4 ms·
> The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles. That's when under speed. If these ships don't have the unidirectional port en
by kbenson 6y ago
> The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles.
That's when under speed. If these ships don't have the unidirectional port engines like cruise ships do for maneuvering in tight spots (and they may not, I don't know), in this situation they would likely use tugboats for turning. That's what they're for.
That doesn't necessarily make a diversion feasible, but I don't think whether it's feasible or not rests on whether these ships can turn. That's really not the problem as I see it.
- TylerE 6y agoIf with a zero turn radius, these ships are in excess of 1000ft long...you need a lot of clearance and a large radius just because of the physical dimensions (and so you know, we don't get a second ship wedged sideways in the canal.
- kbenson 6y agoWe're talking about digging a diversionary channel. Making either end of that where it connects to the current channel wider to accommodate turning is trivial in comparison.
- ethbr0 6y agoIf you're talking about digging a diversionary channel, then why not just dig around the boat with the same equipment? Excavate sand around + weight from ship pancakes sand its sitting on, gradually = ship lowers back to floating depth
- TylerE 6y agoProbably very complicated since you couldn't have people in close. What if, as is not unlikely, part of the bank suddenly crumbles and the boat shifts? Also, I doubt the sand goes down very deep...this is a costal area, not rolling dunes. You're going to hit rock quickly.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dlgeek 6y agoThey're called azipods.
- ultrarunner 6y agoInterestingly enough, the Wikipedia page for this ship says it does have two 2500kW bow thrusters. I imagine if they were worth much in this situation we wouldn’t be talking about them, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
- TylerE 6y agoFor fluid dynamic reasons those sort of thrusters are only effective when the ship is stationary
- occamrazor 6y agoWell, at the moment the ship is _very_ stationary.
- tim333 6y agoLooking it up a 2500kW bow thruster gives a thrust of about 30 tons (https://www.thrustmaster.net/tunnel-thrusters/electric-motor-driven-tunnel-thruster/ https://www.thrustmaster.net/tunnel-thrusters/electric-motor...) which is not going to do much here. It seems the trouble with a lot of solutions - the tugs can probably tug with a force of something like 600 tons combined but the ship weights 220,000 tons which is like putting a force of 5kg on a 2 ton car which is stuck. Probably not going to budge it. Really you want something which will shove it with a force maybe 10% of the weight, say 20,000 tons but there don't seem to be many of those lying around. I wondered if they tied a cable from the ship to one of the other large ships nearby and fired up the main engines if that could do something?
- ultrarunner 6y agoI imagine they could snap the cable, but that doesn't seem very useful.
- richardfey 6y agoAnd then some other ship would get stuck while turning?