Happy Fourth Anniversary Of Big Boat Stuck To Those Who Celebrate
The fifth ship in a northbound convoy, Ever Given set sail early on the morning of the 23rd with no tug escort to transit the Suez Canal — the link between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea — on her way to Rotterdam, NL. At around 07:42 local time, Ever Given was engulfed in a nasty sandstorm near the village of Manshiyet Rugola. With winds exceeding 40 knots (46 miles per hour) and no tug to keep her on track, the massive vessel was immediately blown off course. Her bow ran into the canal's eastern shore at a speed of 13 knots (roughly 15 miles per hour), her stern swung around and wedged into the western shore while still under power, and all of a sudden she was stuck tight.
That, as they say, is when hilarity ensued.
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At the spot where Ever Given ran aground, the Suez Canal is around 200 meters across, so a fully loaded, 400-meter-long container ship wedged hard diagonally across the canal immediately presented some navigation issues. She was completely blocking the canal, as 300 ships at both ends were attempting to transit. To call the situation a nightmare (as well as an all-hands emergency) was an understatement.
The Suez Canal Authority closed the canal to shipping on March 25 as salvage and recovery teams descended on the stuck vessel in an attempt to get her free. Over the course of about a week, a crack team of experts, 18 tugs, and the dredger Mashhour worked feverishly to pull Ever Green out of the mud while international shipping slowly ground to a halt on either side of the canal. A huge traffic jam of more than 400 ships slowly formed in the Med, the Red Sea, and the Bitter Lakes as Ever Given was painstakingly salvaged.
On March 29 at around 04:30 local time, Ever Given's stern was floated. Her bow was floated soon after, and she was finally free. This wasn't the end of Ever Given's ordeal, however. She was towed to the Great Bitter Lake to be inspected for damage while the canal was open, then immediately impounded and her crew interrogated. Accusations were made, blame was thrown freely around, and on April 13, 2021, she was seized by a court at the urging of the SCA pending payment of more than $900 million American dollars. That price included, among other things, the cost of the salvage effort and around $300 million for SCA for "loss of reputation".
The week that Ever Given spent gumming up international shipping revealed some serious worldwide economic issues. The ongoing Covid pandemic had already highlighted problems with supply chain resilience, and the Ever Given debacle really shined a light on both that and the weaknesses of just-in-time manufacturing. Lloyd's List estimated that the cost of the goods delayed by the blockage was a staggering $400 million per hour as bulk freighters, tankers, and container ships waited at anchor for Ever Given to be refloated. The knock-on effects of the blockage were even worse, and prices of everything from oil and food to kids toys and computer chips rose significantly and stayed there for months afterwards.
It wasn't all bad, though. There were, of course, the memes. Internet wags immediately got to work plastering pithy messages over images of Ever Given and her various rescuers. One particularly popular one was a photo of a seemingly tiny excavator pushing Ever Given with its boom arm (that one was my favorite, in fact). There were also Google doodles, a marine tracker built specifically to track Ever Given's adventures around the world, and Microsoft Flight Simulator mods. The event even got a shout out in an episode of "What We Do in the Shadows" when it was revealed that Nandor was delayed because he was stuck in a container aboard Ever Given.
Since then, while we've had many good boats stuck here and there, nothing has really captured the world's imagination like Ever Given's plight. Despite the very real economic, legal, and political ramifications of the incident, it was also extremely funny, and we all needed a laugh at the time. At the time of this writing, Ever Given is in port at Port Klang, Malaysia and seems to be healthy and happy with a well-founded crew. So, today, let's raise a glass to Ever Given and her crew and wish them fair winds and following seas. Oh, and captain, watch out for those sandstorms.
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