it may take weeks to free the Ever Given involving dredging, extracting fuel and removing containers

[Demovictory9]

An excavator working on Thursday to free the stranded ship, which is about 1,300 feet long and weighs around 200,000 metric tons.Credit...Suez Canal Authority, via Shutterstock

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Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Royal Boskalis Westminster, which has been appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel, told the Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur on Wednesday that the operation to free the ship could take “days, even weeks.”

Mr. Berdowski, whose company has been involved in expanding the Suez Canal, said that Ever Given was stuck on both shallow sides of the V-shaped waterway. Fully loaded with 20,000 containers, the ship “is a very heavy beached whale,” he said.




The authorities had first tried to float the vessel using tugboats, a model that worked to free the CSCL Indian Ocean, a similarly sized container ship that became stuck in the Elbe River in 2016, near the port of Hamburg, Germany. Salvaging that ship took 12 tugboats and three attempts, and part of the sandbank where the ship ran aground had to be dredged.

Mr. Berdowski said that the Ever Given, operated by a company called Evergreen, was too heavy for tugboats alone, adding that salvagers might need to extract fuel, pump out water from the ballast tanks and remove some of the containers to make the ship lighter and therefore easier to move. And the dredging may require extra equipment, he said.


Everything depends on how deep the massive container ship is stuck. “The more deeply the ship is stuck, the harder it is to lose weight, the more time it will take to free it,” Mr. Berdowski said.

The ship’s manager has said in a statement that a preliminary investigation found that the vessel grounded because of strong winds, not because of mechanical or engine failure. The company said that all 25 crew members, who the ship’s owner said were all Indian citizens, were safe and that there were no reports of injuries, pollution or cargo damage.

[lagomorph777]

1. Maybe some bigger equipment would help.

That little ditch digger seems badly outmatched.

[MineralMan]

4. That's not really a "little ditch digger."

It's a substantial excavator, and has already dug out a large amount of material, as you can see by looking around the immediate area.

It's probably not going to be enough, but it's not a small excavator.

[taxi]

2. What more could be said? That's what it is. nt

[Beetwasher.]

3. Just Take the Air Out of the Tires

Oh, wrong problem.

[underpants]

5. Blocks of ice

And balloons. LOTS of balloons.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Weeks! - Different articles say 10% or 12% of the world's commerce goes through the Suez Canal.

Weeks! -

Different articles say 10% or 12% of the world's commerce goes through the Suez Canal.

[hedda_foil]

7. How about limiting the size of cargo ships entering so they can't get stuck sideways in the Suez?

It had to happen sometimes. That's how math works.

[IcyPeas]

8. if it truly will take weeks will this affect the stock market? (heard this on the news)