Re mud: Mud offers less friction but it has a nasty habit of “sucking”.
In 1992 had experience of sitting on mud in English ports on coasters /minibulkers. We got this clause in the charter party called NAABSA- not always afloat but safe aground regarding some ports. In such ports vessels sit on the muddy ground during ebb tide.
The vessel simply sits flat on the ground and when high water comes it refloats . But it is not an easy experience. Ships are given by the port special strong lines, as ships lines are not of sufficient strength to withstand the " lift off " experience once the vessel releases itself from the ground .
And it stays there longer then one would expect due to regaining of buoyancy as the ship is “sucked” to the ground and the water needs to rise much , much higher to generate the extra buoyancy in order to unglue the ship from the ground.
I thought once that our decks will be flooded with water -so high the water came and then…explosion and lift off. We were sort of catapulted vertically. The experience is unbelievable. And this powerful suction is caused by…sticky mud. So even if dredgers clean her sides , still her bottom will be sucked with a powerful forces which may be difficult to calculate as she did not settle gently on the mud but burrowed/ploughed herself into the mud with tremendous energy resulting from her speed and mass.
She grounded with a loaded draft of 13m. Let us assume that the shoal grounding track depth is 11m or thereabouts which she is currently indicating forward. This will require a discharge of around 30,000 ts to get her clear of the bottom facilitating a stern first tow back out into Craighill channel. An empty TEU weighs around 2ts and an empty FEU around 3.5~4 ts.
Looking at the images, let us assume that there are approximately 2400 empty and loaded FEU on deck. Assume that 1000 of those are empty which would require in the order of 1900 FEU to be discharged to meet the 30,000 tonne requirement. This is all premised on an assumed TPC of 130.
Big job if they go down this road. Clearly, the first step would be to discharge all ballast. The major problem here is that they are unable to remove the compressed mud from beneath the the vessel and it will remain compressed until such time as they get some weight out of her. The Achilles heel is a tidal range of one foot.
I think tomorrow is a better bet. The wind is beginning to veer and increase. NOAA is forecasting south wind at around 20 kts square on the ship’s nose tomorrow. That’s their best chance since the grounding. One foot high tide is at 0600, low at 1300 and high again at 1900.
If you look at something long enough , there is always something to be seen.
I may be wrong of course.
Before cracking all possible numbers regarding weights to be lifted I would greatly appreciate if some viewers do me a great favour and run me a through eye vision check , as i strongly suspect that my eyes are lying and lying big time…
Have seen all clips and examined them frame by frame to conclude , that camera operators were extremely careful not to show the drafts. Could be, they were not interested considering it a minor detail. May be.
But some were not careful enough.
exhibit no 1. shows a capture from Chief Mako video clip - lets examine it
Mysterious draft is " X.4" thanks to Sky Team 11 operator. At 8m 47 sec into the clip one can catch it.
Is the aft draft then:
a) 11.4
b) 12.4
c) 13.4 ???
Now is a very confusing part. Exhibit 8
And now the biggest puzzle comes from her Class L.R. regarding her maximum draft , what seems to be much bigger then draft indicated by Plimsol. Exhibit 10 .
QUOTE: SHI used its smart ship solution, SVESSEL, to develop the digital ship system onboard Ever Forward. This solution provides operators and shore-based staff with instant access to operating data from onboard systems for monitoring and diagnostics through the cloud, which they can use to make more informed operational decisions and respond to issues faster and more efficiently. END QUOTE Every " CLOUD" has a silver lining but evidently not this one.
Would it be fair to say, using exhibit 5, that the distance from your drawn LDL to WL is 1.4 times the container height which equates to 4.1m. This would indicate an aft draft of 11.4m?
What is very confusing is the photo of the midships port side draft marks. She is indicating 10.5m which is actually indicative of a starboard list…….or, she is severely hogged. The answer is in a photo of the midship starboard marks.
Another consideration is the use of heavy lift helicopters to discharge empty containers on to barges. The empty FEU’s could be identified and discharged via helicopter which will expose the loaded 30t FEU’s at a lower height enabling a suitable crane barge(s) easier access.
Due to my compulsive stubbornness and evident symptoms of cognitive dissonance I will make my last ditch effort to humbly present a tiny detail which is still worrying me and preventing from accepting this figure without any further contest .
It beats me why there is no transparency about her final drafts after grounding and why they used such a laughable number of tugs in their first and second attempt.
Yours and other viewers calculations ( with 11 mtrs) clearly demonstrated , the forces involved to overcome are TREMENDOUS and epic salvage of USS Missouri in 1950 required not few tugs but an ARMADA OF TUGS .
I am happy to accept your 12.4m although note that your 15m baseline is not parallel with the boottopping line. It is a moot point.
The “Missouri” grounding makes for interesting reading and basically was a one man accident. Captain Brown was court marshalled and pleaded guilty. The vessel drove up on the sand/mud at 15 knots and every bit of excess weight including fuel, provisions, munitions, anchors and chains were removed to facilitate refloating. The grounding track for her was dredged prior to being towed clear stern first by a number of tugs.
You can draw parallels with the EF. The recents efforts to free EF have been tokenistic……nothing more, nothing less. There is a lack of appropriate infrastructure to facilitate a resolution.
They either need to get the right machinery in to fully dredge behind, at the sides and beneath the vessel or lighten the vessel to regain buoyancy or……a combination of both.
Attempting to skull drag 150,000ts through mud is a complete nonsense and they have failed twice.
This is what the Kiwi’s used to lighten the “Rena” when she drove up on a reef off Tauranga New Zealand. This was in an open sea, dynamic environment.
The wind here came around to the south and will be increasing today. Tides will likely be higher than normal high tide and the wind isn’t pushing the ship farther east today either. If their plan is ever going to work, today will be the day.
QUOTE: SHI used its smart ship solution, SVESSEL, to develop the digital ship system onboard Ever Forward. This solution provides operators and shore-based staff with instant access to operating data from onboard systems for monitoring and diagnostics through the cloud, which they can use to make more informed operational decisions and respond to issues faster and more efficiently. END QUOTE Every " CLOUD" has a silver lining but evidently not this one. 
to humbly present a tiny detail which is still worrying me and preventing from accepting this figure without any further contest . 
