspiracy is obviously secret so you’ll hear nothing unless you visit a good seamen bar.

A decent chuckle.

These are not your fathers Oldsmobile. Your not laying a ship this size and draft on the bank and waiting it out. I can only imagine what the P&I guys would think.

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I heard container ships have been getting bigger over the years, is that true?

100’s of ships pass the Suez canal every day and all do 7-9 knots and steer peacefully between the buoys at the canal sides. In a sand storm they all slow down and drift against the canal side. If a ship speeds up to 15 knots during a few minutes and turns into the canal side, some thing is wrong and strange. It is a pity we don’t know why the ship increased speed and turned.

I sometimes think some of the old farts around here aren’t really appreciative of how large container ships have become even in just the past ten years.

As said above, “this isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile”. It’s not just added length - everything is larger, including sail area, which grows exponentially with length and stack height. It doesn’t take much wind to put a serious transverse force on ships this size and the extra length and beam further compound the problem when swept path needs to be taken into account (as when in a narrow channel/waterway). You can’t just drive out of these situations and you’re not going to lay it alongside a canal bank.

With larger ships come larger engines, higher pitched props and very fast dead slow bells (often 6-8 kts). Steerageway can be maintained a touch below that but not by much.

Also mostly no longer relevant with today’s mega ships: dredging anchors and warping on/off docks using spring lines. These ships are not the same machines of 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. The waterways, in many areas, haven’t gotten any bigger in that same amount of time either.

And we can take a very educated guess on why it “sped up and turned into the canal side” - the high winds developed a serious crab angle with a large swept path. A way out of that is to increase speed which is no problem in more open water. Excessive speed in a narrow, shallow channel can lead to bank effects, the end result of which can be a shear across the channel.

What happened to the ship itself is actually a pretty textbook case. The real rooting out needs to come in the decision to make the transit in the first place and what, if any, standards were in place to mitigate the risk.

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Weren’t you talking about the rock the Evergiven was obviously stuck on causing monumental damage not long ago? So, before the ship was freed, canal side bad. Now that she is free, canal side good.

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No, I just wonder why mv Ever Given increased speed and turned starboard in the Suez canal. It is > 25 m deep without rocks. Why change speed? Why turn? Why run up on the side? Why would any ship do that?

Since you seem genuinely confused for once, I’ll try to explain:

First off, everything seems to indicate that the inital turn was to port, and that bank sheer put her hard over starboard. Having experienced this phenomenon myself (albeit in a much smaller boat of only 29m LOA), I can attest that the resultant yawing motion is quite violent, and not something you put right with a touch of counter rudder. The effect is more pronounced the bigger the ship (because the rudder is smaller in relation to the wet surface).

The initial turn was probably due to directional instability, again due to squat. When a ship squats with too little underkeel clearance, it develops a tendency to exacerbate any yawing motion. This is because when the ship rolls out of the turn, the low pressure zone at the stern gets lopsided, exerting a strong suction force on the side presented to the bottom.

This is taught in basic ship handling classes, and summarized elsewhere in a format you should be able to get your head around. Most of the people here will be able to expalin it in far greater detail than my limited undertanding permits, so it’s almost a bit embarassing to be the one pointing it out :flushed:

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I think KC put it pretty well:

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??? ms Ever Given enters the Suez canal at 8 knots, but due to squat ship yaws to port after a few minutes and to avoid hitting the port side, speed is increased to 15 knots, while turning to starboard, with result hitting the eastern canal side.
This is taught in basic ship handling classes!
A seafarer who was on a ship further ahead in the convoy told anyone wanting to listen that he experienced gusts of wind that day of up to 50 knots. The master of an LNG carrier the day prior had taken the decision to delay transiting, fearful of the inclement conditions.
But ms Ever Given entered the canal anyway on SCA pilots’ orders.

…and who was I to think that I could pit my limited understanding against your limited willingness to understand?

*sigh*

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