Suez blocked.

[Frank Holden]

A query or two..... I see this ship has a summer deadweight of 199,990 give or take.

What is her light displacement and - for extra points - what is her displacement at current draught of 15.7(?) metres?

I see everyone ... well not everyone... but some of the internet experts seem to be expecting the canal authority to let the world know chapter and verse what occured... doubt that will happen.

All incidents like this have a start point.
The start point for this would have gone a bit like this..
Shipowner ' We are building these new ships..'
SCA ' They are too big..'
Shipowner ' they are only a little bigger than the last ones..'
SCA 'They are too big...'
Shipowner... 'We have dollars.....'

 

[Thistle]

Aside from all the claims for loss/delay to trade, how much will a recovery operation like this have cost? An eye-watering amount for the tugs alone, I suspect. And who - or whose insurer - pays?

 

[newtothis]

Alang!?! “I am shocked - shocked - to hear you suggesting that I should breach the Basel Convention!”?

They have done well - they only made an operating loss in one year. Because they were amongst our first post-Panamaxes, they were somewhat over- specified.

Like them, I’m past my sell by date, and when they go, I go. We got past the Great Panamax Sell Off, when slightly smaller ships half their age were sold for scrap by German doctors and dentists who hadn’t looked after them, and because ships of this size are handy for some trades, I reckon we will get another year or two. At the moment they are worth, and are earning, silly money again.

I would never suggest that of you, Kukri. I'm sure they will be lovingly dismantled by attractive Swedish workers massaging the welds until they just let themselves drift off into that good night and are recycled into bicycles, pour encourager les autres .
The old panamaxes have done remarkably well despite the best efforts to kill them off. New locks, slow steaming, the KG crisis, more efficient ship design, but still they plod on, getting their last great hurrah out of the current feeding frenzy. Will be sad to see them go, although I see CMA CGM have some new 5ks on order because none have been built for the past 10 years or so.

 

[newtothis]

A query or two..... I see this ship has a summer deadweight of 199,990 give or take.

What is her light displacement and - for extra points - what is her displacement at current draught of 15.7(?) metres?

I see everyone ... well not everyone... but some of the internet experts seem to be expecting the canal authority to let the world know chapter and verse what occured... doubt that will happen.

All incidents like this have a start point.
The start point for this would have gone a bit like this..
Shipowner ' We are building these new ships..'
SCA ' They are too big..'
Shipowner ' they are only a little bigger than the last ones..'
SCA 'They are too big...'
Shipowner... 'We have dollars.....'

Due to Ever Given's Panama flag, Panama will do the investigation. They've flown in an investigator already, but he's in quarantine, or only just out of it. On prior form, expect a report sometime in 2024.
There's going to be a lot of "the buck went that way" before the SCA denies all responsibility despite the pilots arguing over who gets the Marlboros at the time of the incident, the master gets blamed and the customers pay for the clean up through general average.
Shipping: thus it was and ever shall be.

 

[Kukri]

Aside from all the claims for loss/delay to trade, how much will a recovery operation like this have cost? An eye-watering amount for the tugs alone, I suspect. And who - or whose insurer - pays?

That is the easy bit! I can bore for Britain, but The Nippon Salvage Company, the ones without the PR department, signed Lloyd’s Form of Salvage Agreement with the owners in Tokyo, the latter having been told to sign up pronto by their Japanese hull underwriters.

Nippon then subcontract Smit, the ones with the PR department, because Nippon are still busy removing the aft end of the Wakashio in Mauritius and Smit aren’t busy at the moment.

Being a salvage company is a bit like being a film star; either you are on location with the paparazzi or you are “resting”.

Both in turn subcontract the Suez Canal Authority and Smit charter in a couple more big tugs from the oil patch round the corner.

Everyone then instructs lawyers in London (don’t worry, this is quite friendly) and the Corporation of Lloyd’s Salvage Arbitration and Guarantees Department take guarantees from the underwriters of the ship, her bunkers and the freight at risk and from underwriters of the “n” cargo owners (you can see which is the difficult bit) and appoint a shipping QC as Arbitrator.

The lawyers for the salvors, the lawyers for underwriters for the shipowners and the lawyers for the cargo underwriters then chat amongst themselves and see if they can agree how much should be paid. This depends on the values at risk ,the degree of difficulty, and the extent of the danger. (Tanker on fire - huge danger - boxboat stuck in the mud - not so much).

If they don’t agree, the Arbitrator decides and makes his Award.

Everyone then pays. At this point, in modern times, the cargo underwriters announce that it’s not fair, and they have been “had”, because the reason for the accident was that the wicked shipowners had sent their rust bucket to sea in an unsafe condition in the first place, so they are now going to sue the shipowners to get their money back. They arrest the ship, or threaten to.

The owners P&I Club (in this case the UK Club) then give their Letter of Undertaking to the cargo underwriters and the process of having a chat followed by a lawsuit in the event of no agreement is repeated.

Er, that’s it.

 

[wombat88]

...and then someone rings the Lutine bell?

A big thank you to Kukri for making this all understandable, I have no knowledge of larger craft apart from avoiding the Townsend Thoresen ferries in the Solent as a youth, dodging container ships up near Marchwood and watching my mum christen the Bideford Priory at Cammell Lairds a very, very long time ago.

 

[newtothis]

That is the easy bit! I can bore for Britain, but The Nippon Salvage Company, the ones without the PR department, signed Lloyd’s Form of Salvage Agreement with the owners in Tokyo, the latter having been told to sign up pronto by their Japanese hull underwriters.

Nippon then subcontract Smit, the ones with the PR department, because Nippon are still busy removing the aft end of the Wakashio in Mauritius and Smit aren’t busy at the moment.

Being a salvage company is a bit like being a film star; either you are on location with the paparazzi or you are “resting”.

Both in turn subcontract the Suez Canal Authority and Smit charter in a couple more big tugs from the oil patch round the corner.

Everyone then instructs lawyers in London (don’t worry, this is quite friendly) and the Corporation of Lloyd’s Salvage Arbitration and Guarantees Department take guarantees from the underwriters of the ship, her bunkers and the freight at risk and from underwriters of the “n” cargo owners (you can see which is the difficult bit) and appoint a shipping QC as Arbitrator.

The lawyers for the salvors, the lawyers for underwriters for the shipowners and the lawyers for the cargo underwriters then chat amongst themselves and see if they can agree how much should be paid. This depends on the values at risk ,the degree of difficulty, and the extent of the danger. (Tanker on fire - huge danger - boxboat stuck in the mud - not so much).

If they don’t agree, the Arbitrator decides and makes his Award.

Everyone then pays. At this point, in modern times, the cargo underwriters announce that it’s not fair, and they have been “had”, because the reason for the accident was that the wicked shipowners had sent their rust bucket to sea in an unsafe condition in the first place, so they are now going to sue the shipowners to get their money back. They arrest the ship, or threaten to.

The owners P&I Club (in this case the UK Club) then give their Letter of Undertaking to the cargo underwriters and the process of having a chat followed by a lawsuit in the event of no agreement is repeated.

Er, that’s it.

You can see why Maritime London is so keen to keep London as the arbitration capital of the world. One accident can keep a public school's worth of lawyer's engaged for years.

 

[newtothis]

...and then someone rings the Lutine bell?

A big thank you to Kukri for making this all understandable, I have no knowledge of larger craft apart from avoiding the Townsend Thoresen ferries in the Solent as a youth, dodging container ships up near Marchwood and watching my mum christen the Bideford Priory at Cammell Lairds a very, very long time ago.

Not any more. It was used to mark the safe arrival or loss of a delayed ship, but now only gets a dingle on Armistice Day.

 

[penfold]

I’ve never worked for a company with “dry” ships, which is a silly idea invented by incompetent bullying people in offices, and
and this is her bar, at the age of 28. That’s her ancestor, on the bulkhead.

When I become a billionaire philanthropist I will lobby the IMO to exempt crew accommodation from tonnage calcs and make it obligatory to have both a bar and a steward to stand behind it.

 

[Rob_Webb]

So today I had an attack of school-boy scientific curiosity and wondered what would happen if you got another ship the same size as the Ever Given when it was still stuck and tied their sterns together and tried to pull it out using the bigger power of another ship (59,000 Kw) vs the biggest tug boat on-scene (18,000kw). The answer was that the ship would be less effective because its engines wouldn’t be able to get above 25% power until the ship was moving normal speeds - but when stationery at the start it could only generate about 14,000 kw. And the ship’s prop is designed to generate thrust when in motion so it would cavitate at standstill. Whereas the tug is designed to generate 100% full power when stationery....

But then I wondered about what would happen if you used a very long stretchy tow rope and let the 200,000 ton towing ship get up to 15kts before the tow rope starting tightening - basically a huge kinetic tow! If the tow rope tightened gradually over 30 seconds then the pulling force generated would be about 60 million Newtons (~5,750 tons). Compared to the biggest tug which can only pull about 400 tons bollard pull ie less than 10% of the big ship using a kinetic tug...

And then finally someone else calculated that when the ship went aground it went from 12kts to stationery over about 20s and pushed into the mud with a constant force of about 4,500 tons. So my technique would create about 1,250 tons more pulling power to extract it from the mud. So it would have worked! Do you think I should tell them??!!

P.S. I also calculated that the tow rope would need to be about 260mm diameter and about 8km long. A bit of a bugger to coil up.

 

[newtothis]

So today I had an attack of school-boy scientific curiosity and wondered what would happen if you got another ship the same size as the Ever Given when it was still stuck and tied their sterns together and tried to pull it out using the bigger power of another ship (59,000 Kw) vs the biggest tug boat on-scene (18,000kw). The answer was that the ship would be less effective because its engines wouldn’t be able to get above 25% power until the ship was moving normal speeds - but when stationery at the start it could only generate about 14,000 kw. And the ship’s prop is designed to generate thrust when in motion so it would cavitate at standstill. Whereas the tug is designed to generate 100% full power when stationery....

But then I wondered about what would happen if you used a very long stretchy tow rope and let the 200,000 ton towing ship get up to 15kts before the tow rope starting tightening - basically a huge kinetic tow! If the tow rope tightened gradually over 30 seconds then the pulling force generated would be about 60 million Newtons (~5,750 tons). Compared to the biggest tug which can only pull about 400 tons bollard pull ie less than 10% of the big ship using a kinetic tug...

And then finally someone else calculated that when the ship went aground it went from 12kts to stationery over about 20s and pushed into the mud with a constant force of about 4,500 tons. So my technique would create about 1,250 tons more pulling power to extract it from the mud. So it would have worked! Do you think I should tell them??!!

P.S. I also calculated that the tow rope would need to be about 260mm diameter and about 8km long. A bit of a bugger to coil up.

Wow, and I thought I was bored at work.

 

[newtothis]

When I become a billionaire philanthropist I will lobby the IMO to exempt crew accommodation from tonnage calcs and make it obligatory to have both a bar and a steward to stand behind it.

The big blue Danish line is the main culprit here. A colleague of mine did a tour of the Med on a Grimaldi ship and said both the food and wine were superb.

 

[Kukri]

Not any more. It was used to mark the safe arrival or loss of a delayed ship, but now only gets a dingle on Armistice Day.

er... confession time.

I’ve rung it.

I was at an evening “do” in the Captains’ Room. It was as usual in those days somewhat alcoholic and I was amongst the last to leave, sharing the lift with other reprobates. For some reason, possibly a button being pressed, the lift stopped at the Room, rather than going down to the entrance level. Someone who had had more to drink than the rest of us decided to step out and ring the Lutine Bell.

Which he did.

Once.

I was horrified. I am superstitious where ships are concerned, a trait that has served me well.

The only thing to do was to put things right by giving the second strike.

So I did.

And got away with it. No “waiters” around.

Lucky. But I reckon some ship somewhere was going to sink but thought better of it.

 

[Thistle]

So today I had an attack of school-boy scientific curiosity and wondered what would happen if you got another ship the same size as the Ever Given when it was still stuck and tied their sterns together and tried to pull it out using the bigger power of another ship (59,000 Kw) vs the biggest tug boat on-scene (18,000kw). The answer was that the ship would be less effective because its engines wouldn’t be able to get above 25% power until the ship was moving normal speeds - but when stationery at the start it could only generate about 14,000 kw. And the ship’s prop is designed to generate thrust when in motion so it would cavitate at standstill. Whereas the tug is designed to generate 100% full power when stationery....

But then I wondered about what would happen if you used a very long stretchy tow rope and let the 200,000 ton towing ship get up to 15kts before the tow rope starting tightening - basically a huge kinetic tow! If the tow rope tightened gradually over 30 seconds then the pulling force generated would be about 60 million Newtons (~5,750 tons). Compared to the biggest tug which can only pull about 400 tons bollard pull ie less than 10% of the big ship using a kinetic tug...

And then finally someone else calculated that when the ship went aground it went from 12kts to stationery over about 20s and pushed into the mud with a constant force of about 4,500 tons. So my technique would create about 1,250 tons more pulling power to extract it from the mud. So it would have worked! Do you think I should tell them??!!

P.S. I also calculated that the tow rope would need to be about 260mm diameter and about 8km long. A bit of a bugger to coil up.

Have you continued the calculation as to the orbit of the attachment points on the ships as they are ripped out and catapulted by the recoiling rope? Perhaps Mr Musk would be interested??

 

[Rob_Webb]

It’s obviously an academic calculation but if you wanted to be practical yes I’m sure you would need to rig a harness (to both ships) to spread the load.

Didn’t they once talk about towing icebergs to areas of drought? Surely some big loads there too?!

 

[Kukri]

Have you continued the calculation as to the orbit of the attachment points on the ships as they are ripped out and catapulted by the recoiling rope? Perhaps Mr Musk would be interested??

I used to have a still from a bit of 8mm ciné film taken by Hartmut Weinert of the salvage tug “Pacific” showing the foredeck bollards of the Greek tweendecker that he had just taken in tow in mid-air.

He put a boarding party on her; they took a couple of turns of wire round the accommodation block with some dunnage at the corners and he towed her into Brest backwards.

 

[Kukri]

The big blue Danish line is the main culprit here. A colleague of mine did a tour of the Med on a Grimaldi ship and said both the food and wine were superb.

The big blue ships are always miserable because they are micromanaged from the Blue Kremlin in Copenhagen. Frank gave me a copy of a 1967 Danish film comedy - “Martha” - about a ship, in which the shipowner is clearly Sir Maersk McKinney Moller.

It’s been copied far and wide in the Cosco fleet by now...

Martha (1967)

 

[jamie N]

When I become a billionaire philanthropist I will lobby the IMO to exempt crew accommodation from tonnage calcs and make it obligatory to have both a bar and a steward to stand behind it.

Ours was bigger than yours!
"CS Cable Innovator". A very well run ship, with a lot going for it, but awfully challenging to run a small ROV from.

 

[newtothis]

The big blue ships are always miserable because they are micromanaged from the Blue Kremlin in Copenhagen. Frank gave me a copy of a 1967 Danish film comedy - “Martha” - about a ship, in which the shipowner is clearly Sir Maersk McKinney Moller.

It’s been copied far and wide in the Cosco fleet by now...

Martha (1967)

A former colleague worked at Stalag Maersk when the old man was still popping into the office. In the 21st century women were still required to wear below-the-knee skirts at work. Now even Soren has taken his tie off,

 

[Kukri]

...scenes from Stalag Maersk:

I was there to charter two spare boxboats which we had built on spec.

“...and how long has your company been in business?” (did not reply “thirty years longer than yours!”)
“... do you visit your ships?” “yes, of course”
“... what do you take with you?” “the daily paper”
“... can your people repair reefer boxes?” “Do you supply tools and manuals for your equipment?”

They were very proud of Maersk Air. I wasn’t there for this one, but I certainly heard about it:

There was a BIMCO conference at the Blue Kremlin and all attendees got a showing of the Blue Movie, including the line, “We are the only shipping company that owns an airline!” Andy Williams who was Swires’ Northern Irish insurance manager said loudly: “Heard of Cathay Pacific?”

But at least, unlike Evergreen in the days of Chang RungFa, they did not stand by their desks and sing the Company Song twice a day!