The Suez Canal is currently not blocked

By the looks of things now they have moved The Maersk Denver back out of the canal into the bay. It was originally the ship to south or Ever Given.

Maybe looks like they are trying to get it shifted. Plenty of tugs near by looking on Vessel finder
 
Thought it was a misprint when I saw the Suez Canal makes up 14% of shipping traffic.

14% through a canal! What year is this :confused:

Luckily my rectum is already prepped for a good ol' shafting from covid and brexit aftereffects.
 
dl8860 said:
Quarter expert here. Towing is good for pulling something with relatively low resistance to motion and maintaining a course. A tug pulling a barge doesn't require huge amounts of force (relatively speaking), as you just need to slowly get the barge moving then maintain a course. To 'unjam' something like this that is wedged in by the hand of god (0.5*m*v^2 of energy [where m = ****** large] into what looks like a lovely sticky cohesive soil) can't reasonably be done by pulling. The capacity of attachment points and the tug line itself just won't exist. You would probably need a row of attachment points and tugs all pulling at the same time.
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Interesting. I read they were considering removing containers to give more buoyancy but that'll takes weeks. Will they have pumped out all the ballast tanks on the ship or would that compromise stability?

Flooding the canal isn't an option either then?
 
AiiR said:
Thought it was a misprint when I saw the Suez Canal makes up 14% of shipping traffic.

14% through a canal! What year is this :confused:
.
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It's more like an artificial river and cuts a huge amount of time (and risk) from one of the main routes.

When gargo ships carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of material are the cheapest way to move bulk materials "canals" are still very much a thing as a stratigically placed one can save days/weeks of sailing and hundreds of thousands of pounds (if not millions) per trip.

norm said:
Interesting. I read they were considering removing containers to give more buoyancy but that'll takes weeks. Will they have pumped out all the ballast tanks on the ship or would that compromise stability?

Flooding the canal isn't an option either then?
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Removing the containers is probably the safest way to do it, as they'll likely have already have pumped the ballast tanks as empty as they can (do it too much and you might become top heavy/unstable in the wind), and the canal itself is already pretty close to maximum depth if you look at the height of the water in the photos, hence them trying at high tide.
 
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Ballast discharge is certainly an option they will have looked at however there a lot of rules about where you can deballast. I am not sure off the top of my head but I would be surprised if you were allowed to deballast in the canal (worried about invasive species etc). However I'm sure in this situation they will make an exception. I suspect the ship may very well have been pretty low on ballast anyway. She was northbound from the Far East so will have likely been fully loaded with cargo. In this condition the ships won't have as much ballast. That is generally loaded when they are lighter on cargo to compensate for the lost weight and make the ship more stable. And yes they have to be careful about the vessel's stability if they are deballasting.

The "why doesn't another ship tow them" has been covered above but to add to that, ships like that aren't suitable for towing and therefore won't carry the requisite equipment and there is a whole legal minefield you would get involved with in terms of salvage and recompense for that sort of thing. The canal will have plenty towage of their own which will be what is getting used for this. I'm sure it will all be in the terms and conditions of use of the canal how towage is arranged (and paid for!) in a situation like this.
 
Given that the official "gust of wind" explanation is about as plausible as a handbrake turn manoeuvre gone wrong, I wonder if this was somewhat deliberate.

Either a disgruntled worker or some other act of sabotage.
 
paradigm said:
Registered in Panama...

Conspiracy theory: Was done on purpose to drive more traffic to Panama :p
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The good thing with all of this is for the south african economy, this 14% of global trade will now have to sail around Africa as was common not that long ago, the city of Cape Town's port is about to become a global trade hub again (and no, the british can't have it, you got kicked out already :D)
 
Grim5 said:
The good thing with all of this is for the south african economy, this 14% of global trade will now have to sail around Africa as was common not that long ago, the city of Cape Town's port is about to become a global trade hub again (and no, the british can't have it, you got kicked out already :D)
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Somalian pirates may benefit too!
 
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