[HN Gopher] Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
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Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
Author : tilolebo
Score : 142 points
Date : 2021-03-23 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| yosito wrote:
| Does anyone have some insight on how this could affect global
| supply chains, depending on how long the canal is blocked? It
| seems like it's been blocked for a day or so, and there's already
| a pretty big queue. I'd imagine that has to have some significant
| impacts already.
| lmilcin wrote:
| I don't think this will impact. There is already a lot of
| possibility of delays, for example ships taking detours due to
| bad weather systems, etc. Nobody plans success of their
| production based on the ship arriving on exact day.
| carols10cents wrote:
| In a chapter of "Ninety Percent of Everything", the author rides
| a container ship through the Suez Canal and relates what it's
| like, if this has piqued your interest about the shipping
| industry. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16044961-ninety-
| percent-...
| mperham wrote:
| Holy ship.
| avaldeso wrote:
| Ship happens
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| It was buoy to happen at some point.
|
| Edit: should of ended it with "schooner or later"
| mongol wrote:
| This worries me. What if it becomes stuck for real?
| aerovistae wrote:
| Then they'll fix it. That's what engineers do. :)
| [deleted]
| nickkell wrote:
| Let's hope all those backed up ships aren't stuck as long as
| these chaps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| Question: If the ship is called the "Ever Given", why does its
| side say "Evergreen" instead?
| dwater wrote:
| Evergreen is a huge shipping company
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Marine
| buildbot wrote:
| It's the shipping line, all their ships are named ever-
| something iirc https://www.evergreen-line.com/ Based out of
| Taiwan
| tilolebo wrote:
| Maybe the company behind it?
|
| See similar vessels https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/EVER-
| GIVEN-IMO-9811000-...
| sebirocs wrote:
| because the ship has no fucks "ever given" :P
| shortlived wrote:
| Really interesting post! Thanks for sharing.
|
| How does something like this happen?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Loss of propulsion at the wrong time.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| One post said that the ship was cutting off other ships, so
| possibly some reckless sailing as well.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's cutting off other ships because when it lost power it
| drifted sideways and blocked the canal. It's now stuck in
| both embankments and the only vessels getting past are very
| flat submarines.
| pimlottc wrote:
| GP is referencing a comment on Instagram [0] that states
| that it cut off another ship enter the channel /before/
| it grounded:
|
| > @tjcsalisbury Yepp! And I believe they cut us off this
| morning entering the canal and then this happened and
| right after they ran aground the ship behind us lost
| power and almost hit us so it's been a fun day lol but
| now we are just anchored here hopefully it won't be to
| long but from the looks of it that ship is super stuck
| they had a bunch of tugs trying to pull and push it
| earlier but it was going nowhere there is a little
| excavator trying to dig out the bow
|
| 0: https://www.instagram.com/p/CMxEKHanW62/
| capableweb wrote:
| If you go to vesselfinder you can follow the drama in real-time!
| Seems it's still stuck: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I guess it won't be too hard to unjam it, but imagine how the
| world would change if it does get stuck, everyone would now have
| to go around Africa, probably boosting a few African economies.
|
| A bit like how a tiny bat (citation needed?) changed the course
| of the world for at least a year.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| They would blow up or demolish it before that happens.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Unloading and just dragging off on the land would likely be
| faster option. Blowing up is really worst case to do...
| towergratis wrote:
| > a tiny bat (citation needed?) changed the course of the world
| for at least a year
|
| It wasn't a tiny bat, or a lab accident that changed the course
| of the world.
|
| It was a corrupt non democratic government trying to hide it
| under the carpet, in similar fashion that a similar government
| in USSR try to hide under the carpet the biggest nuclear
| accident in its time.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _It was a corrupt non democratic government trying to hide
| it under the carpet_
|
| Assumes facts not in evidence.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Covid was detected in China and the world was alerted. Most
| other countries didn't even react, though. That's hardly on
| China.
|
| From the data we have so far, it was already present and
| undetected in Europe the year before. It may have originated
| in Europe, but that isn't yet clear.
|
| Don't fall to western chauvinism.
| osacial wrote:
| China reported to WHO, that it had EVERYTHING under control
| and that virus was not lethal to humans.
|
| China is west to the USA.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| At the time it was not yet know that the virus is lethal,
| that's all that was reported.
|
| Everything was also under control in China, as was later
| confirmed. Unfortunately by the time the virus was
| detected in China, it was already spread throughout
| Europe, since at least November 2019.
|
| I really didn't expect this sort of rejection of science
| and facts on HN.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The pangolin seems to be the bridge species. Bats have tons of
| coronaviruses, but none of them usually infect humans. The
| question is which animal bridged the gap.
|
| Kinda like how the Mink was going to become the bridge-species
| in Denmark (humans infected Minks with COVID19... and then the
| mink was probably going to infect another species after that).
| viraptor wrote:
| > probably boosting a few African economies.
|
| Do you mean some production would shift to Africa, or something
| else?
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Some lucky places can open ports for the giant ships to stop
| and refuel/resupply, that brings a lot of income.
|
| Though maybe I've got the scale wrong, and these ships can
| just buy more fuel and more food at their departure ports and
| go around Africa without stopping...
| davismwfl wrote:
| https://gcaptain.com/grounded-mega-ship-blocking-suez-canal-...
| Nekhrimah wrote:
| Footage of the backlog:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhSzxe0FuIE
|
| Presumably in the Gulf of Suez.
| jandrese wrote:
| According to the Twitter feed there is now a excavator trying to
| dig out the bow. It really shows off the scale as the excavator
| looks like a tiny toy next to the massive container ship.
|
| https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374468169784459267/pho...
| gumby wrote:
| Classic DOS attack. Cui bono?
| detritus wrote:
| I don't think I'd ever considered prior to now how much more
| economic it would be to release "The one nuclear bomb
| [TerroristOrganisation] can afford to muster" in a shipping
| choke-point, rather than a city.
|
| So, another thing to worry about :)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Dozen or so ships would be enough to blockade both Suez and
| Panama... That would cause substantial damage to global
| shipping industry... Not even that expensive. Hundred or two
| hundred million would do...
| jandrese wrote:
| For the Suez Canal a huge bomb is just going to make it
| bigger and easier to navigate in one spot.
|
| Blow up the locks for the Panama Canal and you have some
| seriously inconvenienced shipping companies.
|
| But even in both cases the result is that they have to take
| the long way around. It makes the shipping slower and more
| expensive, but it was a tiny fraction of your costs to begin
| with so most companies survive just fine.
| tpmx wrote:
| There could be real values in faking a technical outage and
| then getting stuck.
|
| I don't claim to understand the global shipping dynamics, but I
| do see that there's lots of frustrated ship crews with nowhere
| to go, because of the pandemic.
| ruytlm wrote:
| Starts to show why China is so keen on the Belt and Road
| initiative, given that it's essentially ring-fenced in by US
| allies.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Seeing how it is positioned, the worst case is that they will not
| be able to move it and they will have to remove some of the load.
| This might take a day or three depending on how difficult it is
| going to get a crane and a ship positioned to take the load off.
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(page generated 2021-03-23 23:01 UTC)