Suez Canal blocked by container ship 36

[verymadmac]

It might not be an engineering issue that started it, but I bet is going to change a few specifications.
BBC piece here Link



It looks like the bow is hard aground, refloating will be an interesting exercise given the time pressure.



Canal profile is here

https://www.suezcanal.gov.eg/English/About/SuezCanal/Pages/CanalCharacteristics.aspx

 

[dik]

You'd think that any reasonable court would take that into consideration wrt damages...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

well that's my load of aliexpress led strip lights I suspect going to be a tad late.....

Its well worth while going through the other articles on that site. loads of stuff that doesn't hit mainstream media

 

[waross]

Deny ownership and re-order. grin

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[Spartan5]

From a lengthy write-up in the Post about this. A good read if you have access to it. Goes into great detail about the recovery process too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...49b85c-9154-11eb-aadc-af78701a30ca_story.html

At 7:08 a.m., with the sun an hour above the desert horizon, the Ever Given moved into one of the canal’s one-lane arteries and approached a bend to the right. Satellite data shows the ship started to weave from bank to bank at more than 15 miles an hour, much faster than the canal’s speed limit of less than 10 mph.

What was happening on the Ever Given’s bridge, where the captain and two certified Suez Canal pilots were on duty, remains a mystery. But some maritime and canal officials have noted that a wind of up to 35 mph was blowing from the south, pressing against the wall of containers.

For more than half an hour, the ship veered from side to side, according to the satellite tracking, narrowly missing the banks until its stern seemed to brush the left-hand shore. The bow instantly sheered sharply to the right, and 400 million pounds of ship plowed into the sandy eastern bank of the canal at 13 mph.

It was 7:44 a.m., and the Ever Given was lodged stem to stern.

 

[RedSnake]

Well I haven't bought anything from IKEA , lucky me.

Best Regards A

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[waross]

Satellite data shows the ship started to weave from bank to bank at more than 15 miles an hour, much faster than the canal’s speed limit of less than 10 mph.

I have to query this.
Over half an hour at over 5 MPH above the speed limit?
She didn't overtake any ships?
Some following ships collided trying to stop"
She should have been a couple of miles ahead of following ships.
I suspect that "Speed limit be dammed" she was moving at the speed of the normal traffic.
How for can you speed on a busy one lane road with no passing?
Unless the throttle got stuck.
That may have happened.
Were any of the builders linked in any way to Toyota?

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[dik]

He was likely travelling the normal speed... it's interesting that the captain of one of the American boats following had to take control from the pilot to keep from crashing into the Ever Given...

Does Egypt charge for the use of their pilots? Is it just a money grab?

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[waross]

Yes Dik. I think that we may safely discount reports of over speed.
It may be metric confusion.
Traveling 15 kph when the limit is 10 mph.
Could it happen?
Well, metric confusion brought down the Gimli Glider .

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[dik]

Yup... and the government sidestepped the metric issue...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Ships and aircraft do things in knts.

Which is based on the distance of 1 second of arc on the earth's surface at the equator.

It's neither metric or imperial.

 

[zeusfaber]

The deal is that "Owners, mobilizers, charterers and/or operators bind themselves responsible for any mistakes resulting from pilot's advice or arise(sic) by SCA personnel. If you don't like it, you can go the long way round. Have a Stugeron on us.

A.

 

[waross]

Doing 15 kph when the limit is 10 knots?
Even greater confusion.


Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[hokie66]

It's the Washington Post, what do you expect?

 

[Fischstabchen]

If we have learned anything from this fiasco, it is that the unbridled dictatorship of Egypt is responsible for not operating the canal well, unbridled european capitalism is responsible for the backlog of ships needing to go east, and unbridled Chinese communism is responsible for the backlog of ships needing to go west.

 

[1503-44]

15 kph is 9.3 mph
15 knots is 17.25 mph
10 knots is 11.5 mph


Limits

http://www.eisgroup.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/suez-canal-Transit-Guide-Formal-document.pdf

16 kph ordinary vessels = 9.9 mph
14 kph tankers = 8.7 mph

Of the above, only the 15 kph is less than the limits.

So,
33% chance she was legal
67% chance she was speeding

 

[Ingenuity]

Which is based on the distance of 1 second of arc on the earth's surface at the equator.

1 arc minute not 1 arc second.

 

[Spartan5]

For those questioning the speed (or the Post’s reporting for that matter), or what the other vessels nearby were doing; from another source:

Those piecing together what caused the accident will undoubtedly look at speed. The ship’s last known speed was 13.5 knots at 7:28 a.m., 12 minutes before the grounding, according to Bloomberg data.

That would have surpassed the speed limit of about 7.6 knots (8.7 miles an hour) to 8.6 knots that is listed as the maximum speed vessels are “allowed to transit" through the canal, according to the Suez authority’s rules of navigation handbook posted on its website.

Captains interviewed for this story said it can pay to increase the speed in the face of a strong wind to maneuver the ship better.

“Speeding up to a certain point is effective," said Chris Gillard, who was captain of a 300-meter container ship that crossed the Suez monthly for nearly a decade until 2019. “More than that and it becomes counter effective because the bow will get sucked down deep into the water. Then, adding too much power does nothing but exacerbate the problem."

Bloomberg data also show that the 300-meter Maersk Denver traveling behind the Ever Given also posted a top speed of 10.6 knots at 7:28 a.m. A spokesperson for Maersk in Denmark declined to comment. Ship captains and local pilots said it’s not unusual to travel through the canal around that speed despite the lower limit.

The Cosco Galaxy, a container ship marginally smaller than the Ever Given, was immediately ahead and appears to have travelled at a similar speed, though with a tugboat. The one ahead of the Cosco, the Al Nasriyah, also had an escort. The escorts are not mandatory, according to the Suez authority’s rules of navigation, though the authority can require it for ships if they deem it necessary.

“The biggest vessels often travel with a tugboat in close proximity, an escort boat, to facilitate the transit," said Captain Theologos Gampierakis at commodity trading house Trafigura Group in Athens.

A cargo ship with containers stacked high like the Ever Given can be particularly hard to navigate since the ship’s hull and wall of containers can act as a huge sail, said Kinsey, the former captain, who made his last trip through Suez in 2006 .

“You might find yourself positioning the ship in one direction, and you’re actually moving in another direction," said Kinsey. “There’s a very fine line between having enough speed to maneuver and not having too much speed that the air and hydrodynamics become unstable. Any deviation can get real bad real quick because it’s so tight."

About 20 minutes after the incident, the first of two tugboats accompanying the vessels ahead of the Ever Given came back to push its port side in an effort to dislodge it, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Later, eight tugboats were deployed to push both sides of the container vessel, but to no avail.

As 1503-44 noted above, the speed limit is 16 kph ordinary vessels or 9.9 mph. And 13.5 knots is 15.5 mph. Both of which are what the Post reported.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Your right 1 minuet of arc.

Been getting on for 20 years since I did nav general. Its a good unit to use for navigation allows loads of in your head calculations to be done on the fly. Although i must admit on modern aircraft we don't do it very often these days apart from distance V height for a 3 deg glide.

 

[TugboatEng]

When I was doing my internship some years back I was on a speedy steamer. The maximum maneuvering RPM was some 75 rpm (full ahead) but the plant could readily make 100 without getting in to extractions or anything and the pilots knew it. We'd routinely get phone calls from the bridge asking for 100 rpm in San Francisco Bay (17 knots). I remember hearing a complaint about our wake going over pier 39 and getting the tourists wet.

She was a sporty girl seen here on her way to scrap. The ship has s destroyer stern where the prop had a strut bearing which was unusual for a commercial ship. Cruise speed was 24 knots at 790 feet. I'll never forget th color red on the chief engineer's face when the chief mate managed to dial in 20 degrees of rudder at 24 knots during a loss of steering drill.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I used to scuba dive off an old clyde tug in the clyde near Glasgow . She went quite fast as well. They had stuck a compressor on the rear deck.

She looked like this.