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How would Panama canal profile have played into the Ever Given incident? It's not like it happened because someone accidentally drove a Panamax into Suez due to

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• toyg 5y ago
  It’s more that it would help the industry standardize on one size, which meant facilities in all places could also standardize and ensure edge cases are properly taken care of. The current status quo is “we have a strait, and the biggest boat you can squeeze into that should be able to pass through”; a standardized approach would be “if you build a boat X by Y, we guarantee it will go through - because we can basically put it on rails once you get here”. It’s a bit like they did with containers: from “build the biggest box we can fit on a ship” to “build the box that ships can guarantee will be optimally treated”.
  • usrusr 5y ago
    But they don't run on rails. Size didn't play into Ever Given in any way other than that smaller would have been easier to dredge/pull out, and that smaller may or may not have had a more favorable ratio between rudder control and wind load. Any attempts at standardization would actually be worse, because now they build each ship for exactly one actual canal. With standardization they'd get built to some document that will get interpreted slightly different in every place.
    • toyg 5y ago
      Standardization would allow canal operators to build better and safer tooling around the strait, allowing for more slack and so on. The alternative is simply to continue as it is, with ship builders squeezing every inch just because they can, and it becomes a matter of if, not when, another EverGiven happens.