7 ms·

If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict

by tsujp 6y ago

If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. Yes the captain has ultimate authority, but the port authority also has intimate knowledge of this region, and thus the weather and it's capabilities. We can only know more there after the investigation. On the other hand, the Suez Canal has had a lot of time to even begin construction of a second canal on the southern stretch and hasn't. I'm sure now they will consider that a higher priority as if this block happened further north where there are two canal lanes this wouldn't have been as big an issue. I agree that reparations for the actual true cost of the salvage are due -- the cost of the tugboats, the dredger etc, but to pay damages on lost revenue due to a freak weather occurrence (if that was the case) and the lack of the Suez Canal to build out their infrastructure is disagreeable to say the least.

sen 6y ago
It's most probably just for show, as they'd have a tough time of actually finding them guilty considering the state of the canal. They'll bluster about huge damages, then "settle for an undisclosed amount" which is realistically more like just the costs of the fix itself, and maybe a bit extra for compensation.
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  Absolutely. They see an opportunity to make some revenue, and they will. This is, in the nicest possible way, the way business is done in Egypt. You start from an absolutely outrageous position, and settle on something both parties are generally happy with. This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
  - f6v 6y ago
    I got an impression that any lawsuit goes like that everywhere. A claimant asks for outrageously high compensation and settles for much less.
    - ARandomerDude 6y ago
      > This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
      - elcritch 6y ago
        Some sellers in markets in the region will get offended if you don’t try and haggle, even it means they’ll make 10x the profit that they’d settle for.
        manquer 6y ago
        It is not the about the money. Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it. You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.
  - SergeAx 6y ago
    Do you have even anecdotal example of this behavior on industrial level, or just projecting your own touristic experience?
    - manquer 6y ago
      It has nothing to do with cultural reasons. Every lawsuit in the U.S. and other places does the exact same thing, claim very high numbers, then perhaps settle for much less.
    - madaxe_again 6y ago
      Yes - my business provided ecommerce infrastructure for a major Egyptian brand. The negotiations were... actually rather fun. It all started by phone and email, they tried to rip us off, we poked fun at their attempts, and returned in kind. Ultimately I flew out to Alexandria and after an afternoon of Very Serious Business we shook on it, and became best friends. Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.
- mastax 6y ago
  Perhaps I'm making too many assumptions, but wouldn't such a lawsuit be filed in an Egyptian court? It could be very easy to find them guilty. In the article the port authority is already holding the ship hostage for the money, and they could easily bar Evergreen from using the canal if they don't pay up. What motivation do they have to negotiate?
  - ivan_gammel 6y ago
    I doubt that the contract between the company operating the ship and the canal authority includes the settlement of disputes in Egyptian court. If it goes this way, the company may seek for compensation abroad - this will damage the reputation of Egypt and result in a very long and difficult litigations everywhere around the world. Besides that, new risks associated to this route may push shippers to look more closely to an alternative route. Northern route is much shorter, does not have vessel size limits and it becomes more easier to navigate with global warming. It's not hard to imagine ice class nuclear merchant ships carrying 30-40k TEU there in 10 years.
    - gpm 6y ago
      > nuclear merchant ships [...] in 10 years. This is very hard for me to imagine.
      - nbdfml354 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker Imagine one of these with stuff on it.
        WJW 6y ago
        I imagine that it's not so much the "nuclear ship" part as much as it is the "nuclear merchant ship" part. Of course you can build big nuclear-powered vessels. But how many governments are willing to part with enough uranium to power such a vessel? Civilian use of nuclear material is extremely restricted and enforcement of maritime law is already something of a problem area due to how international the whole thing is.
RantyDave 6y ago
> it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. Yes. It is. And to be insured against it happening. So at this stage the Egyptian authorities don't necessarily know who they are picking a fight with.
- tsujp 6y ago
  I disagree. The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority because of their knowledge of the port at hand. If there was a sandstorm with strong winds that pushed the ship aground what could the captain do? Dismiss the pilot and gain control of an already out-of-control ship? The pilots know more about this area, so before the point of no return the captain, I'd imagine, would trust their judgement. Remember: pilots from port authority's are experts about the ports they pilot through. Also, the pilots are not meteorologists and even if they were how many times does your local weather station, or mine, or anyone else's, get the weather forecast wrong. Huge ships of this size have so much momentum that I'd imagine as a captain or a pilot or anyone else who works in the bridge concerning the ships movement has to plan dozens of minutes and kilometres in advance. Want to stop the ship? That requires about 3 Km of runway. Want to turn around? About a 2 Km radius of turn space required. That's a lot of planning. By the time the ship is definitely running aground it's too late to do anything about it and before then the best the captain can do is "umm" and "ahh" every decision the pilots are making. Yes there should be an insurance claim but it's not against the Ever Given it should be against this freak weather event much like how if a tornado blows a house down you have a claim for a natural disaster and not a claim against your local council you live in.
  - jasode 6y ago
    >The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority This isn't quite true and has to be worded carefully to explain how responsibility is assigned. The ship is not allowed permission to come into port/harbor/canal without a local pilot on board. That's very different from relinquishing control to the local pilot. The local pilot acts more like an advisor and guide for navigation but the ship's helmsman & captain still retain physical control of the ship's speed and steering. From the reports I read of this specific Ever Given incident, the local guide pilot didn't command the helmsman to speed up to 13 knots. The ship's captain is still ultimately responsible for what happens. Does that mean that even when I'm required to use the local pilot, he still can't be blamed for things going wrong?!? Yes, that's how it works. The ship has no choice of not accepting that deal if it wants access to that port. EDIT : I found a video with a chief engineer from a cargo ship explaining maritime responsibility. Deep link: https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s
lars_francke 6y ago
There is an article in the latest economist about this. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/03/30/the-jam-in-the-suez-canal-highlights-egypts-taste-for-mega-projects https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/03/30/... (Probably unfortunately behind a PayWall) The super short summary is that they say a further expansion is not necessary. Even the previous one wasn't needed an hasn't brought in the benefits they had hoped/promised.
- chihuahua 6y ago
  https://archive.vn/SFJiH https://archive.vn/SFJiH
dan-robertson 6y ago
> The captain has ultimate authority This is a slightly complicated issue: the ship was being piloted so the person with the authority is basically the pilot (someone who’s job is to take ships through the canal but not anywhere else). The captain can order the pilot off the ship (and then take control) but not much else. And doing that in the middle of a sandstorm would probably not be so clever.
- ericbarrett 6y ago
  I can't find the quote, but I recall one ship captain saying in the multiple decades he'd been transiting, he'd never had the Suez Canal pilots leave their crew quarters between start and finish. Seems most boats that wish to transit have to come prepared with many bribes, and be ready for multiple shakedowns: http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm Clearly this is Egypt's authorities trying to save face and deflect blame for their failure to provide actual, competent piloting.
  - cm2187 6y ago
    I don't know that we need to assign blame. It is possible this accident was unavoidable. It is not like this is a recurring occurrence.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
      It is possible, but not likely. I dont hear this being a once-in-a-century sandstorm. This may not be a recurring ocurrence precisely because weather-induced groundings on that zone are particularly strange, because its not an area with weather that can impair a bih ship cruising by
  - jonas21 6y ago
    The captain in this video has also transited the Suez Canal many times and talks a bit about the corruption and bribes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrgh5sJa-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrgh5sJa-A
  - 6y ago
einpoklum 6y ago
> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. The second part of your sentence does not follow from the first part. If you have a large storm every with low but non-zero probability (and, actually, a higher probability than 1/(36575) given the weather conditions, let's say 1/(4075) = 1/3000) - then the parties to the agreement regarding the use of the canal need to plan for this contingency; and I assume the contract governs who has responsibility for such planning: The canal for salvages/re-floating, or the ships for being able to maintain buoyancy even in this kind of conditions. In other words: The point is not to predict the occurrence, it's to be ready for when it occurs. -- PS - I've ignored the question of insurance.
singularity2001 6y ago
there was a video shortly before/after the crash showing that the sandstorm was just a false rumor
throw0101a 6y ago
> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. An interesting hypothesis that I ran across (on gCaptain? blancolirio?) is that it may actually have been a wind lull that caused the issue. There was supposedly a steady cross wind in the area in question, and given the ship is 400m long and 13 storeys high, that's a lot of area. The wind seems to have been coming from the west/port-side, so the ship had rudder to port to counteract the pushing to starboard/east. When the wind dropped suddenly, the pushing-to-starboard force suddenly disappeared, and so the steering to port all of a sudden became 'unnecessary' and if it was not corrected soon enough may have been the reason why the ship steered to port and into the channel wall. Just an hypothesis though. I'm sure a sorts of folks will be looking at the sensor logs. I wonder if the Canal authority has any kind of instruments along the route to measure conditions. If not, they should consider it. Perhaps set up some "buoys" on land next to the channel that broadcast things out via AIS so pilots and captains can see things on their chart plotters.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Staggered windsocks would be pretty cheap and simple I think, just as you’d deploy at airports.
  - zaarn 6y ago
    Even with modern weather prediction technology and windsocks, it can happen that airplane encounter very unexpected wind drafts up or down during takeoff or landing. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- pacificmint 6y ago
  > An interesting hypothesis that I ran across Here [1] is a link from the Financial Times that talks about the hypothesis you mention, where a combination of a lull in the wind and the bank effect pushed the bow of the ship away from the bank while pulling the stern in. [1] https://archive.is/pmUEm https://archive.is/pmUEm
cm2187 6y ago
Particularly if it was an employee from the canal authority at the wheel.

by tsujp 6y ago

sen 6y ago

It's most probably just for show, as they'd have a tough time of actually finding them guilty considering the state of the canal. They'll bluster about huge damages, then "settle for an undisclosed amount" which is realistically more like just the costs of the fix itself, and maybe a bit extra for compensation.

madaxe_again 6y ago
Absolutely. They see an opportunity to make some revenue, and they will. This is, in the nicest possible way, the way business is done in Egypt. You start from an absolutely outrageous position, and settle on something both parties are generally happy with. This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
- f6v 6y ago
  I got an impression that any lawsuit goes like that everywhere. A claimant asks for outrageously high compensation and settles for much less.
  - ARandomerDude 6y ago
    > This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
    - elcritch 6y ago
      Some sellers in markets in the region will get offended if you don’t try and haggle, even it means they’ll make 10x the profit that they’d settle for.
      - manquer 6y ago
        It is not the about the money. Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it. You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.
- SergeAx 6y ago
  Do you have even anecdotal example of this behavior on industrial level, or just projecting your own touristic experience?
  - manquer 6y ago
    It has nothing to do with cultural reasons. Every lawsuit in the U.S. and other places does the exact same thing, claim very high numbers, then perhaps settle for much less.
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    Yes - my business provided ecommerce infrastructure for a major Egyptian brand. The negotiations were... actually rather fun. It all started by phone and email, they tried to rip us off, we poked fun at their attempts, and returned in kind. Ultimately I flew out to Alexandria and after an afternoon of Very Serious Business we shook on it, and became best friends. Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.
mastax 6y ago
Perhaps I'm making too many assumptions, but wouldn't such a lawsuit be filed in an Egyptian court? It could be very easy to find them guilty. In the article the port authority is already holding the ship hostage for the money, and they could easily bar Evergreen from using the canal if they don't pay up. What motivation do they have to negotiate?
- ivan_gammel 6y ago
  I doubt that the contract between the company operating the ship and the canal authority includes the settlement of disputes in Egyptian court. If it goes this way, the company may seek for compensation abroad - this will damage the reputation of Egypt and result in a very long and difficult litigations everywhere around the world. Besides that, new risks associated to this route may push shippers to look more closely to an alternative route. Northern route is much shorter, does not have vessel size limits and it becomes more easier to navigate with global warming. It's not hard to imagine ice class nuclear merchant ships carrying 30-40k TEU there in 10 years.
  - gpm 6y ago
    > nuclear merchant ships [...] in 10 years. This is very hard for me to imagine.
    - nbdfml354 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker Imagine one of these with stuff on it.
      - WJW 6y ago
        I imagine that it's not so much the "nuclear ship" part as much as it is the "nuclear merchant ship" part. Of course you can build big nuclear-powered vessels. But how many governments are willing to part with enough uranium to power such a vessel? Civilian use of nuclear material is extremely restricted and enforcement of maritime law is already something of a problem area due to how international the whole thing is.

RantyDave 6y ago

> it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. Yes. It is. And to be insured against it happening. So at this stage the Egyptian authorities don't necessarily know who they are picking a fight with.

tsujp 6y ago
I disagree. The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority because of their knowledge of the port at hand. If there was a sandstorm with strong winds that pushed the ship aground what could the captain do? Dismiss the pilot and gain control of an already out-of-control ship? The pilots know more about this area, so before the point of no return the captain, I'd imagine, would trust their judgement. Remember: pilots from port authority's are experts about the ports they pilot through. Also, the pilots are not meteorologists and even if they were how many times does your local weather station, or mine, or anyone else's, get the weather forecast wrong. Huge ships of this size have so much momentum that I'd imagine as a captain or a pilot or anyone else who works in the bridge concerning the ships movement has to plan dozens of minutes and kilometres in advance. Want to stop the ship? That requires about 3 Km of runway. Want to turn around? About a 2 Km radius of turn space required. That's a lot of planning. By the time the ship is definitely running aground it's too late to do anything about it and before then the best the captain can do is "umm" and "ahh" every decision the pilots are making. Yes there should be an insurance claim but it's not against the Ever Given it should be against this freak weather event much like how if a tornado blows a house down you have a claim for a natural disaster and not a claim against your local council you live in.
- jasode 6y ago
  >The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority This isn't quite true and has to be worded carefully to explain how responsibility is assigned. The ship is not allowed permission to come into port/harbor/canal without a local pilot on board. That's very different from relinquishing control to the local pilot. The local pilot acts more like an advisor and guide for navigation but the ship's helmsman & captain still retain physical control of the ship's speed and steering. From the reports I read of this specific Ever Given incident, the local guide pilot didn't command the helmsman to speed up to 13 knots. The ship's captain is still ultimately responsible for what happens. Does that mean that even when I'm required to use the local pilot, he still can't be blamed for things going wrong?!? Yes, that's how it works. The ship has no choice of not accepting that deal if it wants access to that port. EDIT : I found a video with a chief engineer from a cargo ship explaining maritime responsibility. Deep link: https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s

lars_francke 6y ago

There is an article in the latest economist about this. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/03/30/the-jam-in-the-suez-canal-highlights-egypts-taste-for-mega-projects https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/03/30/... (Probably unfortunately behind a PayWall) The super short summary is that they say a further expansion is not necessary. Even the previous one wasn't needed an hasn't brought in the benefits they had hoped/promised.

chihuahua 6y ago
https://archive.vn/SFJiH https://archive.vn/SFJiH

dan-robertson 6y ago

> The captain has ultimate authority This is a slightly complicated issue: the ship was being piloted so the person with the authority is basically the pilot (someone who’s job is to take ships through the canal but not anywhere else). The captain can order the pilot off the ship (and then take control) but not much else. And doing that in the middle of a sandstorm would probably not be so clever.

ericbarrett 6y ago
I can't find the quote, but I recall one ship captain saying in the multiple decades he'd been transiting, he'd never had the Suez Canal pilots leave their crew quarters between start and finish. Seems most boats that wish to transit have to come prepared with many bribes, and be ready for multiple shakedowns: http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm Clearly this is Egypt's authorities trying to save face and deflect blame for their failure to provide actual, competent piloting.
- cm2187 6y ago
  I don't know that we need to assign blame. It is possible this accident was unavoidable. It is not like this is a recurring occurrence.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
    It is possible, but not likely. I dont hear this being a once-in-a-century sandstorm. This may not be a recurring ocurrence precisely because weather-induced groundings on that zone are particularly strange, because its not an area with weather that can impair a bih ship cruising by
- jonas21 6y ago
  The captain in this video has also transited the Suez Canal many times and talks a bit about the corruption and bribes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrgh5sJa-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrgh5sJa-A
- 6y ago

einpoklum 6y ago

> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. The second part of your sentence does not follow from the first part. If you have a large storm every with low but non-zero probability (and, actually, a higher probability than 1/(36575) given the weather conditions, let's say 1/(4075) = 1/3000) - then the parties to the agreement regarding the use of the canal need to plan for this contingency; and I assume the contract governs who has responsibility for such planning: The canal for salvages/re-floating, or the ships for being able to maintain buoyancy even in this kind of conditions. In other words: The point is not to predict the occurrence, it's to be ready for when it occurs. -- PS - I've ignored the question of insurance.

singularity2001 6y ago

there was a video shortly before/after the crash showing that the sandstorm was just a false rumor

throw0101a 6y ago

> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. An interesting hypothesis that I ran across (on gCaptain? blancolirio?) is that it may actually have been a wind lull that caused the issue. There was supposedly a steady cross wind in the area in question, and given the ship is 400m long and 13 storeys high, that's a lot of area. The wind seems to have been coming from the west/port-side, so the ship had rudder to port to counteract the pushing to starboard/east. When the wind dropped suddenly, the pushing-to-starboard force suddenly disappeared, and so the steering to port all of a sudden became 'unnecessary' and if it was not corrected soon enough may have been the reason why the ship steered to port and into the channel wall. Just an hypothesis though. I'm sure a sorts of folks will be looking at the sensor logs. I wonder if the Canal authority has any kind of instruments along the route to measure conditions. If not, they should consider it. Perhaps set up some "buoys" on land next to the channel that broadcast things out via AIS so pilots and captains can see things on their chart plotters.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Staggered windsocks would be pretty cheap and simple I think, just as you’d deploy at airports.
- zaarn 6y ago
  Even with modern weather prediction technology and windsocks, it can happen that airplane encounter very unexpected wind drafts up or down during takeoff or landing. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
pacificmint 6y ago
> An interesting hypothesis that I ran across Here [1] is a link from the Financial Times that talks about the hypothesis you mention, where a combination of a lull in the wind and the bank effect pushed the bow of the ship away from the bank while pulling the stern in. [1] https://archive.is/pmUEm https://archive.is/pmUEm

cm2187 6y ago

Particularly if it was an employee from the canal authority at the wheel.