If I should die before I wake...great,a little more sleep.
Just because the technology exists to build something that big doesn't necessarily mean that it is practical. The propulsion engines used for steering couldn't overcome mother nature.
I bet the chi coms use these huge ships as trojan horses when they invade us.
I was attending an on-line lecture on Friday when the stuck vessel came up in discussion. One of the attendees was knowledgeable about the canal and explained that the canal is dredged with a deep flat portion in the center where the ships travel and sides that slope up at about 45 degrees from the flat bottom to the surface. It seems that the bulbous bow rammed into the sloped side and dug itself in pretty deep. At the same time, the rudder and prop dug into the sloped side on the other side of the canal. This meant that both the bow and the stern were dug in and no movement was possible. One report that I saw mentioned that if the tugboats aren't careful, they can break the hull which really isn't designed to be pushed or pulled the way that it has to be to free the ship. Another commented that they may have to start to remove containers to lighten the ship enough that it can float off. There are about 20,000 containers on board and no real way for a crane to get at most of them so it could take weeks to actually do this.
Somehow this is going to be another thing that raises prices.
If I should die before I wake...great,a little more sleep.
I follow a young merchant marine officer on Youtube and he was on a large container ship. He was actually filming going though the canal when another ship lost its steering and got stuck too, but not like this one. Its amazing to really see up close the amount of containers they can carry. I discovered another guy that was doing a technical explanation of the problem to include a lot of math and some of the many problems is there aren't enough tow ships in the world with the power to just yank her free and the fact that shes grounded you now have a suction effect from the mud. This is a mess.
To Error Is Human To Forgive Is Not SAC Policy
Last edited by dryheat; 03-29-2021 at 02:50.
If I should die before I wake...great,a little more sleep.
Years ago I was having lunch along the coast in So. CA and watched cargo ships pass by. They were about 200 yards away and they were huge and containers stacked high. I wondered why they didn't tip over or a strong wind blow them over.