Suez canal: Syria 'rations' fuel as efforts to free stuck ship fail

[riversedge]

Source: the guardian



Syria oil ministry restricts supply as canal chief says ‘technical or human errors’ may have been behind stranding of the Ever Given

Sun 28 Mar 2021 00.48 EDT


Syrian authorities say they have begun rationing fuel as the blockage of the Suez canal stretched into a sixth day, delaying vital shipments and worsening the country’s oil shortages.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011 and faces a severe economic crisis. It had already announced a more than 50% rise in the price of petrol in mid-March.

Global supply chains have been crippled since Tuesday when the giant container ship Ever Given ran aground and became wedged diagonally across the canal, blocking the crucial waterway in both directions.

In contrast to earlier claims that wind gusts were behind the stranding, the Suez Canal Authority chief, Osama Rabie, said on Saturday: “Strong winds and weather factors were not the main reasons for the ship’s grounding, there may have been technical or human errors.”.................

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/28/suez-canal-ever-given-stuck-ship-syria-rations-fuel?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1616907417

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Now they have decided to unload {read that earlier}

Link to tweet

?s=20
Syria oil ministry restricts supply as canal chief says ‘technical or human errors’ may have been behind stranding of the Ever Given
Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, that is wedged across the Suez Canal

[getagrip_already]

1. It was never the wind.....

A modern 200k ton ship is not going to be blown 40 degrees to starboard by the wind while it has power.

Consider the following two commands:

"Thrusters to port" and
"Engage port thrusters".

To a native english speakers, each will sent the bow in a different direction. Having heard countless hours of shipping vhf calls, I can tell you that bridge crews are not english speakers.

The way it would work is that if the bridge crew and the pilot did not speak the same language, they would speak english.

The pilot was likely fluent. Not so much for the helmsman. You figure it out.

[Warpy]

2. I didn't buy it, either

Apparently Egypt is sending in a crane. One crane to offload thousands of containers, the capacity on those ships is 20,000 containers, yes, I looked it up.

[FBaggins]

3. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Sorry... you really don't know what you're talking about. As pointed out to you previously strong winds are very significant for container ships (particularly the ultra-large variety as in this case).

Note in the report below the wind speed at which they will not assist large container ships (no tug... no pilot... stay out):

One of the big issues for pilots is the last decade’s huge growth in the size of container ships,
so called “Ultra Large Container Ships”, and how they act in severe wind conditions.

...snip...

The report shows and describes major problems like the huge wind forces involved, initiating
of turns, drift angles, speed reduction etc.

http://www.sjofartsverket.se/pages/29601/Rapport%20Safe%20Handling%20ULCS%20version%202_0.pdf

I can provide you with as many ship-handling resources as you like... you won't find a single one that agrees that wind just isn't an issue for new big ships that haven't lost power. Other container ships refused to transit on the day in question because there was too much wind and the similarly-sized ship ahead of the Ever Given was using a tug for assistance.

"Thrusters to port"

Sorry... you sound more like you've watched a bunch of Star Trek rather than listened to actual ship handling exercises. Thruster commands are actually left/right as with rudder commands, not port/starboard, and have increments (e.g., 1-10).

Some additional corrections:

- These aren't cruise ships. They do indeed have a pair of bow thrusters, but they're fairly limited in these cases. In tight quarters, they use tugs. On a mass/size/thrust comparison, cruise ships have about five times as much relative thrust (and with far more flexibility - since their main propulsion is often on azipods).

- They all speak "Seaspeak"/SMCP - which is based on English.

- Pilots don't give commands to helmsmen in the first place. Pilots advise masters on local knowledge. The master remains in control of ship-handling and obviously does not have a language gap with the bridge crew.


You can actually watch what occurred in the video below. Wind was definitely a primary factor. That doesn't mean that human errors were not involved, but there isn't any reason to think it would have happened without the wind conditions. The ship was unable to maintain directional stability anywhere near the speed limit for the canal (~7.5 knots) and at times was traveling almost twice that speed just to give the rudder enough influence. The stern wind combined with the bank effect is visible in the track below... and you can see the wind drive her hard on the bank

Link to tweet

[Steelrolled]

4. Thanks, interesting read.