5 ms·
Unloading is feasible, it would just take a couple of weeks. They just need a floating crane on each side and some barges to take the containers away.
by postingawayonhn 6y ago
Unloading is feasible, it would just take a couple of weeks. They just need a floating crane on each side and some barges to take the containers away.
- bigfudge 6y agoIs there a reason they couldn't have a smaller crane on board and dump them over the side. Surely even losing the cargo would be cheaper than keeping it blocked at this point?
- Denvercoder9 6y agoIf you dump the containers over the side, you managed to remove a ship blocking the canal, but now it's blocked by containers.
- bigfudge 6y agoRight, but you don't need to leave them there. If it's limited depth you could pull them away with barges.
- dahfizz 6y agoHow long do you think it takes to fish a 20 ton container up from the bottom of a canal and load it onto a barge? There are ~10,000 containers.
- Scoundreller 6y agoBarge? Pull it over the edge and worry about it later. Depending on contents, some might float very well. Or even dissolve away. My dollar store salt-shakers (with salt) came from vietnam. The top will be the lightest containers, so I’m guessing that’s where your 40 footer of ping pong balls is sitting.
- bigfudge 6y agoYes - that's kind of what I had in mind when I first suggested it. When containers fall of ships they often wash ashore on the UK coast. Even a container of motorbikes arrived in Cornwall recently... I'm presuming that only happens because they have some natural bouyancy.
- bigfudge 6y agoTie heavy duty straps with a small float attached to it before you dump it over the side, then use a tug to pull it away.
- Pxtl 6y agoIf they don't tear when they hit the water (the metal is pretty thin) they should float shouldn't they? At 77 cubic meters and 30 tonnes their density is low enough, and they're generally watertight aren't they?
- Arrath 6y agoDumping things over the side, into the canal? That would rapidly block up the canal even worse.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gregoriol 6y agoNature loves you!
- input_sh 6y agoI think you're severely overestimating the depth of the canal. I'm too lazy to look up the depth of the specific section where it's stuck, but some sections are just 20 something meters deep. In other words, just deep enough for ships to come through with little wiggle room. Not as tight as the Panama Canal, but it's not much bigger.
- dogma1138 6y agoThe canal is only 24m deep.... one or two containers would essentially block it for most traffic.
- mcdevilkiller 6y agoPlus a couple of weeks to get the cranes there, I guess.
- blhack 6y agoMaybe. That's a lot of barges. Remember that you then have to go and unload the barges, and there are 20,000 containers.
- imglorp 6y ago20,000 TEU, not containers.
- alisonkisk 6y agoWhat's the difference, for purposes of estimating workload?
- Clewza313 6y agoContainers are 1 or 2 TEUs, although doubles are more common for long distance, so you're probably looking at 10,000-ish containers.
- rmccue 6y agoTEU being Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit, and containers generally are either 20ft or 40ft long.
- tyingq 6y agoYou can see from pictures that most of the containers are 40 foot ones. Also, the ship doesn't appear to be at full capacity to me. See https://imgur.com/a/b8neNkR https://imgur.com/a/b8neNkR (top is as full a picture as I could find, bottom is current). My guess is ~6000 40 foot containers in its current state.
- garaetjjte 6y ago> That's a lot of barges. Maybe bring another Evergreen ship there and move containers onto it...?
- tempestn 6y agoI read that there aren't any tall enough cranes in that area to do it, so they're considering unloading some containers by helicopter.
- barbegal 6y agoEven if you could unload a container per minute you could only unload less than 1000 containers per day (assuming it's too dangerous to work at night) so at least 3 weeks of continuous helicopter operations.
- tempestn 6y agoYes, that's true. It still might be faster than other options. You wouldn't likely need to unload the whole thing though, just lighten it enough to get it unstuck.
- joering2 6y agoDoubt that's the case. The weight on it currently forced it deep enough into the sand. Just unloading half of it won't make it magically raise from the sands. The analogy here would be like saying pumping out Whale's stomach will make it possible to drag him back deep into the ocean.
- mlyle 6y agoEven though the vessel sits on sand, it still displaces a lot of water, which reduces the force of it sitting on the sand by a lot. Removing cargo, fuel, and dredging reduces it yet more.
- joering2 6y agoIts most likely irrelevant. The reason why you see front so high up is because all the vessel's weight forced and smashed itself against the shallow water. At this point, rather than not the fuselage is damaged, and attempt to "ease up" the weight could only make it worse. I have been working enough around cargo vessels and at this size its never "oh he hit something, just put in reverse and you good to go". Similar if you ever get stabbed with a knife - hope never - but if you will, do not attempt to remove it on your own - you need to see a specialist who knows how to remove object it without causing internal bleeding, etc. This vessel is most likely trash at this point. Time is of essence because tidal is pushing it against shallows and since its not perfectly centered it will eventually tip and with these amount of weight, not much tipping required for the whole thing to snawball. At this time they are figuring out how to quickly remove (save) as many containers as possible. Most likely will happen with another of these monsters to "park" close by and one by one will move the most expensive cargo first. Another option I got from my buddy who is doing this stuff for life, is suggestion to dig up a whole big enough underneath to actually sunk the whole thing. This can be done in less than one week and is fastest most "stable" option. At this point they are not looking at saving this one vessel, but rather how to get the canal to operate again asap. You probably know it from driving on highway "move aside accident vehicles" is the most important thing to do.
- moonbug 6y agothat "just" is doing even more work than the guy in the digger.