
The Ever Given is Once Again Afloat, Raising Hopes Traffic Can Soon Resume. (nytimes.com) 178
The mammoth cargo ship blocking one of the world's most vital maritime arteries was wrenched from the shoreline and set partially afloat again early on Monday morning, raising hopes that traffic could soon resume in the Suez Canal and limit the economic fallout of the disruption. From a report: Salvage teams, working on both land and water for five days and nights, were ultimately assisted by forces more powerful than any of the machines rushed to the scene to assist in the rescue: the moon the tides. As water levels swelled overnight, the hours spent digging and excavating millions of tons of earth around the Ever Green paid dividends as the ship slowly regained buoyancy, according to officials. Images on social media showed tugboat crews celebrating the victory in the predawn hours.
It appeared to be the culmination of one of the largest and most intense salvage operations in modern history, with the smooth functioning of the entire global trading system hanging in the balance. Each day the canal was blocked put global supply chains another day closer to a full-blown crisis. Vessels packed with the world's goods -- including cars, oil, livestock and laptops -- usually flow through the waterway with ease, supplying much of the globe as they traverse the quickest path from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the East Coast of the United States. With concerns the salvage operation could take weeks, some ships decided not to wait, U-turning to take the long way around the southern tip of Africa, a voyage that could add weeks to the journey and cost more than $26,000 a day in fuel costs. Traffic is beginning to resume.
It appeared to be the culmination of one of the largest and most intense salvage operations in modern history, with the smooth functioning of the entire global trading system hanging in the balance. Each day the canal was blocked put global supply chains another day closer to a full-blown crisis. Vessels packed with the world's goods -- including cars, oil, livestock and laptops -- usually flow through the waterway with ease, supplying much of the globe as they traverse the quickest path from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the East Coast of the United States. With concerns the salvage operation could take weeks, some ships decided not to wait, U-turning to take the long way around the southern tip of Africa, a voyage that could add weeks to the journey and cost more than $26,000 a day in fuel costs. Traffic is beginning to resume.
You know terrorists are watching this closely. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:You know terrorists are watching this closely. (Score:4, Interesting)
This particular canal has no locks and locks in other canals might be better protected. It has some very long choke points and it's proximity in the middle east might make it more attractive to terrorists in that region. Terrorist tend to like mass casualties that draw a lot of media coverage but, in this case, the media coverage might make such an attack more appealing to them.
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Re:You know terrorists are watching this closely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother to hijack? Improvised mines would be hard to detect for non military ships, and could sink a huge container ship right in the middle of the channel so no other ships can get around it. Cleanup of THAT mess would be months to potentially years.
Not really any different than IED's on the roadside. Or a car bomb.
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The canal is heavily patrolled by various militaries. I doubt the mine idea would work reliably.
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Are they patrolling underwater ? A submersible or crawling drone would not be visible from the surface, especially if camouflaged. Shaped charges aren't that hard to make.
For that matter, SCUBA-equipped terrorists could place radio-controlled limpet-style mines on hulls of ships lined up to traverse the canal. . .
And "various' militaries ?? The canal is entirely inside Egyptian territory. . . .
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It probably is, because they don't have very good security. In general they are prohibited from carrying weapons. Major locks, on the other hand, often have guards. If you want major boom boom though you could hijack a ship and then blow it up in the locks.
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It sure seems like planting a big enough bomb in the engine room could possibly do the trick, at least in terms of disabling the ship's navigation and propulsion. It still might not get stuck, though.
I suspect holing the hull is a lot harder without much more serious application of explosives (shaped charges, applied with some knowledge of modern hull construction) or just much more explosives, like a container at the bottom of the stack filled with thousands of pounds of explosives. The challenge there i
Re:You know terrorists are watching this closely. (Score:4, Informative)
So you think that hijacking a cargo ship Is way easier and more permanent that using explosives?
Apparently a motorboat full of Somali pirates successfully hijack cargo ships, so, yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not yet [Re:You know terrorists are watching...] (Score:2)
Pirates hijack ships out at sea which they hold for ransom; they do not do so to harm economies in blocking canals like Suez.
Yet.
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This is what happens when a hijacked cargo ship gets near anything remotely valuable:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
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Yeah, I can't imagine what would happen if someone tried to blow up a 200' wide hole in the ground.
This whole thread is just stupid. The entire reason this took so long was that they didn't want to break the ship. If someone sinks a couple of ships in the canal, they'll just blow them up and drag the parts out of the way.
Plus, there aren't many single ships large enough to block it. This just happened to be one of the few that could.
History? Nah, neverhard. (Score:5, Informative)
That was demonstrated in 1956 crisis, when Egypt intentionally sunk 40 ships in the channel. They were refloated and removed in 1957.
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Why would they attack the world economy though? In fact economic attacks in general don't seem to be of much interest to them, understandably given their goals.
Re:You know terrorists are watching this closely. (Score:5, Informative)
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As a bonus, they don't even need to kill or even injure anyone, which would gain them sympathy points and more people would be inclined to at least listen to their demands.
"Sure they caused a lot of monetary damages, but at least nobody got hurt! They can't be that bad!"
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Not sure if you are aware of ISIS theology but killing the infidel is largely the point. They are not looking for sympathy.
The ISIS manual includes sections on mutilation of corpses, the trade in human organs, beheading, the killing of children along with “scorched earth operations”.
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"What about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn't it say die Bart die?
"No, that's German for Thee Bart, Thee."
"No one who speaks German could be an evil man."
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Are you feeling terror because of the Ever Given?
Terrorism is achieving (or attempting to achieve) political goals through causing fear.
Blocking a canal can be a great form of economic warfare, but it's crappy terrorism. Blocking this canal is generally crappy economic warfare too, because pretty much everybody depends on it. It might be a reasonable strategy for North Korea I guess.
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I'm sure the Middle East would just love to clog up trade of oil exports. They're not loving this either.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A rising tide.... (Score:2)
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Tide is high but I m holdin on (Score:2)
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Boaty McBoatFace is on it's way, she'll get this shifted in no time... ;-)
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Boaty McBoatface [noc.ac.uk] is a small yellow submarine.
Re: A rising tide.... (Score:2)
I quickly read the title as: "The Ever Given is once again afloat, raising hopes the Titanic can soon resume."
Why NYT (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are the links frequently point to paywalled NYT for such popular story covered by all major media? I can understand exclusive stories. But should common stories try to link to openly accessible media rather than paywalled ones?
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--
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What? How are you supposed to read an article behind a paywall? Does block element tricks work?
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2) Navigate to link.
3) Read article.
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What? How are you supposed to read an article behind a paywall? Does block element tricks work?
NYTimes gives you a certain number of free articles. Once you run out, delete the cookies, and you get more free articles.
Re:Why NYT (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: Why NYT (Score:3)
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A little further down in the article and on the optimism meter:
However, others involved in the operation urged caution.
While the ship was moving, what remained unclear was whether the bulbous bow — a protrusion at the front of the ship just below the waterline — is totally clear of dirt and debris. If it is still stuck in clay or obstructed by rocks, the early morning optimism could quickly fade.
Peter Berdowski, the chief executive of Royal Boskalis Westminster, which has been appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel, told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Monday that he understood the bow to be stuck “rock solid.”
“The ship is like a giant whale that we have to slide off the beach, back in the water,” he said early Monday. Pulling the stern lose, he said, was the easy part.
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“The ship is like a giant whale that we have to slide off the beach, back in the water,” he said early Monday. Pulling the stern lose, he said, was the easy part.
Wait, it’s like a beached whale? So does this mean we can pack it with explosives to free up the canal immediately? I mean, there are probably enough sea gulls to eat up all the pieces and leave the canal clean right?
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The bow cannot literally be stuck "rock solid" if the rest of the ship moved, because it's all one piece. It's not like it's jointed right behind the part of the bow that's stuck.
That doesn't mean the rest will be trivial, but it does mean that claim of how fast the bow is stuck is hyperbolic.
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What's the big deal? Delete their cookie; read the article.
We shouldn't be doing anything that drives traffic towards news sites that have paywalls when there are free options available.
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The NYTimes is free. All you have to do is delete their cookies.
Americans will whine about anything and everything if they have to take the barest action. Such as wearing a mask for a minutes when they go shopping to prevent the spread of dangerous virus.
Re:Why NYT (Score:5, Informative)
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And a non-paywalled update, indicating that they were able to fully float the Ever Given and start moving it towards the Great Bitter Lake for technical inspection: https://apnews.com/article/sue... [apnews.com]
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Use "Private Window" or "Incognito Window" or "InPrivate Window" - it should be available on most current browsers.
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Because quality journalism costs money. If you want to read about this on some Insta-face-twat feed, go ahead. I prefer to send some money to the Times (and a select few other news organizations) so they can keep doing editor-reviewed quality journalism.
Anyway, the NYT *does* offer some stories for free, which are in the public interest. I believe all directly COVID-related stories were exempt from the paywall.
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Browse using your favorite browser's anonymized method "private tab" or whatever.
Voila, no paywall.
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Voila, no paywall.
An IP block instead. I did something like that with a Washington Post article. The web site informed me that I had reached my quota of free stories and needed to subscribe. I switched to anonymous mode and was promptly informed that "something funny" appeared to be going on and my IP would be blocked. But it was our companies proxy server IP. And (later on) a chat with one of our IT people informed me that the block was company wide. And it had upset a lot of the liberal employees. I guess they didn't know
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Submitter subscribes to NYT and assumes everyone else does, too.
That's a big part of the problem in the US; so many people get all their news from sources like NYT, CNN and NPR. They don't have any idea how one-sided their view of the world has become by listening to those biased sources.
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Hit piece [redstate.com]
ISIS [mediaite.com]
"Insurection" [breitbart.com]
Kavanaugh [aim.org]
Could go on and on. Every time they get caught in a lie it suddenly becomes an "error".
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I see right-wing ideologues criticize the New York Times over and over, but when I ask for details "show me a time in the last year when the New York Times printed something factually inaccurate", they almost always just stutter for a while and then say "everybody knows they're biased".
Exactly. Another favorite response is "Google it yourself. I'm not doing your research for you."
A news piece not agreeing with someone's incorrect view of the world does not mean it's biased.
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if you don't get your news from one of the most biased sources on the planet?
Can you outline which parts of the linked article are biased? Thanks.
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Some of them, I assume, are nice people.
There are very fine people on both sides... [google.com]
sources inform me... (Score:5, Funny)
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With the plot twist that "gift" means "poison" in German.
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...that "Ever Given" will soon be renamed to "Ever Gift". I have consulted with a medium and that person assures me that on the vessel's next trip from the orient to europe she will be laden with containers full of christmas/holiday toys and will once again become wedged in the Suez Canal. Said containers will fall off the bow and, when asked to explain how that could happen yet again, the Suez pilot will state, "well, this is the Gift that keeps on Given"
Turns out the Ever Given has a sister ship named the Ever Gifted [vesselfinder.com], and it's steaming from Rotterdam to Sri Lanka at 20 km/hr.
Re:sources inform me... (Score:4, Funny)
...that "Ever Given" will soon be renamed to "Ever Gift". I have consulted with a medium and that person assures me that on the vessel's next trip from the orient to europe she will be laden with containers full of christmas/holiday toys and will once again become wedged in the Suez Canal. Said containers will fall off the bow and, when asked to explain how that could happen yet again, the Suez pilot will state, "well, this is the Gift that keeps on Given"
you realize this post is a felony without a certified dad card right?
Nice (Score:3)
This piece of news is so geeky..so tech..for boatspotters or something...
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
This single event is costing the world economy 400 million dollars per hour.
The annual total world GDP is 87 trillion. Dividing that by 365.25 yields a world GDP of 240 billion per day, or roughly ten billion per hour. So as long as this thing is going on, it's costing the world about 4% of its total productivity.
So there are probably some non-geeks paying serious attention to this. But getting back to geek concerns, if this continues it could cause short term coffee prices to rise.
Thank goodness they’ve got it floated (Score:5, Insightful)
Last thing we need is another toilet paper shortage.
And why is it that the first thing that goes wrong in a crisis, regardless of the situation, is apparently a toilet paper shortage?!
Have you ever been (Score:2)
without tp for any period of time? It's one of modern civilization's greatest accomplishments.
Re:Thank goodness they’ve got it floated (Score:5, Funny)
Last thing we need is another toilet paper shortage.
And why is it that the first thing that goes wrong in a crisis, regardless of the situation, is apparently a toilet paper shortage?!
It's the invisible hand of Big Bidet at work behind the scenes.
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Amateurs. I filled my shopping cart with two buck chuck and wild turkey.
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7.62 NATO.
Probably easier to just check (Score:4, Informative)
https://istheshipstillstuck.co... [istheshipstillstuck.com]
A float? (Score:3, Funny)
That's what you get with 32-bit precision, should have been a double.
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Missing a word in there? (Score:2)
Prime (Score:4, Funny)
"I paid for Prime, not excuses."
Nothing to see here (Score:2)
A plan (Score:2)
A man, a plan, a canal: Suez?
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Sometimes a Panamax is just a Panamax.
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It's a Chinese ship. Everything Chinese can be assumed beholden to the CCP.
Evergreen is Taiwanese. So Chinese, but not the good kind.
The ship itself is Japanese.
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Fuck, messed up with editing. Supposed to be "but the good kind"
Re:Whose interest? (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's Japanese, Taiwanese, Panamese or German, depending [wikipedia.org] on how you look at it.
The ship is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha (a shipowning and leasing subsidiary of the large Japanese shipbuilding company Imabari Shipbuilding), and time chartered and operated by container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine headquartered in Luzhu District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan[6]. Ever Given is registered in Panama, and its technical management is the responsibility of the German ship management company Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM).[7]
Re:Whose interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
A good example of why ships and their crew are never responsible for anything that happens.
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It's flying the flag of Panama, so it's a Panamese ship.
Also, its owner seems to be LUSTER MARITIME S.A. in Panama City.
That's a subsidiary of a Japanese company, so it's not Chinese.
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If we assume a soil density of 1.33g/cm3 (a guess between rock & water), it would be 1.33 million m3, which is a cube with 110m edges. Given the fact that the entire ship is 400m long, it is obvious we are not talking about anything close, they probably meant "millions of kg", which would be "thousands of tons" or something like that - a thousand tons would be an 11m-edge cube.
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If we assume a soil density of 1.33g/cm3 (a guess between rock & water),
For the submerged soil it should be higher than a mix of sand and rocks, because the empty space will be filled in with water...
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The original Suez canal (70-100 meters wide, 20 or so meters wide at the bottom, 8 meters deep and almost 200 km long) would contain about 80 millions of cubic meters of water.
Basically, you would need to excavate as much earth. At two tons per cubic meter, the original Suez canal should have displaced in excess of 150 millions tons of earth.
As for other set of numbers - at 220,000 tons displacement for Ever Given, a million tons of earth excavated would be the equivalent of twice the ship's "water print".
C
Let's do some quick arithmetic (Score:2)
> How much volume would be just one million tons of earth?
> Did they move that? And in just 5 days.
Moist Sandy soil weighs about 2,500 lbs per cubic yard, so a little over a ton. Which means a cubic meter weighs about a ton.
A million tons would therefore be a million cubic meters.
Three meters deep by 550 meters wide and 550 meters long.
Me thinks they haven't moved a million tons of earth.
One report yesterday said 27,000 cubic metres had been dredged (by one particular company?), so that's only 27,000
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They did appear to have a large dredge barge on site.
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A couple of corrections to your estimate:
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Seriously, though, how do you figure 3 days? How much are you expecting them to unload?
I worked on a supply ship in the Navy. We loaded it it by hand in 16 hours. They are flying containers off and, together, should be able to pull one off every 2 minutes. They only need to pull enough to allow it to float, maybe a quarter to a third of those above deck. The containers are designed to be moved in this fashion with lift points at the corners, the cables are hooked up at each corner, it is lifted and flown a few hundred feet, lowered, unhooked, and the crane moves to the next.
How many flying cranes can operate safely at once?
Four can easily o
Re: Could have been much faster. (Score:2)
By necessity, Navy supply ships are designed for much stronger structural integrity and much faster load/unload rates in unpredictable conditions.
That is not a comparable situation at all.
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Even the heaviest-lift helicopter out there, the Mil Mi-26, is limited to a load of 20,000 kg. A 40-ft container can easily weigh more than that.
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Re: Could have been much faster. (Score:2)
Ever Given has 18,300 containers. Even unloading 1/4 at an insanely fast speed of 2 minutes each would take over 6 days.
The ship has to be unloaded exceptionally carefully so that it doesnâ(TM)t tip or cause further stress damage, and you need a place to safely set down the containers as well as refuel. So averaging 2 min per container is unrealistically fast.
And before you suggest a boat crane, those are even slower and would be unlikely position themselves to safely unload the ship.
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Re: Could have been much faster. (Score:2)
I said 1/4 for over 6 days.
300 will not raise the draft an entire foot.
And again, neglecting that ships like this are loaded and unloaded extremely carefully for balance and structural integrity while in normal port.
They don't even know how much of the ship is grounded.
Re: Could have been much faster. (Score:2)
Or even half a foot. By that flawed math the ship has at a minimum 61 feet of variance in draft, with the assumption those top 300 containers match the mean weight (which they clearly do not if they are the "light" ones.
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I said 1/4 for over 6 days.
300 will not raise the draft an entire foot.
And again, neglecting that ships like this are loaded and unloaded extremely carefully for balance and structural integrity while in normal port.
And, I said one wouldn't need to unload a quart of the cargo. You say 300 wouldn't raise the draft 6 inches. Prove it with math. I will wait. You know nothing of freight, ships, container ships, or nautical engineering. Yes, they unload them carefully in port because if they unload them unevenly the ships can roll, especially when they don't manage ballast properly. In the case I propose, they would be lowering the center of gravity making the ship more stable.
They don't even know how much of the ship is grounded.
Then, they are just randomly digging, right?
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If 300 would raise 6", that means the draft variance would have to be (at the very minimum) 30' for a container of mean weight. Once you factor in that these are the lightest 300 containers (your claim), and the shape of the hull means more depth required as you move lower you need to remove less weight. For the upper, wider cross-section of the hull you need to remove more to get the achieved buoyancy to depth ratio.
The draft variance for the Ever Green is 60'4" that means in a hull with no cross-section c
Re:An old ship captain (Score:4, Funny)
A sailor walks into a bar and sits down next to a pretty woman.
Sailor: Do you like men in uniform?
Woman: I like the army and the air force, but sailors annoy me.
Sailor: Why's that?
Woman: They just overuse nautical terminology so much. That sort of thing is really irritating.
Sailor: I guess you're starboard about that. My wife said the same thing when she port me.