https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374468169784459267/pho...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...
They are gonna run out of larger adjectives pretty soon.
“Super Container Ship II' Hyper Turbo Extra Special Champion Edition HD Remix”.
Btw, there's a similar conundrum with large telescope projects: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26333391
I'm all for Hella Container Ship
Ship sizes can just reuse that replacing “graphics array” with “container ship” e.g. Quad Size Extended Container Ship.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelmingly_Large_Telesco...
I remember driving up to one of the battleship memorials as a child and it just seemed like this big gray mountain at the end of the street.
Off-topic, but does anyone else find it odd to find fillers like "umm" and "uhh" to be typed out on sites like HN or reddit?
I'm no expert in detecting shoops. But ELA looks fine to me, I don't think it's photoshopped.
Even worse for planes on flight radar 24.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:5630138/zoo...
EDIT: Just saw they had outages, but I guess nobody ever expected it to be trending on twitter. Works fine for me.
Does anyone know the transit time to pass through the canal versus going around the South Africa route?
Interested to hear if anyone has insights about this
The market is extremely competitive. We are one of the biggest in the business, and we only capture small percent (I heard 3% before) of market share.
We build event driven systems primarily glued together with Kafka. There are thousands of deployed products.
Maersk are entering into block-chain "distributed ledger technology" with IBM and similar modern solutions. But one article put $300 of every $2,000 of shipping costs for administration and paperwork[0].
I think you're right, there is a massive advantage to be had, and companies are chasing that advantage. But from my (tangential logistics) background, even the biggest shipping companies have the usual range of legacy systems, heavy administration overhead, plenty of paperwork, excel-based-tools and huge integration headaches.
0 - https://www.supplychaindigital.com/technology-4/maersk-and-i...
Damn that's a lot. I understand this is a capital intensive industry so I guess it's hard/impossible to get in now but it seems like if someone started a competitor from scratch and had great software as the foundation of their company, they'd make a killing
If your paperwork is mostly driven by other actors tech probably won’t help all that much. Tech has not made significant inroads in disrupting American health insurance, for example.
"logistics"
"from scratch"
it does not compile, I guess it's just like those ERP Systems - you don't need shitton of domain knowledge, because you need fuckton of domain knowledge and during development you'll learn even more and have to refactor a lot of stuff frequently for edge cases.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/omegataupodcast/omegatau-146-conta...
Also: a plug for Omega Tau, one of my favorite podcasts. https://omegataupodcast.net
Edited to add: go to the Archive page and scroll down. About half the episodes are in English and half in German.
Three I picked out were:
- Existing infrastructure matters (e.g. SuezMax)
- Standards matter (container size and handling needed to be standardized)
- Process matters (e.g. containers needed changes to the way loading and unloading was done, and hence changes to labor agreements, at major ports)
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/three-lessons-from-the-shipping-co...
Edit: so this is the “ever living” that’s 335 meters long. The ever given is 400 meters long
Edit: Comparing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship... it might or might not have been the ship. Evergreen is the name of the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Marine
So, another thing to worry about :)
Blow up the locks for the Panama Canal and you have some seriously inconvenienced shipping companies.
But even in both cases the result is that they have to take the long way around. It makes the shipping slower and more expensive, but it was a tiny fraction of your costs to begin with so most companies survive just fine.
A huge bomb to one side of the canal would displace rock and mud in to the channel and make it shallower. That would be enough to close it to large ships until it could be dredged again.
Although, if terrorists really wanted to wreak havoc in the canal they could scuttle a large ship while it's sailing in it. That would necessitate dismantling and removing the entire thing.
I'm surprised no one has made a movie of that.
I would think someone with a bomb on some kind of bulk Hazmat carrier and the threat of blowing it up would shut down traffic for a lot longer. Nobody is going to want to get close to do anything about it.
LNG or Oil are the two I can think of, but there's probably a lot of other bulk Hazmat carriers.
I don't claim to understand the global shipping dynamics, but I do see that there's lots of frustrated ship crews with nowhere to go, because of the pandemic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal
I wonder what makes something significant enough to be added to this section. A quick scan of the page shows some interesting tidbits that aren't present in the opening (to me, more noteworthy - so far - than the ongoing blockage):
> The canal had an immediate and dramatic effect on world trade. Combined with the American transcontinental railroad completed six months earlier, it allowed the world to be circled in record time.
> In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, the canal was the scene of a major crossing by the Egyptian army into Israeli-occupied Sinai and a counter-crossing by the Israeli army to Egypt. Much wreckage from this conflict remains visible along the canal's edges.
Right now it's more a matter of racing to be as up-to-date as possible, rather than actually weighing the merits of having this in the opening section.
If its not immediately resolvable with the ships own facilities, then its not clear it can be solved in less than a-long-time. Maybe years?
Its 200 million pounds. It holds 20,000 units. To unload it would take building a facility on-site. And maybe a rail line to carry the cargo away.
I have hopes the tug solution will solve it. But if not, then there's probably no easy solution at all. Not one that costs less than a billion dollars?
Sounds like they are digging too.
"The pandemic also had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and _breaking global supply chains_" - Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development, 2010.
Interesting! That prompted me to look up Around the World in 80 Days, and it turns it out was published 3 years later (1872), using those pieces as part of the journey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Day...
A bit like how a tiny bat (citation needed?) changed the course of the world for at least a year.
Kinda like how the Mink was going to become the bridge-species in Denmark (humans infected Minks with COVID19... and then the mink was probably going to infect another species after that).
Do you mean some production would shift to Africa, or something else?
Though maybe I've got the scale wrong, and these ships can just buy more fuel and more food at their departure ports and go around Africa without stopping...
Maybe a similar combination of events happened here?
[0] https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/frachter-rammt-faehre-knapp-an-d...
Given that the accident happened in Germany and the ship is Taiwanese.
It is just freaky, I don't know if it is good or bad to be associated with such an incident.
In a plane crash they are usually quick to paint over the name of the airline company to not be associated. I don't think this is the same though.
I think it's not good because of the potential to become politicly charged. Add some "cyber" and it has NatSec types reeling. There is a scenario in Ghost Fleet[1] where a vessel sailing under a Chinese flag blocks the Panama canal in a theater of war with the West. Not going to issue any spoilers but it's a brilliant (fiction) novel for hypothetical future war scenario's.
If true, then the "systemic issue" is only that ships are getting too big.
[1] https://gcaptain.com/grounded-mega-ship-blocking-suez-canal-...
> Early reports speculated the vessel suffered a loss of power, but the ship’s operator, Evergreen Marine Corp, told Agence France-Presse it ran aground after being hit by a gust of wind.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/huge-container...
Someone with insider knowledge: is this a typo or similar error? How does it happen and proliferate without being corrected?
scroll down to #13 and read the names of the sister ships. The evergreen shipping line has 7 identical ships named "Ever XXX"
"Ever Given" is the name of the ship and written in smaller font on the bow and (always) on the stern.
All this is in contrast to the rest of the time you are onboard. You are right that not very much happens. The ocean is very, very big. The vast majority of the time you can't see any land, or any other ships. If you don't have a satellite receiver of your own, there is no internet, no news, no nothing. Sometimes there is a storm. Sometimes there is a sunset. Most of the time there's nothing of note. I found it really relaxing, but it's definitely not for everyone. It's also a very expensive way to travel compared to commercial airlines or even long distance rail.
Is that something you can pay to do?
Even on the open sea I've never seen that the autopilot actually steers the ship, it will only keep the heading, and sound an alert when there is time to change heading. So the watchkeeping Officer will set new heading and steer the ship in a new direction.
Ah, that explains it.
> I'm not sure how exciting it would be.
Right now it would be pretty exciting.
I'm pretty sure that is a feature not a bug. Kinda like servers... if something is exciting it means something went wrong.
1. How easy would it be to pay a container ship’s captain to do that ? 2. Can you then bet on short term commodity futures to benefits from the event significantly? 3. Do you think this is what’s happening ?
[0]: https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/2020/10/when-commo... - and the (linked) full judgment is also interesting; the pilot of the ship that caused the collision wasn't doing a good job on that occasion!
Large ships are _heavily_ optimized for the common case, which is sailing at about 13.5 knots. They take a very long time to get up to speed because their propulsion is sized to be just enough to overcome resistance at their typical cruising speed.
Consequently, it would be difficult to get another ship up to any sort of speed in a short enough distance. Even if you could, the the momentum is absurdly high so it's much more likely that any sort of chain would snap, or the attachment point would break than that the aground ship would actually move.
(The aground ship has a deadweight of approx 200,000 tonnes)
Similarly, tugs use different propeller setups (e.g. ducted props for extra power, or vectored systems such as azimuth thrusters or cyclorotors for extra manuverability), which just cause extra drag if all you're doing is cruising at a fixed speed throughout oceans.
A big container ship trying to tow something is not unlike having a high-speed racecar spin its wheels. It's not designed to put that torque down at low speed and lift a big trailing mass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEDrFiQq1_k
Looks like fun actually!
That's why recovery specialists are flying in. They know how to do that kind of engineering calculation, as well as all the weight & balance calcs needed to e.g. move ballast in unusual ways, etc.
https://www.google.com/search?q=evergreen+ever+given&source=...
In this picture of the ship stuck in the Suez, the red/black line appears to tilt noticeably upwards towards the bow:
https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1374480496789393412
If this isn't some sort of optical illusion, the bow of the ship appears runaground by quite a bit.
My guess would be that they've emptied the ballast tanks in the end that has run aground and filled them in the other end to rise the keel.
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374597391463120896
It has gone in with some force.
Edit: Go to https://www.myshiptracking.com/ and use the Playback button with timestamp 23/03/2021 06:15:00 to see the ship drifting left and right.
So likely the ship was uncontrollable and drifted into the bank. There seems to be evidence that there its bulbous bow is embedded in the bank.
In particular, there was one where someone said another ship behind them _also_ lost power/control around the same time and almost rear-ended them. I would really love to find that tweet again.
See similar vessels https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/EVER-GIVEN-IMO-9811000-...
The shipping company name “Evergreen” is in huge letters on the side of the ship.
src: I work at a container-logistics software company, and we've handled and seen similar situations (sudden loss of a main class of transport for a few days).
Truck and train will probably see an increase as well on the China-Europe route if it takes too long.
Is there really not a suitably developed Mediterranean port closer to Suez? Is there work on one?
I'm not sure exactly where the "economic center" of Europe is but maps of gridded GDP [0] or nightlights [1] suggests Rotterdam is a pretty good choice.
(Also don't forget the Alps.)
[0] https://bit.ly/31h1hsK [1] https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2012/03/Night_ligh...
Add to that, the Dutch have been a maritime nation at least since colonial times.
While one of the biggest ports lies at the footsteps of Athens, the economic power of neighbourg countries is not quite as strong.
It's pretty insane that I can track what ship is where on the other side of the planet in real time.
Airplanes have ADS-B, which is quite similar to the maritime AIS location broadcasting. The only significant difference is that satellite AIS coverage is high and ships don't go fast, so having no signal for a few hours is not as big a problem for ships.
ADS-B satellite coverage is currently provided by (at least) the iridium constellation, but that only came into effect in 2016.
They even found debris from it in the places they expected: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/searching-for-mh370-two-y...
You are thinking of the wrong channel.
I wonder if, if you're a container ship leaving China today, headed for Europe, if it makes sense to head for Panama instead, purely on the metric of time, or if you're still better off either rounding Africa or just waiting for the Suez to clear.
(I assume from a fuel/logistics point it is cheapest just to wait.)
[0] https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Capacity
Yikes.
I heard about this originally from a great German podcast "Geschichten aus der Geschichte": https://www.geschichte.fm/podcast/zs180/
As of 2330 (GMT+2) M/V EVER GIVEN, no. 5 in the 23rd of March NB convoy remains #grounded in the #SuezCanal.
Vessel no. 6, 7 & 8 will be assisted by tugs back to Suez anchorage area, clearing space for M/V EVER GIVEN to be towed out the same way as she entered once re-floated. https://t.co/ltXEyRZtqX
Looks like it's going to take a while...
"The #grounding of M/V EVER GIVEN in the #SuezCanal has caused transit delays. Current traffic situation is as follows:
71 vessels at Suez Anchorage awaiting NB transit
79 vessels awaiting SB transit of which 34 are anchored at Great Bitter Lake & 45 at Port Said Outer Anchorage"
150 vessels blocked
If the toll is deemed to be too high a vessel always has the option of going around the Cape.
Realistically it's always an option but the added time plus the additional wear on a vessel makes it undesirable.
How does something like this happen?
[1] https://twitter.com/GlobalHogg/status/1374709733614100487
Presumably in the Gulf of Suez.
In a nutshell you don't stay still, you drift around with wind and currents (and breeze-block shaped ships have a lot of windage!). So you drift off station, motor back, rinse repeat. ('Station' is usually a box you're bound to rather than a point you try to hit, for exactly this reason)
Anchor isn't much different - a cargo ship in an anchorage isn't a static fixture, it's realistically the world's largest windsock.
Compare another ship waiting in the same area - https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000 Hit the "Track" button on the sidebar (under the photo of the ship), and you'll see a similar history. Theirs is tighter, but that could simply be a product of it getting crowded. I'd expect EG's arrival to be more planned, less chaotic - arrive, assemble the convoy, join the queue and go.
The Twitter account of this transit services agency provides some updates.
I already saw multiple French news sites stating that the canal has been unblocked, but apparently that's not true.
I wonder where that news came from.
2 dredges and a larger tug underway to help unblocking the Ever Given.
The tide is at its highest level of the day. Expecting some action in the next hour!
> If this AIS track is genuine, the captain of Ever Given has written one hell of a resignation letter... https://twitter.com/TheDreadShips/status/1374654080082120704
I'll kindly ask everyone to refrain from cracking "yo-mamma" jokes. thanks :)
[1] https://www.livewire-connections.com/sites/default/files/fil...
[2] https://www.pentestpartners.com/security-blog/sinking-contai...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship-rest...
https://twitter.com/AgenciesLeth/status/1374708535603433472?...
Live local tide: https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Suez-Egypt/tides/lat...
I was able to find news reports of the canal being dredged in 2015 but nothing since then.
edit: I see that they've already had one high tide opportunity which did not dislodge the vessel. From your tide chart link, I can see that the tides get progressively deeper until the end of the month, but that is a long time to be stuck there.
If it remains stuck, perhaps they might need to bring in a suction dredger to work on the area around the bow?
If necessary I guess they’ll have to unload it somehow.
"DICK"
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"OH ma God, it looks like a huge..."
"PECKER, wait, that's not a wood pecker, it looks like someone's..."
"PRIVATES, we have reports of an Unidentified Flying Object, it is a long smooth shaft, complete with..."
"TWO BALLS, what is that? That looks just like an enormous..."
"WANG, pay attention"
"I was distracted by that enormous flying..."
"WILLIE, what's that?"
"Well it looks like a giant..."
"JOHNSON"
"Yes Sir"
"Get on the hold of the British intelligence and let them know about this"
Pow!
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/24/middleeast/suez-canal-con...
TL;DR: Ship has not been refloated, "an initial investigation has ruled out any suggestion of mechanical or technical failure".
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