Six on History: Huge Container Ship Blocks Sues Canal Global 4/USH& G i and II
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The Ever Given was partially refloated in the early hours of March 29, and by around 3 p.m., the ship had successfully been freed and appeared to be on the move, according to vessel trackers and observers at the scene.
The Ever Given, a 1,300-foot, Japanese-owned container ship en route from China to Europe that became stuck the Suez Canal for days, was freed on Monday after a round-the-clock scramble to unblock the shipping thoroughfare.
"Yesterday, with only a few minutes left in my weekly Zoom appointment with my therapist, I decided to derail the proceedings to ask her what I believed was an essential question. It had nothing to do with my fear of vulnerability or difficulty asking for help; in fact, it had nothing to do with me at all.
Had she seen the stuck boat?
The boat, of course, is the Ever Given, a massive container ship operated by the Taiwan-based shipping company Evergreen, which probably now wishes its name wasn’t painted on the boat’s sides in such enormous letters. On its way from China to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, the boat accidentally Tokyo drifted to a stop in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Tuesday, where it has been stuck sideways ever since. Efforts to refloat the Ever Given so far have been futile; the heavy construction equipment and fleet of industrial-strength tugboats assigned to that job have been successful not at dislodging the ship’s bow from the canal’s sandy shore, but at demonstrating this big-ass boat’s stupendous girth in photos. The ship, which is longer than the Empire State Building is tall, looms over literally everything—construction equipment, palm trees, nearby buildings. The Ever Given is Manute Bol to the human world’s Muggsy Bogues.
Japanese firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha says dislodging the Ever Given is proving "extremely difficult".
"When the Suez Canal was opened in Egypt in 1869, the impact on global trade was revolutionary. Instead of having to sail around Africa, ships could now go straight from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea — connecting Europe with Asia.
Still, the distances, even via the Suez Canal, remained enormous: 13,000 miles separate East Asia from Europe.
About 150 years later, the next human-made revolution could cut the distance almost by half. As climate change progresses, the ice around the Arctic Circle is thawing and opening up a much shorter and potentially economically viable shipping route to the north of Russia. With a distance of 8,000 miles, container ships would arrive about two weeks faster.
What has long been a Russian dream is increasingly matched by commercial interest in Western Europe.
The world’s biggest shipping company, Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, announced this week that it will send its first container ship via the Arctic route within the next few days. “It is important to underline that this is a one-off trial designed to explore an unknown route for container shipping and to collect scientific data — and not the launch of a new product,” a company spokeswoman told the Associated Press"
ISMAILIA, Egypt — "Efforts to dislodge the mammoth vessel blocking Egypt's Suez Canal proceeded Sunday, but it remained unclear when or how the Ever Given cargo carrier would break free from the muddy banks of one of the world's key waterways for global trade.
There were positive signs: Larger and heavier tugboats were on their way, and a full moon Sunday night bore the promise of a powerful tide to aid refloating efforts. Still, Egyptian authorities resolved to explore other options.
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi ordered preparations to be made for the unloading of the stranded Ever Given, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said Sunday.
Unloading some of the towering ship's 18,000 containers would require special equipment, which is why the president authorized its acquisition even as dredging continued, Rabie said. So far, 27,000 cubic feet of sand have been removed from around the vessel to a depth of about 60 feet.
Two more tugboats were dispatched to the scene as well: the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno and the Dutch-flagged Alp Guard, which made it to the scene Sunday.
The refloating process was delayed again Sunday afternoon, with the company saying another effort was likely Monday evening, once the tide was high and the Carlo Magno had also arrived.
The 200,000-ton container ship, as long as the Empire State Building is tall, is costing billions of dollars in global trade every day. The fifth day of the salvage operation illustrated the technical and weather challenges facing the international team seeking to dislodge the Ever Given and stave off a global economic calamity.
Syria announced Saturday that it had begun rationing oil supplies, in particular diesel and gasoline, because of the canal blockage.
“We have until now redirected 15 vessels where we deemed the delay of sailing around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa equal to the current delay of sailing to Suez and queuing,” the statement said. The African route adds weeks to the trip.
The company said it would consider rerouting more vessels Monday.
CNN reported Friday that a U.S. Navy team of dredging experts was expected to arrive as early as the weekend to assess the situation. As of Sunday, it was unclear whether any Navy personnel had reached the Suez or performed an assessment.
According to the report, an estimated 90 percent of nearby ships will be unlikely to claim for “sizeable out-of-pocket expenses” incurred amid the chaos, which has forced hundreds to consider alternate routes, led to port and transit delays and disrupted the oil trade.
