Probably since those canals were new, and their canals were used for more than idleness, btw. Furthermore, when all those "cheap British builders" (except they weren't British as noted above) built the Suez Canal, they didn't build it for a ship the size or weight of the EverGiven. There weren't any of anywhere near that size then. News reports about this event have mentioned several times that it is the biggest container ship to go through the Suez Canal to date. And it's also been mentioned above that locks wouldn't have helped in this case.
What might have helped was either holding the EverGiven out of the Canal until the wind was dead calm, or widening and dredging the canal before they permitted a ship of that size and weight to enter the Canal in the first place. I would be very surprised if they did not dredge it at times to keep it to a certain depth and width anyway. Dredging is a maintenance job for shipping channels and happens all the time. If you've regularly been on a beach near a shipping channel or port city, you have definitely seen at least one dredging barge; I grew up on the west coast of Florida and every picture I have from my last trip home a couple of years ago has pictures strategically shot to AVOID the dredging barge that has seemed to be in about the same spot since 1975, lol.
So shortsightedness IMO certainly played a big role in this incident.
Finally, you need to watch the computer simulation that was created using the coordinates and particulars of the ship as it transited the canal to it's grounding. It pretty clearly shows the most likely main culprit of the accident IMO, wind and what looks like a miscalculation (probably small) in steering causing a loss of control. Did they miscalculate due to the size and weight of the ship, and their unfamiliarity with it, in combination with the wind conditions? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Humans were involved and humans screw up sometimes. But on the sim, the ship bounced off one side of the canal, and then bounced again off both sides of the canal a couple more times, until it started to jackknife and then got stuck sideways. Like the trailer on a tractor trailer losing control on the interstate.
It's a lot harder to steer or drive something huge and heavy, and the smallest changes have a bigger impact and become harder to correct. It also takes longer to come to a stop when you're heavier and larger. It's why I never pull out in front of tractor trailers or delivery trucks on the road.
I think they were probably trying desperately to get control of the ship from their first miscalculation and bounce, but by then it was just too late. The investigation will show what happened and hopefully lead to changes. But inaccurate placing of blame doesn't get to an understanding of the situation or teach anyone what not to do. It just distracts from the search for truth.
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