I’ve never worked with ships anywhere close to this size, but I have a sneaky suspicion that the sagging stresses of repeated tidal cycles while suspended at the ends like this can’t be very good for her…
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They are just salvage companies, with the vast amounts of money involved with this you might have thought the Egyptians would have chartered bigger tugs pretty quickly after it went aground as they might take a long time to arrive.
I wonder how many ships are now being diverted around South Africa, if it doesn’t look like being cleared any time soon so there could be some already going that route.
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Russia is now using the congestion in the Suez Canal to promote the route via the Arctic Ocean between Asia and Europe as an alternative.
On Twitter, Russian state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom joked about the problems in the Suez Canal, saying that Russian nuclear icebreakers are poised to keep the Arctic Ocean route open to shipping. Although this route between Europe and Asia is a lot shorter than via the Suez Canal or around Africa, it is still rarely used.
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The Northern Sea Route is indeed ice-free during the summer months and it’s possible to transit without icebreaker escort even with a non-ice-strengthened vessel.
Spring/autumn navigation with ice class tonnage and icebreaker escort resembles Baltic Sea winter navigation.
Winter, on the other hand, still requires the kind of tonnage only few operators have in closed transportation systems (e.g. Dudinka-Murmansk ore corridor with independently-operating icebreaking cargo ships). You can’t forcibly drag a low ice class vessel through those ice conditions even with the most powerful nuclear-powered icebreakers - you’ll arrive to the Bering Strait with a loose bollard at the end of your towing wire while the rest of the ship is scattered along the route…
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Here is an article in Arctic today from yesterday;
Lucky for her that the tides in the Med and Red Sea are negligible, but I get your point. And they will get changing water levels from wx & barometric pressure.
I’m surprised the British readers here haven’t mentioned that using a ship to block a canal was intentionally tried in the Zeebrugge Raid at the end of WW1. The British wanted to bottle up a captured Belgian port being used by the Germans as a naval base. The RN sent in three ships and tried to turn them sideways in the Ostend Canal and sink them. But like most everything else in that war, things went wrong. It ended up being a bloody slugfest.
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The Northern Sea Route between Asia and Europe is of course 2021 much shorter, cheaper and safer than the south route alternative via Suez, etc, with its problems of terrorism, etc. Unfortunately USA prefers the latter. USA says that ice conditions in the North cannot be handled; bla, bla.
I just checked MS Ever Given on the Internet and it remains stuck in the Canal, it seems. No news whatsoever. Has it been abandoned?
If it’s Arctic container ship you want…
The good old sagging beam example. The displacement or weight of the ship is 224.000 ton. Depending on the loading arrangement the weight is not evenly distributed. Part of the ship is on the sand.
I am not a naval engineer but I suspect that this continuous sag with a part of this weight could lead to something to give in and that this, sooner or later, could damage the hull. Bear in mind that the hull of a ship is full of little cracks which could widen under extreme circumstances. Not only that but also buckling of bottom plates.
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With steel it’s the amount of bending that matters, or the number of cycles. IFAIK the lengtht of time is not an issue.
Unless or until there is a fire involved.
Yeah, for sure. For the amount of toll they charge to use the canal I think they should have a plan and some equipment on standby. I know it’s a rare event but damn look at what it’s costing them and everyone else.
I have not seen any photos posted of EVER GIVEN showing activity at the stern which I would think is less dug in than the bow? Get dredges (which the Canal Commission has on hand) in there to get the inside of the stern afloat again, then pull it into the canal first. Once free and clear, pull the ship backwards till the bow comes off. I would have the imagine that once control of the heading was lost, the rudder was put hard over to the left which should have slowed the swing and lessened the speed the stern grounded at? Oh well, it is the Gypo’s problem to fix
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This thread is the first mention I’ve seen about using The Northern Sea Route being a valid alternative to running south around the Horn. At the minimum it seems like a viable short term solution. Assuming the logistics of Russian territorial waters isn’t insurmountable.
wrong cape
I believe it is still covered with ice at the moment
Yep. Normal ships can only transit it during the open water season.
That bulbous bow is rather deeply entrenched in the sand. I think that it is necessary to dig out the port side of the bulbous bow, free it as much as possible, before pulling the stern into the canal.
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I just can’t wait for the new folk song.
I had an excavator, her name was Sal,
15 cubes from the Suez Canal.
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Like both ideas regarding dredging from c.captain and Dutchie. Would’tnt hurt to work a bit on stbd side of the bow either, sure there is a gob of sand there as well. May allow for more pivot until they get enough room for sternway if they can ever get the right amount and HP tugs.