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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

Grounded 'Mega Ship' Blocking Suez Canal in Both Directions [gcaptain.com]:

An ultra-large containership is aground and blocking ship traffic in the Suez Canal.

AIS[*] data shows the MV Ever Given is stuck sideways towards the south end of the canal near Suez, Egypt, preventing ships from passing in either direction. Several tugs have been on scene for several hours working to dislodge the ship.

Shipping agent GAC reports that the grounding occurred at 7:40 a.m. local time on Tuesday (March 23) at kilometer 151 after the vessel suffered a black out while transiting.

It seems the Ever Given had just begun its transit of the waterway as part of a northbound convoy when the incident occurred.

“The 199,489 GT ship was fifth in the northbound convoy. None of the vessels before it were affected, but the 15 behind it were detained at anchorages waiting for the Canal to be cleared. The southbound convoy was also blocked,” GAC reported [gac.com].

At 400-meters-long and a little over 20,000 TEU capacity, the Panama-registered MV Ever Given is among the largest of so-called “mega ships”, aka ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs), currently in operation.

The MV Ever Given is underway to Rotterdam from China.

Ultimately, how long the Ever Given remains stuck now depends on how hard aground she is and what the tides do (tides on the south end can be range up to 1.9 meters). Either way, we should know pretty soon considering the enormous importance of the waterway for global trade.

[*] AIS: Automatic identification system [wikipedia.org].

The pictures in the linked article are amazing. Follow the waterline and it is apparent the bow (on the right side of the first picture) is grounded hard and higher than the rest of the ship.

Just how CAN they get it unstuck?

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