Suez blocked.

[penfold]

There are a couple of thruster symbols on the bow

The wiki says there are two 2.5MW tunnel thrusters.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

Sometime the worst balls up, are made by the best ship handlers.

I may borrow that.

 

[Biggles Wader]

Im guessing it all happened too quickly for thrusters to be of much use. She appears to have been going quite fast hence the distance the bow has gone into the bank but the anchors are still in the pipes so no attempt was made to slow or stop. I wonder if this could be another example of how little we really know about the handling of these fairly new mega ships. What with corkscrewing and throwing the cargo over wall in the Pacific, several minor accidents while maneovering in port and now this possible "ground effect" debacle perhaps we need a bit of research. My theory? The ratio of ship speed to available water was wrong and the pressure waves worked to crash the ship rather than keep it in the channel.

 

[Kukri]

She has two bow thrusters but Evergreen seem to have lost interest in stern thrusters recently; I suppose they don’t have enough installed reefer points to justify the generators on the monsters.

Thrusters don’t work at speed. She was going much too fast (12-13 knots) for the thrusters to be effective.

 

[savageseadog]

Dam the canal at both ends and pump the Nile into it

 

[Roberto]

They just arrested and handcuffed a bearded man who was waving at the ship while shouting let me finish let me finish.
Probably a fool, he said his name was Moses.

 

[penfold]

Dam the canal at both ends and pump the Nile into it

I think there's a net flow in one direction, so you only need one dam.

 

[ProDave]

Dam the canal at both ends and pump the Nile into it

How would you dam it?

Wedge a box boat sideways?,.........

 

[newtothis]

So...I am not a betting man but when does the clever money start going round the Cape?

That ship has, quite literally, sailed. Seen several on front and backhaul heading south, and both Maersk and MSC have announced re-routings round the cape.
This is turning into quite the charlie foxtrot for those waiting on cargo.

 

[Kukri]

That ship has, quite literally, sailed. Seen several on front and backhaul heading south, and both Maersk and MSC have announced re-routings round the cape.
This is turning into quite the charlie foxtrot for those waiting on cargo.

Maersk and MSC operate jointly so no surprise there. ? See my post 225 for OOCL and Evergreen.

If the ships heading south open the taps the effect is rather small. Good for people like me of course. I put a link to a well known on line voyage estimator in post 154 or 156 if people want to play with the numbers.

“My” old bangers were good for 25.5 knots when they were young, but have been poodling round at half that since 2011. Their engineers are rather keen on “giving it a go” thereby doubling our capacity (and trebling our fuel bill and doing something horrible to our spares bill and something wonderful to their overtime) at a stroke!?

 

[newtothis]

Maersk and MSC operate jointly so no surprise there.See my post 225 for OOCL and Evergreen.

If the ships heading south open the taps the effect is rather small. Good for people like me of course.

Sorry, missed your earlier reply. The ones I've seen have all be going pretty much full clip, presumably to try and make up a bit of schedule.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yes. It’s free warehouse space. for buffer stock. We did once try to persuade them out of it. No chance.

Danke schön. How strictly to timetable do ships like this run? In other words, if I had a container on an Evergreen ship, would its arrival normally be case of "Sometime in the second week of April, guv", "Twenty past nine in the morning on Tuesday 13th", or somewhere in between?

 

[newtothis]

Danke schön. How strictly to timetable do ships like this run? In other words, if I had a container on an Evergreen ship, would its arrival normally be case of "Sometime in the second week of April, guv", "Twenty past nine in the morning on Tuesday 13th", or somewhere in between?

Bookings give a scheduled arrival date, but it is a moveable feast. Schedule reliability on Asia-Europe is running at about 25% at the moment. Arguably, cargo owners are used to delays, but to reliable delays. The extra week or so to go the long way around is one they weren't expecting.

 

[Kukri]

Bookings give a scheduled arrival date, but it is a moveable feast. Schedule reliability on Asia-Europe is running at about 25% at the moment. Arguably, cargo owners are used to delays, but to reliable delays. The extra week or so to go the long way around is one they weren't expecting.

Just so. We could achieve much higher levels of schedule reliability, thereby allowing our customers to go closer to optimal JIT, but we would have to charge them more, and they don’t want to pay for it.

 

[Rappey]

Going round might need armed escorts passing the gulf of guinea due to piracy if some reports are to be believed.

 

[Frank Holden]

I don't read newspapers, let alone French newspapers, but a reliable source has just told me that Le Figaro has a different slant on this. Egypt and France have recently had a falling out about the Suez pilots, who were predominantly French. The French pilots left, en masses, and the Russians jumped in, training mostly Egyptians as pilots, Le Figaro says one of these new pilots was in charge at the time of the grounding!
Allan

That sounds more like 1956......
Last time I went through the canal was 1965... we had a greek pilot.... I recall him saying they - the greeks - were all packing up and going back to greek ships because of Greek pension law changes that would see them losing state pensions or some such...
Prior to that ...1963/64 7 transits, all Egyptian pilots.

 

[Kukri]

Going round might need armed escorts passing the gulf of guinea due to piracy if some reports are to be believed.

There are some very silly things being written. Ships call at West African ports and yes they sometimes get attacked by local pirates. Why the pirate gangs want to set off hundreds of miles into the broad Atlantic to try to board container ships making 18 knots and more I cannot begin to imagine. The Somalis - who are really good seamen - left fast boxboats well alone.

I suppose they could try for bulkers and tankers but bulkers and tankers making for West African ports stay 200 miles out until they are called in and they don’t get bothered.

 

[penfold]

Maersk and MSC operate jointly so no surprise there. ? See my post 225 for OOCL and Evergreen.

If the ships heading south open the taps the effect is rather small. Good for people like me of course. I put a link to a well known on line voyage estimator in post 154 or 156 if people want to play with the numbers.

“My” old bangers were good for 25.5 knots when they were young, but have been poodling round at half that since 2011. Their engineers are rather keen on “giving it a go” thereby doubling our capacity (and trebling our fuel bill and doing something horrible to our spares bill and something wonderful to their overtime) at a stroke!?

It's a while since I was anywhere near a slow speed engine but most were(prior to 2008-09) optimised for 22-24kts and my understanding was that the subsequent slow steaming fad put up maintenance costs rather than lowering them.

Apropos not much I was rather hoping the newest fad for mis-selling corrosive and nonflammable soup as HFO would bring about a renaissance in steamers due to the low NOx emissions and relative immunity to crappy fuel.

 

[westhinder]

Update. Boskalis say she is only one metre out of her draft. I had been assuming that she was down to her marks when she struck, and was working on two metres.

That means that my calculations for the weight of cargo to be removed are too conservative, particularly when we consider that at high tide on Monday the tide will be 42 centimetres higher than when she stranded.

Sticking with my figure of 200 tons per centimetre immersion that means that the weight of cargo to be removed is much less. I had guesstimated 2,000 forty foot containers at the trade average weight of 22 tons plus 3.75 tons tare. I think the number might be nearer six hundred, and if the SCA and the salvors can clear enough sand away over tte weekend she really might come off with no cargo removed.

That is more or less exactly what the Boskalis CEO told Dutch television tonight: the ship is firmly wedged into the bank with its bow, but not the stern. They are bringing in two extremely powerful tugs over the weekend and keep dredging around the bow and hope to be able to pull her off using the spring tides of the first half of the week. If that fails, he reckons they will have to remove about 600 containers from the front stacks using a big crane on the bank. He would not be drawn on how long that would take. My guess would be the next springs in two weeks.

 

[Kukri]

It's a while since I was anywhere near a slow speed engine but most were(prior to 2008-09) optimised for 22-24kts and my understanding was that the subsequent slow steaming fad put up maintenance costs rather than lowering them.

Apropos not much I was rather hoping the newest fad for mis-selling corrosive and nonflammable soup as HFO would bring about a renaissance in steamers due to the low NOx emissions and relative immunity to crappy fuel.

The deep, deep peace and cleanliness of the Temple of Steam, after the noise and filth of the diesel engine room...?

The 10L90MC is a good engine but we got one of B&W’s off moments with the generator prime movers. A good thing we have four per ship, because we have been down to one on several occasions - we might as well have specified SKLs!