When your f*** up is literally big enough to be seen from space

[soothsayer]

Link to tweet

?s=21

Mike Nelson
@mikenelson586
When your fuck up is literally big enough to be seen from space

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis
@ArmsControlWonk
Welp. There it is.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Is the ship still stuck? Geez.

[MissB]

2. As are 100 ships on either side of it.

NYT article yesterday said that the crude oil stuck on the route alone was equivalent to one day’s use.

It’ll back up an already backed up shipping situation. I just can’t imagine.

[Irish_Dem]

4. OMG I had no idea.

For some reason I missed updates about this situation.
I thought it would get unstuck soon. Didn't even consider it was backing up the entire shipping system.

Thanks for the update!

[StClone]

3. Trillionaire didn't want anyone parking near his luxury Ship?

So he took up all the spaces with this parking job. Hope somebody "keys" it.

[KT2000]

17. Ha!

[Eyeball_Kid]

5. Raise the water level by blocking the flow downstream from the ship?

What I don't know is: Is there a "downstream" in the canal? If the gulf is at the same altitude as the Mediterranean, then there would be no flow, eh?

[Kaleva]

10. I've transited the Suez 4 times and the level is the same.

There are no locks on the canal.

[Towlie]

11. The Suez Canal has no locks, so the level is NOT always the same.

 
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Wikipedia: Suez Canal

The water level rises and falls with the tide, so efforts to free the Ever Given are timed to account for that.

[captain queeg]

20. They would have to build coffer dams on both sides

Then pump water into the enclosed area. It might come to that. Be a huge expense but tying up that amount of shipping is intolerable.

[lagomorph777]

26. Maybe dig a bypass around it.

Leave the ship there as a museum celebrating stupidity.

[Beakybird]

6. They should be asking the scientists who create anti-constipation remedies for help.

The same principles are involved.

[jmowreader]

7. I am going to assume...

...they can’t just back up two really big container ships to the southern end of the obstacle, tie on ropes and nail the gas.

[OAITW r.2.0]

9. I was wondering something similar.

Seems like the stern could be pulled back and towards the center of the channel, the bow is probably deep into the sand.

[Arazi]

25. The experts think the ship is already damaged. Yanking on it may break it apart entirely

It's a mess

[Darwins_Retriever]

8. Hopefully, security forces have checked the manifest

to see where the ship has been and where each container was picked up.

[chowder66]

12. Not sure why people are busting on the ships operators so hard.

Wasn't it high winds and a sandstorm that caused this?

[BComplex]

13. Yes, it was the weather. Strong winds hit the high pile of containers and acted as a "sail",

and turned the ship sharply.

But don't worry! There's no climate change involved in these types of winds!

[soothsayer]

16. They might also have cut in line

But yeah wind didn’t help

[gratuitous]

14. This is a REALLY big vessel

It got sideways to its route, and from what I've seen, has chunked into the bank both fore and aft. I haven't seen a report about damage to the ship, but the frame of the ship has almost certainly been at least tweaked, and quite possibly compromised. Without a thorough inspection, the extent of damage is still an open question. Moving it might break the ship apart, and then there would be a helluva mess that could take months to clear.

My totally uninformed opinion is to mobilize every land and sea transport in the area, and start offloading the cargo. It's a huge logistical undertaking, but dealing with that fully-loaded ship is a knotty problem in any event. Lightening the load might help.

[Towlie]

19. It's a standard Suezmax vessel. There are more than 500 of them in the world.

 
←

World Suezmax Fleet Counts 514 Vessels

The world Suezmax fleet (excl. shuttle, product & Jones Act tankers) counts 514 vessels at the end of 1Q2019, said Nordic American Tankers (NAT).

The total delivery during 2018 was 28 vessels, said a report by the international tanker company.

"For 2019 we expect a similar number of vessels as in 2018, and in 2020 we currently see 22 vessels scheduled for delivery. During 2018, 21 Suezmax vessels were scrapped," it said.

The general characteristics of a Suezmax vessel are

Tonnage: typically 160,000 DWT
Length: 400 m (1,300 ft) (maximum)
Beam: 50 m (164 ft) (maximum)
Height: 68 m (223 ft) (maximum)
Draft: 20.1 m (66 ft) (maximum)

[gratuitous]

22. Damn, 13 football fields long

Standard or exceptional, these things are BIG.

[Towlie]

23. There are apparently an even greater number of "Capesize" ships that are too big for the Suez Canal.

 
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Capesize Bulkers Connect 121 Ports in 31 Countries

Capesize vessels [are] larger than Suezmax and Neopanamax, and must traverse the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn to travel between oceans.

[Bantamfancier]

24. I don't know where you played football.

But counting the end zones a field is 360 feet long.
1,300 feet is about 3.6 fields long.
That’s still a big a** ship.

[gibraltar72]

15. Q says it is Hillarys' ship smuggling children.

[underpants]

18. Dads in Buick's - oh yeah. I can fit this in there.

[NQAS]

21. Not great at arithmetic

as I demonstrated in a post yesterday.

And I definitely know nothing about boating/shipping.

That said, for those suggesting the removal of cargo. . .

I saw on a YouTube video (so it must be true) that this ship has 20,000 TEU. That's the equivalent of 20,000 20' containers.

Did a Google search on the max capacity of a 20' container, which is 56,000 pounds. https://www.icontainers.com/help/20-foot-container/#:~:text=A%2020-foot%20container%E2%80%99s%20unloaded%20weight%20is%202,300%20kg,the%20cargo%20and%20specific%20details%20of%20the%20shipment.

So 20,000 20' containers @ 56,000 pounds each = 1,120,000,000 pounds.

No cranes in sight. Maybe there's a giant ship with crane(s) to unload the containers. Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSCV_Thialf

Maybe it fits in the canal? Maybe not.

I imagine shipping companies worldwide are in a tizzy. What to do? Wait? For how long? Bite the bullet and take the long way around? Fuel cost. And delay?

And then there are the companies expecting deliveries. We can joke that maybe we don't really need all the junk from --fill in the blank--. But there's likely to be food, raw materials for companies worldwide, stuff that is really needed. The knock-on impact is likely to considerable.