5 ms·

Or what?

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Well, there's always the option of just demolishing the ship and its cargo, getting everything out of the canal without worrying about whether any of it survives the process. That would still be expensive, but is it more expensive than blocking the canal?
- suresk 6y ago
  How do you destroy a 1300 ft ship with 20k+ TEUs of cargo on it? How do you then clean all of the debris out of a pretty narrow and shallow canal so that other ships can go through again? I can't imagine that being a very quick thing to do.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >How do you destroy a 1300 ft ship with 20k+ TEUs of cargo on it? A smaller less stuck ship or barge you don't care very much about full of explosives. And you don't need to destroy the whole thing, just shred and distribute the part that's in the canal enough that it's no longer an impediment to navigation. Sure you might be left with 30 big chunks but 30 big chunks can be picked up with conventional marine construction equipment. If the bulbous bow is still buried in the sand then whatever, you don't care. We're talking about a Mont-Blanc sized explosion here. Definitively messy but with modern engineering I think you could whip up a directed blast that ensures the task is accomplished without unnecessarily digging a hole or some other dumb side effect.
  - YarickR2 6y ago
    Call the Israelis, they have nukes. Obviously, Suez needs to be made deeper and wider at this point anyway
    - neither_color 6y ago
      You joke, but this isn’t the first time someone’s considered nuking Egypt’s desert to build a canal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t3X7tUTk5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t3X7tUTk5o
      - rsj_hn 6y ago
        I came to this purely to do a CTRL+F "explosion" and was dismayed to see all the comments proposing it voted down, whereas comments proposing things like balloons being used to lift the boat were not voted down. Clearly demolition is one of the things to consider in this scenario, and is at least as realistic as the million-luftballons. It would also make for some fun conversation.
- Clewza313 6y ago
  It's still easier to dislodge a giant ship in one piece than it is to remove one giant ship's worth of random metal shrapnel from a narrow, shallow canal.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Who said anything about shrapnel? There's another comment in the thread making the case that "we don't want to just tug harder on the boat, because that might tear a hole in the hull". That could destroy the boat, but... so what?
    - Denvercoder9 6y ago
      > That could destroy the boat, but... so what? Because then you'd still have to remove everything, but now you don't have one big, controllable system, but you have lots of pieces that will move in unpredictable ways. The canal is shallow and narrow, and gravity isn't working in your favor here. A ship has a natural tendency to float (even if it currently isn't). Pieces of debris don't. You will have to remove all pieces that break off, one-by-one.
    - chki 6y ago
      Because if you destroy the boat and it sinks that will make the passage unusable for a long time? I mean currently it seems possible to drag the ship out of this problem but if it's no longer floating you might need to start sawing it into pieces like this example of the sunken Tricolor https://youtu.be/0ENOJBLVgjw https://youtu.be/0ENOJBLVgjw . That will take months and will have a serious global economic impact.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- nashalo_nighly 6y ago
  Before destroying the ship you would need to pump out all the fuel which can take a very long time in itself
ignoramous 6y ago
...or 24h * 7d * 2w * 400 million = 134 billion USD. Sounds like a lot of money, if GP's right?
- umanwizard 6y ago
  NB: 400M is the normal throughput, not the loss while closed. It would only be the total loss while closed if all those goods somehow vanished.

Or what?

Well, there's always the option of just demolishing the ship and its cargo, getting everything out of the canal without worrying about whether any of it survives the process. That would still be expensive, but is it more expensive than blocking the canal?

suresk 6y ago
How do you destroy a 1300 ft ship with 20k+ TEUs of cargo on it? How do you then clean all of the debris out of a pretty narrow and shallow canal so that other ships can go through again? I can't imagine that being a very quick thing to do.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >How do you destroy a 1300 ft ship with 20k+ TEUs of cargo on it? A smaller less stuck ship or barge you don't care very much about full of explosives. And you don't need to destroy the whole thing, just shred and distribute the part that's in the canal enough that it's no longer an impediment to navigation. Sure you might be left with 30 big chunks but 30 big chunks can be picked up with conventional marine construction equipment. If the bulbous bow is still buried in the sand then whatever, you don't care. We're talking about a Mont-Blanc sized explosion here. Definitively messy but with modern engineering I think you could whip up a directed blast that ensures the task is accomplished without unnecessarily digging a hole or some other dumb side effect.
- YarickR2 6y ago
  Call the Israelis, they have nukes. Obviously, Suez needs to be made deeper and wider at this point anyway
  - neither_color 6y ago
    You joke, but this isn’t the first time someone’s considered nuking Egypt’s desert to build a canal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t3X7tUTk5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t3X7tUTk5o
    - rsj_hn 6y ago
      I came to this purely to do a CTRL+F "explosion" and was dismayed to see all the comments proposing it voted down, whereas comments proposing things like balloons being used to lift the boat were not voted down. Clearly demolition is one of the things to consider in this scenario, and is at least as realistic as the million-luftballons. It would also make for some fun conversation.
Clewza313 6y ago
It's still easier to dislodge a giant ship in one piece than it is to remove one giant ship's worth of random metal shrapnel from a narrow, shallow canal.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Who said anything about shrapnel? There's another comment in the thread making the case that "we don't want to just tug harder on the boat, because that might tear a hole in the hull". That could destroy the boat, but... so what?
  - Denvercoder9 6y ago
    > That could destroy the boat, but... so what? Because then you'd still have to remove everything, but now you don't have one big, controllable system, but you have lots of pieces that will move in unpredictable ways. The canal is shallow and narrow, and gravity isn't working in your favor here. A ship has a natural tendency to float (even if it currently isn't). Pieces of debris don't. You will have to remove all pieces that break off, one-by-one.
  - chki 6y ago
    Because if you destroy the boat and it sinks that will make the passage unusable for a long time? I mean currently it seems possible to drag the ship out of this problem but if it's no longer floating you might need to start sawing it into pieces like this example of the sunken Tricolor https://youtu.be/0ENOJBLVgjw https://youtu.be/0ENOJBLVgjw . That will take months and will have a serious global economic impact.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
nashalo_nighly 6y ago
Before destroying the ship you would need to pump out all the fuel which can take a very long time in itself

ignoramous 6y ago

...or 24h * 7d * 2w * 400 million = 134 billion USD. Sounds like a lot of money, if GP's right?

umanwizard 6y ago
NB: 400M is the normal throughput, not the loss while closed. It would only be the total loss while closed if all those goods somehow vanished.