9 ms·

Oh hey, they fixed it, - without destroying or imposing significant additional damage to any of the cargo - without destroying or imposing significant additio

Oh hey, they fixed it, - without destroying or imposing significant additional damage to any of the cargo - without destroying or imposing significant additional damage to the ship - without taking multiple weeks - without needing to ship a trillion dollars'+ worth of equipment halfway around the world It's refreshing to see high-end engineering performed so competently.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
About the cargo part - it's entirely possible that some cargo is non-viable. It is going to be onboard days longer than predicted. Anything even faintly perishable may be degraded. But good news for sure!
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  It's already a trip halfway around the world at something like 30 km/h. If you're transporting goods that are that sensitive, you're likely doing it by air already. Ships get delayed all the time for various reasons.
  - mwgarcia 6y ago
    The ship will still likely be anchored for hull inspection, perhaps in Bitter Lake. That may take a couple of days at best, and an indefinite stranding if serious problems are discovered. Also crew change is likely because of on-going investigations, and that will be tricky with the on-going mariner crunch. There's not a lot who are qualified to run a ULCV, especially one straight out of an accident.
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      In the past ships already got stuck on the Bitter Lake - for quite some time! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
      - Someone 6y ago
        I think those were unloaded during the ‘delay’. If they weren’t, I guess the Wikipedia page would have mentioned something about life on the Münsterland, carrying eggs and fruit.
        m4rtink 6y ago
        I would assume any perishable cargo was quickly lost to spoilage during the ongoing conflict and the rest of the cargo just staying there. There are actually interesting stories about how the crews of the stack ships got to know each other and how they spent their time during the uncertain time after the channel became impassable - they did theater plays, did sports competitions, fished for food, etc. Over time as the political situation cleared up a bit most of the crew members were repatriated with just a periodically rotated skeleton crew watching over the ships staying behind.
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    > It's already a trip halfway around the world at something like 30 km/h This sounds slow at first, but, since you can drive pretty much 24/7, that's still 720km per day. If you're literally going halfway around the world (20.000km), you'll be there in 28 days. Since you drive on water, you'll do few small detours (I assume), so you can actually get those 700km a day. EU<->China even appears to be "only" 7000 km [0], so if you could drive in a straight line you could get there in 10 days. 14 with usual delays and detours, maybe. That's a reasonable time span for a lot of perishable goods. With the blockage doubling that time, I can easily see how this would affect quite a few goods. [0] https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from/Europe/to/China https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from/Europe/to/China
- gambiting 6y ago
  Container ships can easily have an unpredicted wait of 1-2 weeks just entering port, happens all the time and isn't major news. Few days in the Suez canal isn't going to do anything to cargo.
  - shagie 6y ago
    While the Ever Given may not have an issue, the HAJH AMINA which is waiting in the Great Bitter Lake is a livestock carrier that should have been unloading in port yesterday.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Sure but the same principles apply - delays happen, and livestock ships are equipped to keep livestock alive with food and water well stocked in case they can't enter port for days(which again, happens all the time, sometimes papers aren't exactly right and the livestock has to wait on the ship until cleared for offloading)
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        I've seen this ship mentioned a couple of times. I kind of assume the subtext is that we should stop sending live animals by ship (except for perhaps specialist and breading stock), which I totally agree with, as much for the dangers of spreading disease as for an ethical concern for the animals involved.
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        The shipping of livestock is controversial here in NZ and some (likely high) estimates suggest a death rate of as much as 1 in 10. The issues are pretty closely tied to conditions at the other end of shipping (feedlots, slaughterhouses etc) as well as the shipping though. https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018765098/why-do-we-still-ship-livestock-overseas https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018765098...
leoh 6y ago
There appears to be little "high-end engineering." Just a high tide and a bunch of tug boats.
- hderms 6y ago
  A high tide and some tug boats becomes 'high-end engineering' if it works
  - zelos 6y ago
    I'd guess figuring out where you can safely attach the tug boats, monitoring stability and stresses on the container ship and so on is non-trivial, too.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      If you fuck up bad enough those containers end up landing on the tugs, killing the crews. Not to mention increasing the quantity of stuff blocking the canal.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    Have you looked at tug boat propulsion units lately? Those things look like black magic.
    - thisisbrians 6y ago
      You are right, these things are nuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller
      - _ah 6y ago
        Wow this is the coolest thing I've learned this week.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  High end engineering uses the simplest and most cost effective solution to get the job done right. It would have been a mistake to throw expensive, complicated solutions at a problem that had a relatively simple solution.
EricE 6y ago
High tide did more than anything. If it had gone beyond Wednesday they likely would have been screwed as the high tide was set to start dropping each day after Tuesday. Good thing they started dredging right away.
- munificent 6y ago
  You say that like they just got unexpectedly lucky, but all mariners are well aware of and take tides into account in their planning.
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    I’d be surprised if they aimed for their ship to arrive n days before the spring tide in case it got stuck. That just doesn’t sound like an efficient operation. In this case the luck was that the high tides were relatively high when it was stuck. If we were in a neap tide, we might have had to wait longer for a high enough tide to get the ship out. (But maybe if tides were lower it wouldn’t have gotten so stuck) P.S. it isn’t exactly clear what you mean by mariner, but plenty of sailors in the Mediterranean don’t really need to care about tides as they don’t really get them there. Indeed, you shouldn’t trust any of the early modern Greek or Italian treatises attempting to explain tides as their authors didn’t really know how tides actually behaved outside the Med.
    - munificent 6y ago
      > I’d be surprised if they aimed for their ship to arrive n days before the spring tide in case it got stuck. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that after the ship got stuck, they certainly incorporated the tides into their plan for how to unstick it. If the tides had been less amenable, they would have come up with a different plan. So their plan didn't get "lucky", their plan was predicated on the tides being part of the solution.
      - EricE 6y ago
        Without the high tides the amount of material needed to be removed would have been dramatically higher. That’s the point and the absolute bit of luck. Without the high tides they likely wouldn’t have been able to get it unstuck as quickly. Search for slope/fill volume calculation charts - the amount of fill required to be removed as you go deeper is logarithmic, NOT linear. It was VERY lucky they had the highest tides possible.
Dirlewanger 6y ago
If this happened on American soil, it'd be stuck for weeks. There'd be infighting over which private contractor the canal authority will pick. And when the excavation process starts, there'd be complaining from NIMBYs because of the disruption and noise. And in the end, there'd be multiple entities all suing each other because they can.
aden1ne 6y ago
Some tug boats did sail in from far away places.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Keeping in mind that the tugs on each side had to come from opposite directions because the canal is blocked, I expect there was a bit of a commute.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
Why wouldn't it be more cost-effective or unreasonable to destroy the ship?
- stevula 6y ago
  They would still be cleaning up the debris to unblock the canal, shipping would still be blocked.
- clarkmoody 6y ago
  Problems with destroying the ship: - A sunken super container ship in the canal, rather than a floating one. Removing the wreckage would be at least an order of magnitude more work than floating the thing away. - Thousands of containers floating / sunk in the canal. How much damage can one of those do to the propeller of a ship?
  - JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
    Thank you, I know it's a dumb question. Wondering about the cost/effectiveness of demolition of the ship vs the daily costs of having the canal blocked. I thought it might be like using explosives to dispose of whale carcasses.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Have you ever tried to cut tires of the car that blocked your driveway? Did it help to clear the blockage faster or exactly the opposite?
- unionpivo 6y ago
  because unlike videogames, object in real life don't despawn after you punch/shoot them. if you destroy the ship, it sinks. And since its blocking shallow canal, you just made problem 10x worse.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
superjan 6y ago
What I wonder about: how is such a rescue contract negotiated? There is likely willingness to pay, but it is difficult to judge what a reasonable price is, and it may not even be clear who is culpable in advance. Do they have contracts in advance with the shipping companies?
- Someone 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_salvage#Types_of_salvage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_salvage#Types_of_salvag...: In contract salvage the owner of the property and salvor enter into a salvage contract prior to the commencement of salvage operations and the amount that the salvor is paid is determined by the contract. This can be a fixed amount, based on a "time and materials" basis, or any other terms that both parties agree to. The contract may also state that payment is only due if the salvage operation is successful (a.k.a. "No Cure, No Pay"), or that payment is due even if the operation is not successful. By far the commonest single form of salvage contract internationally is Lloyd's Standard Form of Salvage Agreement (2011), an English law arbitration agreement administered by the Council of Lloyd's, London. That Lloyd’s contract (https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/the%20market/tools%20and%20resources/agency/salvage%20arbitration%20branch/agency_lof_2011.pdf https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/the%20market/tools%20an...) is concise (2 pages). It may incorporate the SCOPIC clause (https://www.lloyds.com/resources-and-services/lloyds-agency/salvage-arbitration-branch/scopic https://www.lloyds.com/resources-and-services/lloyds-agency/...), but that doesn’t seem long, either, even including its appendices.
  - superjan 6y ago
    Thanks!
- Aperocky 6y ago
  I would imagine a cost plus contract?
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I would assume that Egypt paid. They have by far the biggest incentive to clear the canal asap. They will presumably now enter a lengthy legal dispute to try and get their money back from the shipping company.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

About the cargo part - it's entirely possible that some cargo is non-viable. It is going to be onboard days longer than predicted. Anything even faintly perishable may be degraded. But good news for sure!

ceejayoz 6y ago
It's already a trip halfway around the world at something like 30 km/h. If you're transporting goods that are that sensitive, you're likely doing it by air already. Ships get delayed all the time for various reasons.
- mwgarcia 6y ago
  The ship will still likely be anchored for hull inspection, perhaps in Bitter Lake. That may take a couple of days at best, and an indefinite stranding if serious problems are discovered. Also crew change is likely because of on-going investigations, and that will be tricky with the on-going mariner crunch. There's not a lot who are qualified to run a ULCV, especially one straight out of an accident.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    In the past ships already got stuck on the Bitter Lake - for quite some time! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
    - Someone 6y ago
      I think those were unloaded during the ‘delay’. If they weren’t, I guess the Wikipedia page would have mentioned something about life on the Münsterland, carrying eggs and fruit.
      - m4rtink 6y ago
        I would assume any perishable cargo was quickly lost to spoilage during the ongoing conflict and the rest of the cargo just staying there. There are actually interesting stories about how the crews of the stack ships got to know each other and how they spent their time during the uncertain time after the channel became impassable - they did theater plays, did sports competitions, fished for food, etc. Over time as the political situation cleared up a bit most of the crew members were repatriated with just a periodically rotated skeleton crew watching over the ships staying behind.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > It's already a trip halfway around the world at something like 30 km/h This sounds slow at first, but, since you can drive pretty much 24/7, that's still 720km per day. If you're literally going halfway around the world (20.000km), you'll be there in 28 days. Since you drive on water, you'll do few small detours (I assume), so you can actually get those 700km a day. EU<->China even appears to be "only" 7000 km [0], so if you could drive in a straight line you could get there in 10 days. 14 with usual delays and detours, maybe. That's a reasonable time span for a lot of perishable goods. With the blockage doubling that time, I can easily see how this would affect quite a few goods. [0] https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from/Europe/to/China https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from/Europe/to/China
gambiting 6y ago
Container ships can easily have an unpredicted wait of 1-2 weeks just entering port, happens all the time and isn't major news. Few days in the Suez canal isn't going to do anything to cargo.
- shagie 6y ago
  While the Ever Given may not have an issue, the HAJH AMINA which is waiting in the Great Bitter Lake is a livestock carrier that should have been unloading in port yesterday.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Sure but the same principles apply - delays happen, and livestock ships are equipped to keep livestock alive with food and water well stocked in case they can't enter port for days(which again, happens all the time, sometimes papers aren't exactly right and the livestock has to wait on the ship until cleared for offloading)
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      I've seen this ship mentioned a couple of times. I kind of assume the subtext is that we should stop sending live animals by ship (except for perhaps specialist and breading stock), which I totally agree with, as much for the dangers of spreading disease as for an ethical concern for the animals involved.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      The shipping of livestock is controversial here in NZ and some (likely high) estimates suggest a death rate of as much as 1 in 10. The issues are pretty closely tied to conditions at the other end of shipping (feedlots, slaughterhouses etc) as well as the shipping though. https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018765098/why-do-we-still-ship-livestock-overseas https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018765098...

leoh 6y ago

There appears to be little "high-end engineering." Just a high tide and a bunch of tug boats.

hderms 6y ago
A high tide and some tug boats becomes 'high-end engineering' if it works
- zelos 6y ago
  I'd guess figuring out where you can safely attach the tug boats, monitoring stability and stresses on the container ship and so on is non-trivial, too.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    If you fuck up bad enough those containers end up landing on the tugs, killing the crews. Not to mention increasing the quantity of stuff blocking the canal.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Have you looked at tug boat propulsion units lately? Those things look like black magic.
  - thisisbrians 6y ago
    You are right, these things are nuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller
    - _ah 6y ago
      Wow this is the coolest thing I've learned this week.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
High end engineering uses the simplest and most cost effective solution to get the job done right. It would have been a mistake to throw expensive, complicated solutions at a problem that had a relatively simple solution.

EricE 6y ago

High tide did more than anything. If it had gone beyond Wednesday they likely would have been screwed as the high tide was set to start dropping each day after Tuesday. Good thing they started dredging right away.

munificent 6y ago
You say that like they just got unexpectedly lucky, but all mariners are well aware of and take tides into account in their planning.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I’d be surprised if they aimed for their ship to arrive n days before the spring tide in case it got stuck. That just doesn’t sound like an efficient operation. In this case the luck was that the high tides were relatively high when it was stuck. If we were in a neap tide, we might have had to wait longer for a high enough tide to get the ship out. (But maybe if tides were lower it wouldn’t have gotten so stuck) P.S. it isn’t exactly clear what you mean by mariner, but plenty of sailors in the Mediterranean don’t really need to care about tides as they don’t really get them there. Indeed, you shouldn’t trust any of the early modern Greek or Italian treatises attempting to explain tides as their authors didn’t really know how tides actually behaved outside the Med.
  - munificent 6y ago
    > I’d be surprised if they aimed for their ship to arrive n days before the spring tide in case it got stuck. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that after the ship got stuck, they certainly incorporated the tides into their plan for how to unstick it. If the tides had been less amenable, they would have come up with a different plan. So their plan didn't get "lucky", their plan was predicated on the tides being part of the solution.
    - EricE 6y ago
      Without the high tides the amount of material needed to be removed would have been dramatically higher. That’s the point and the absolute bit of luck. Without the high tides they likely wouldn’t have been able to get it unstuck as quickly. Search for slope/fill volume calculation charts - the amount of fill required to be removed as you go deeper is logarithmic, NOT linear. It was VERY lucky they had the highest tides possible.

Dirlewanger 6y ago

If this happened on American soil, it'd be stuck for weeks. There'd be infighting over which private contractor the canal authority will pick. And when the excavation process starts, there'd be complaining from NIMBYs because of the disruption and noise. And in the end, there'd be multiple entities all suing each other because they can.

aden1ne 6y ago

Some tug boats did sail in from far away places.

hinkley 6y ago
Keeping in mind that the tugs on each side had to come from opposite directions because the canal is blocked, I expect there was a bit of a commute.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago

Why wouldn't it be more cost-effective or unreasonable to destroy the ship?

stevula 6y ago
They would still be cleaning up the debris to unblock the canal, shipping would still be blocked.
clarkmoody 6y ago
Problems with destroying the ship: - A sunken super container ship in the canal, rather than a floating one. Removing the wreckage would be at least an order of magnitude more work than floating the thing away. - Thousands of containers floating / sunk in the canal. How much damage can one of those do to the propeller of a ship?
- JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
  Thank you, I know it's a dumb question. Wondering about the cost/effectiveness of demolition of the ship vs the daily costs of having the canal blocked. I thought it might be like using explosives to dispose of whale carcasses.
lmilcin 6y ago
Have you ever tried to cut tires of the car that blocked your driveway? Did it help to clear the blockage faster or exactly the opposite?
unionpivo 6y ago
because unlike videogames, object in real life don't despawn after you punch/shoot them. if you destroy the ship, it sinks. And since its blocking shallow canal, you just made problem 10x worse.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

superjan 6y ago

What I wonder about: how is such a rescue contract negotiated? There is likely willingness to pay, but it is difficult to judge what a reasonable price is, and it may not even be clear who is culpable in advance. Do they have contracts in advance with the shipping companies?

Someone 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_salvage#Types_of_salvage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_salvage#Types_of_salvag...: In contract salvage the owner of the property and salvor enter into a salvage contract prior to the commencement of salvage operations and the amount that the salvor is paid is determined by the contract. This can be a fixed amount, based on a "time and materials" basis, or any other terms that both parties agree to. The contract may also state that payment is only due if the salvage operation is successful (a.k.a. "No Cure, No Pay"), or that payment is due even if the operation is not successful. By far the commonest single form of salvage contract internationally is Lloyd's Standard Form of Salvage Agreement (2011), an English law arbitration agreement administered by the Council of Lloyd's, London. That Lloyd’s contract (https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/the%20market/tools%20and%20resources/agency/salvage%20arbitration%20branch/agency_lof_2011.pdf https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/the%20market/tools%20an...) is concise (2 pages). It may incorporate the SCOPIC clause (https://www.lloyds.com/resources-and-services/lloyds-agency/salvage-arbitration-branch/scopic https://www.lloyds.com/resources-and-services/lloyds-agency/...), but that doesn’t seem long, either, even including its appendices.
- superjan 6y ago
  Thanks!
Aperocky 6y ago
I would imagine a cost plus contract?
DangerousPie 6y ago
I would assume that Egypt paid. They have by far the biggest incentive to clear the canal asap. They will presumably now enter a lengthy legal dispute to try and get their money back from the shipping company.