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At the very least, why aren't they using helicopters to take the containers off one-by-one. That would reduce the overall weight, and it'd be easier to move an

At the very least, why aren't they using helicopters to take the containers off one-by-one. That would reduce the overall weight, and it'd be easier to move an empty ship than one weighed down by cargo.

londons_explore 6y ago
It looks like there might be a kind of priority difference going on here... To all the ship owners and cargo owners, this blockage is a big problem and massive amounts of money should be spent to solve it. But to the canal owners, they are only losing relatively small amounts of revenue by the canal being shut, so while they are sending all their boats to try pull it free, they aren't yet at the stage of calling in the army helicopters to help unload the ship. At some point Egypts government will probably get involved, and then the army will show up with tanks with a lot of pulling power, massive winches installed on the shoreline, and helicopters for unloading.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  Just to throw some numbers out there, last year the canal grossed ~15 million USD/day in revenue from the toll charge.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  An entire fleet of tug-boats seem unable to move the ship. I don't think tanks would fare much better. The proper solution is probably (?? I'm not an engineer, just spitballing here) a system of pulleys. See Archemedies and The Syracusia: Archemedies allegedly moved a ship powered only with his own muscles using only a system of pulleys as an assist. I realize that the Syracusia is probably smaller than this container ship in the canal. Still though: a system of pulleys is probably cheaper and stronger than what a team of Tanks would do. ------------- They're at least in a situation where there's a ton of land nearby that can serve as an anchor point. I mean... the problem right now is probably just figuring out where and how to safely pull the ship. They need to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force in a way that: 1. Won't break the ship apart 2. Successfully dislodges it Its a relatively simple problem to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force. But doing it in such a way to keep the ship floating... that's the hard part.
dageshi 6y ago
Are there helicopters capable of lifting a fully loaded cargo container?
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  No. The absolute heaviest-lift helicopter, the MI-26, can lift a little over 20 short tons. Most helicopters can carry a ton or two at most. In comparison, unloaded shipping containers are already a few tons. Loaded ones are all over the place, of course, but max out at around 30.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  In addition to the weight issues, there are up to 20k of them on board.
karagenit 6y ago
Not sure if that's possible. Some quick Googling told me a typical 40' cargo container has a capacity of 30 tons, but the largest commercial cargo helicopter (the Mi-26) can carry only 22 tons.
PeterisP 6y ago
It has something like 20000 containers on it. Even if helicopters would lift a container off every 10 minutes, it wouldn't make any meaningful difference. Also, you can't do the maneuvering they were trying to with the tugs at the same time you're doing something like that, unless you want to kill someone. Unloading such a ship to empty would take a long time even if it's in port facilities under many cranes.
dghlsakjg 6y ago
The worlds highest capacity heavy lift helicopter can lift 44k lbs (russian M-26, estimated to be 20 in working condition). An empty 40 ft. container weighs 9k lbs. With a max loading of 66k lbs gross. The Ever Given has a capacity of 20k TEU, or 10k 40 ft. containers. Being generous, you could move maybe 5 per hour. Probably 1 per hour would be realistic. But give them the benefit of the doubt and say they could move 20 per hour for some reason, including fuel and maintenance stops. So assuming that they could work 24 hours per day, they could do 480 containers per day (again assuming that all of the containers are 22k lbs lighter than capacity). They should be able to get this helicopter unloading done in 20 days of around the clock work with a bunch of highly optimistic assumptions. Plus they have to stay out of the way of the dozens of salvage workers trying to move the actual ship, while operating a soviet era machine in a VERY harsh desert environment with no infrastructure. If they need the ship to float higher, they would start by removing ballast, fuel, crew water, etc. Large salvage operations are notoriously expensive, tricky, dangerous, and often don't make sense to outsiders. There's a reason that there's really only about half a dozen firms worldwide that have the expertise and equipment to pull something like this off.
_carbyau_ 6y ago
I don't know the specifics of this one ship, but I thought container ships had hundreds, if not thousands of containers.

londons_explore 6y ago

It looks like there might be a kind of priority difference going on here... To all the ship owners and cargo owners, this blockage is a big problem and massive amounts of money should be spent to solve it. But to the canal owners, they are only losing relatively small amounts of revenue by the canal being shut, so while they are sending all their boats to try pull it free, they aren't yet at the stage of calling in the army helicopters to help unload the ship. At some point Egypts government will probably get involved, and then the army will show up with tanks with a lot of pulling power, massive winches installed on the shoreline, and helicopters for unloading.

Baeocystin 6y ago
Just to throw some numbers out there, last year the canal grossed ~15 million USD/day in revenue from the toll charge.
dragontamer 6y ago
An entire fleet of tug-boats seem unable to move the ship. I don't think tanks would fare much better. The proper solution is probably (?? I'm not an engineer, just spitballing here) a system of pulleys. See Archemedies and The Syracusia: Archemedies allegedly moved a ship powered only with his own muscles using only a system of pulleys as an assist. I realize that the Syracusia is probably smaller than this container ship in the canal. Still though: a system of pulleys is probably cheaper and stronger than what a team of Tanks would do. ------------- They're at least in a situation where there's a ton of land nearby that can serve as an anchor point. I mean... the problem right now is probably just figuring out where and how to safely pull the ship. They need to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force in a way that: 1. Won't break the ship apart 2. Successfully dislodges it Its a relatively simple problem to apply hundreds-of-thousands of tons of force. But doing it in such a way to keep the ship floating... that's the hard part.

dageshi 6y ago

Are there helicopters capable of lifting a fully loaded cargo container?

Baeocystin 6y ago
No. The absolute heaviest-lift helicopter, the MI-26, can lift a little over 20 short tons. Most helicopters can carry a ton or two at most. In comparison, unloaded shipping containers are already a few tons. Loaded ones are all over the place, of course, but max out at around 30.
kmonsen 6y ago
In addition to the weight issues, there are up to 20k of them on board.

karagenit 6y ago

Not sure if that's possible. Some quick Googling told me a typical 40' cargo container has a capacity of 30 tons, but the largest commercial cargo helicopter (the Mi-26) can carry only 22 tons.

PeterisP 6y ago

It has something like 20000 containers on it. Even if helicopters would lift a container off every 10 minutes, it wouldn't make any meaningful difference. Also, you can't do the maneuvering they were trying to with the tugs at the same time you're doing something like that, unless you want to kill someone. Unloading such a ship to empty would take a long time even if it's in port facilities under many cranes.

dghlsakjg 6y ago

The worlds highest capacity heavy lift helicopter can lift 44k lbs (russian M-26, estimated to be 20 in working condition). An empty 40 ft. container weighs 9k lbs. With a max loading of 66k lbs gross. The Ever Given has a capacity of 20k TEU, or 10k 40 ft. containers. Being generous, you could move maybe 5 per hour. Probably 1 per hour would be realistic. But give them the benefit of the doubt and say they could move 20 per hour for some reason, including fuel and maintenance stops. So assuming that they could work 24 hours per day, they could do 480 containers per day (again assuming that all of the containers are 22k lbs lighter than capacity). They should be able to get this helicopter unloading done in 20 days of around the clock work with a bunch of highly optimistic assumptions. Plus they have to stay out of the way of the dozens of salvage workers trying to move the actual ship, while operating a soviet era machine in a VERY harsh desert environment with no infrastructure. If they need the ship to float higher, they would start by removing ballast, fuel, crew water, etc. Large salvage operations are notoriously expensive, tricky, dangerous, and often don't make sense to outsiders. There's a reason that there's really only about half a dozen firms worldwide that have the expertise and equipment to pull something like this off.

_carbyau_ 6y ago

I don't know the specifics of this one ship, but I thought container ships had hundreds, if not thousands of containers.