[BoneCollector]

Suez Canal, the passage between Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea running through Egypt, has been blocked by a container ship that ran aground while trying to turn in the narrow canal. It has led to a huge pile up of ships throughout. The ship named Evergreen / Ever Given is registered in Panama and was on way to Rotterdam in Netherlands from China.

Link

Egypt's Suez Canal has been blocked by a large container ship that ran aground while turning in the narrow channel, vessel tracking sites show.

Tug boats were deployed to help shift the 400m-long (1312ft) and 59m-wide vessel, the Ever Given, which has been causing a build-up of shipping traffic.

The incident occurred just north of the port of Suez early on Tuesday.

The waterway connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, providing the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe.

The Ever Given, registered in Panama, is bound for the port city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands from China and was passing northwards through the canal on its way to the Mediterranean.

It became trapped at about 07:40 local time (05:40 GMT) on Tuesday due in part to a technical failure, local media report.

This image shows numerous tug boats attached to it.

[androdev]

Suez Canal got Bangalored :-)

[SmartCat]

Huge container ship trying to do a U-turn in Suez Canal? After reading this, the first thing I did was to check if today is April 1st.

[JithinR]

Looking at the title I thought the Iranians had played out on their threat. After reading the post I started to suspect that this was a ploy by China to increase fuel prices in India even more.

Seems I have become more paranoid since the pandemic began.

Though I still don't understand why a ship would have to execute a u turn after going through all the Locks of the canal.

[saikarthik]

As per the screenshot there is a wider area to turn just in front (assuming the direction of travel is N-W as per info provided) of the place where the ship tried to turn. I am not judging the captain, but just this decision might be foolish!

Nevertheless, It would be interesting to check the reason for this "Wrong Turn", and the effect of it on the company that owns this ship - any penalties that they ought to pay to others?

[vivek.ks]

This is just so rare. Reading the root cause analysis report is going to be a lot of pain for ships that are now stuck. Looks like effort to move the ship are already underway with tugs around the ship

[SmartCat]

Tweets say the ship was NOT trying to make an U-turn. It just broke down in the middle of Suez Canal blocking the traffic. But now it is stuck in this position when Suez authorities tried to salvage (tow/tug) the ship

[am1m]

Originally Posted by androdev

Suez Canal got Bangalored :-)

Beat me to it!

This was the first thing I though of too- typical in Bangalore traffic- some idiotic driver trying to do something stupid on a narrow road, ends up blocking traffic!

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Suez Canal has been blocked by a container ship that ran aground while trying to turn in the narrow canal. It has led to a huge pile up of ships throughout. The ship named Evergreen....

What an apt name. Quite the evergreen problem no matter whatever type of vehicle or location we are talking about.

[Raghu M]

I think the ship did not try to do a U turn in the locks but either the path leading to the locks or after the locks. The usual passage leading the locks is not wide enough, that is where the problem could have risen. It still baffles me as to how a ship could try that maneuver. There are no strong currents in the passage leading to the locks I believe.

[V.Narayan]

Got here too late. All the jokes on Indian drivers are taken already.

Just for information, unlike the Panama canal, the Suez canal does not have any locks, it is a straight through canal that makes use of some small lakes enroute. It does have bends though. I seriously doubt the Captain of the ship (called a Master) suddenly thought oops I got take a U turn. More likely the ship suffered some kind of propulsion failure that caused her to drift and run aground at the banks. I feel for the Master. I'm quite sure in some hours the tugs will pull it clear.

[Jeroen]

No U turn. This ship suffered a malfunction. Either it’s propulsion or steering machinery failed. Possibly both.

Ships on very rare occasions do suffer from total black outs. Which means electrical power is lost and everything shuts down. Obviously, ships have emergency back up generators that come on line. But it takes time to restore everything. In a narrow channel, if you are unable to keep a straight course, things can go wrong fast.

I have passed through the Suez Canal a few times. We always kept extra staff in the engine room, bridge and deck during passages such as these. If anything goes wrong it goes wrong very quickly in such a narrow channel. Ships typically sail under their own power and are not assisted by tugs.

It is pretty rare for these things to happen. But it does happen, check YouTube for ships failing and you will find many videos of very large vessels ramming into lock doors, piers and so on. Sometime it is just poor ship handling, but more often it is a defect in main propulsion and or steering machinery.

Jeroen

[Spinnerr]

The 220,000-tonne, 400 metre-long Ever Given – a so-called “mega ship”

The Ever Given is one of a new category of ships called Ultra Large Container Ships (ULCS), some of which were even too big for the Panama canal that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, according to one trade expert.

Quoting TheGuardian


What kind of ship is this?
EVER GIVEN (IMO: 9811000) is a Container Ship that was built in 2018 (3 years ago) and is sailing under the flag of Panama.
It’s carrying capacity is 20,000 TEU and her current draught is reported to be 15.7 meters.

TEU = one twenty foot container

Source: MarineTraffic

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

. More likely the ship suffered some kind of propulsion failure that caused her to drift and run aground at the banks.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

This ship suffered a malfunction. Either it’s propulsion or steering machinery failed. Possibly both.

CNBC article says ship "ran aground". Means the ship is touching the canal bed?

Container ship runs aground in Suez Canal causing traffic jam
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/cont...affic-jam.html

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

CNBC article says ship "ran aground". Means the ship is touching the canal bed?

Container ship runs aground in Suez Canal causing traffic jam
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/cont...affic-jam.html

Yes. As the sides of the canal are sloping and the deep channel is in the centre the ship's ends fore and aft would have run aground on the canal's side slopes which are under water. When the propulsion failure (of whatever kind) occurred and the ship lost its own ability to move it falls victim to currents of water and to a lesser extent wind that would have caused it to turn around and get jammed on the side banks. Merchant seamen on the forum can explain better.