Suez blocked.

[Rappey]

I found a great animation on maersks Web site of how the traffic is organised in the canal plus a little news on what's currently happening.
Update to Vessel blockage in the Suez Canal

 

[mjcoon]

Someone mentioned helium earlier? Guy Martin did something on tv and it was something like £36,000 worth of helium just to lift a person.

It's not inexhaustible and better kept for MRI machines!
(Though come to think about it, if we ever get nuclear fusion going rather than being forever 50 years in the future, we could start making helium from plentiful hydrogen...)

 

[Adios]

Two reasons:

I think that with such a big ship with such a lot of ground reaction the risk of damaging the structure by applying too much force is very great. Better to get her almost floating and pull gently.

Also it takes a lot of setting up, with ground anchors barges wire blocks and so on.

I guess if it got tipped over and blocked the canal on its side it might be an issue for more than a few weeks?

 

[burgundyben]

Someone mentioned helium earlier? Guy Martin did something on tv and it was something like £36,000 worth of helium just to lift a person.

Hydrogen? Loads of water, bit of DC current?

Ok, it's a bit explody but apart from that...

 

[JumbleDuck]

Is there some true in the idea we'll run out of helium and thats it gone forever for some reason? And we need it for some medical devices so party balloons are irresponsible? Might be a deal breaker

Yes indeed. Liquid helium is used to cool the superconductors used in MRI machines (amongst other uses) and the only source is from natural gas, mainly in the US. It cannot be distilled from air because, like hydrogen, the molecules are so light that they rise up and diffuse away through space. Any waste of helium is criminal irresponsible.

(Spent a few years of my life testing things in liquid helium, If my gas returned was short by a litre or more, I was expected to explain why.)

 

[pyrojames]

Hydrogen ...

Ok, it's a bit explody but apart from that...

I'm going to keep that for advice to some of my clients if you dont mind!

 

[JumbleDuck]

About nine hundred tons of pull in that picture costing sums of money that even oil companies had to think about.

During childhood holidays on Bute I watched the rigs built at McAlpine's yard at Ardyne grow over the year and then disappear down the Clyde. The biggest one (Cormorant Alpha) was a monster.

 

[ITH]

rea

As tunnelling shields are to the London Underground, so cutter suction dredgers with their attendant craft, such as hopper barges, are to the Suez Canal. They had the “10th of Ramadan” working on the stern, earlier, but that’s free now. yes

View attachment 112287

Perhaps Kukri could advise whether the cross-section area of the canal would allow engineering works (some form of temporary flood barriers) to be erected N and S of the vessel to increase the water level - thus providing sufficient extra lift to refloat her?

 

[Rappey]

Sandbag it ?

 

[Kukri]

rea

Perhaps Kukri could advise whether the cross-section area of the canal would allow engineering works (some form of temporary flood barriers) to be erected N and S of the vessel to increase the water level - thus providing sufficient extra lift to refloat her?

Yes, that would work, but the banks of the Canal are quite near the normal water level so you would need to raise them also. It is a practical method but it would be slow and expensive.

 

[westhinder]

Warning: can bore for Britain about this.

You can use what is known in the salvage business as “beach tackle” to use a lot of power to refloat a grounded or indeed a beached ship. It works really well, if you have time.

I’ve seen it done using very large wire rope blocks; the real specialists at that used to be Malayan Towage and Salvage, who are Filipino not Malaysian, and they used to use big flat topped barges with blocks carefully welded to the deck and huge anchors laid out to seaward. Each barge had a couple of fixed blocks and the moving blocks were (carefully) welded to the strongest bits of the ship, Backed up round other strong bits, as you don’t want bollards flying off in your direction, and the ship was sometimes well up in the mangroves where a typhoon had dropped her.

A tug then took the “hauling part” of the wire rope and steamed off with it, sheering vigorously, and the “immovable object” thought better of it as several hundred tons were applied! If necessary the barges could be repositioned and the process repeated. In Malayan’s cases, it was sometimes necessary to fight off guerrillas at the same time. They tended to get good salvage awards.

The legendary Captain Kato of Nippon Salvage got this British passenger cargo ship, seen here in her “post typhoon” state, afloat, and undamaged, with a combination of beach tackle and digging her own private canal. She had been on her side; he’d already got her upright by this point:

View attachment 112285

The method you describe reminds me of the barges with giant blocks and tackles used to right the Herald of Free Enterprise before she was floated off

 

[Kukri]

The method you describe reminds me of the barges with giant blocks and tackles used to right the Herald of Free Enterprise before she was floated off

Yes; same method in principle, but in the case of the HoFe the objective was to parbuckle her upright.

 

[Bajansailor]

Here is some additional info re that huge cutter suction dredger 'Mashhour' -

Mashhour - Cutter suction dredgers - Equipment | Dredging Database

 

[sarabande]

Thames barges used to take the ground as part of their coastal trade, and it was not unknown for the flat-bottomed hull to stick to the mud and the barge to be swamped by the rising tide. The standard method of unsticking was to bang a heavy weight on the frames to liquify the mud on the outside of the hull and reduce its 'suction' power. That would be an interesting idea to run one of those giant Bomag vibrating rollers on the Ever Given's deck.

 

[Tomahawk]

Perhaps she should be renamed:-

Ever Greedy

 

[scottie]

should this not be in another section?
The ships forum

 

[davidpbo]

should this not be in another section?
The ships forum

There is a long and interesting thread on Scuttlebut.

 

[mjcoon]

Yes indeed. Liquid helium is used to cool the superconductors used in MRI machines (amongst other uses) and the only source is from natural gas, mainly in the US. It cannot be distilled from air because, like hydrogen, the molecules are so light that they rise up and diffuse away through space. Any waste of helium is criminal irresponsible.

(Spent a few years of my life testing things in liquid helium, If my gas returned was short by a litre or more, I was expected to explain why.)

Yes, ditto, but research rather than testing. We pumped on the liquid helium to get lower temperatures and then captured the gas in radiosonde balloons that started on top of our cupboards and spread across the ceiling. Eventually there was a liquid nitrogen machine installed in the college basement but helium was still bought by the Dewar.

 

[Dan Tribe]

Back the jib, get the crew to stand on one side, push with the spinnaker pole.
Often works for me.

 

[Adios]

Here is an idea of how to refloat it and unblock the Suez canal,it can be expensive, but it can work

I wonder if they have started working on various alternative methods now or if they are going to wait for each method to fail before spending the money on the next idea. I'm guessing the latter so any Chinese made things I think i'll be wanting this summer I'm ordering now.