Suez Canal currently blocked (update - unblocked!)

PMN1 said:
DWG said:
The strategic implications of this are interesting. First thing I did on hearing about it was check Ever Given's nationality, and breathe a sigh of relief when she turned out to be Taiwanese, because a Chinese vessel blocking the canal could have been a set-up for something unpleasant in the Taiwan Strait. But the length of time she's taking to clear has to have people thinking about the possible uses of blockships in both PLAN and PACFLT headquarters.
Click to expand...

I would have thought people would have been thinking about the use of blockships for several decades....
Click to expand...
True, but it's the kind of practical demonstration that concentrates the mind. Particularly as it showed even just a beached and otherwise seaworthy vessel is a much more difficult salvage task than might have been predicted.
 
Moose said:
It's interesting that the SB convoy would go first. Not that I have a horse in the race, I just wonder what sort of negotiation goes into making that determination.
Click to expand...

I think it's logistically necessary. They had a mass of SB ships already stuck in the Great Bitter Lake (GBL) that needed to leave to make room for new vessels. While they are southbound, it makes sense to also start the next SB convoy from the Med. That leg is longer than the leg from the GBL to Port Suez in the south, anyway, so the SB GBL ships will clear the southern segment of the canal before the SB ships from the Med reach the GBL. Then the NB convoy from Suez starts, and passes the SB convoy from the Med in the GBL. This is probably the fastest way to restart two-way traffic.
 
TomS said:
Moose said:
It's interesting that the SB convoy would go first. Not that I have a horse in the race, I just wonder what sort of negotiation goes into making that determination.
Click to expand...

I think it's logistically necessary. They had a mass of SB ships already stuck in the Great Bitter Lake (GBL) that needed to leave to make room for new vessels. While they are southbound, it makes sense to also start the next SB convoy from the Med. That leg is longer than the leg from the GBL to Port Suez in the south, anyway, so the SB GBL ships will clear the southern segment of the canal before the SB ships from the Med reach the GBL. Then the NB convoy from Suez starts, and passes the SB convoy from the Med in the GBL. This is probably the fastest way to restart two-way traffic.
Click to expand...
There should be no northbound ships there. The northern portion of the canal was open so those ships could transit. It would be the southbound ones that are bottled up, hence clearing them out of the lake is a necessity before normal traffic can resume.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
TomS said:
Moose said:
It's interesting that the SB convoy would go first. Not that I have a horse in the race, I just wonder what sort of negotiation goes into making that determination.
Click to expand...

I think it's logistically necessary. They had a mass of SB ships already stuck in the Great Bitter Lake (GBL) that needed to leave to make room for new vessels. While they are southbound, it makes sense to also start the next SB convoy from the Med. That leg is longer than the leg from the GBL to Port Suez in the south, anyway, so the SB GBL ships will clear the southern segment of the canal before the SB ships from the Med reach the GBL. Then the NB convoy from Suez starts, and passes the SB convoy from the Med in the GBL. This is probably the fastest way to restart two-way traffic.
Click to expand...
There should be no northbound ships there. The northern portion of the canal was open so those ships could transit. It would be the southbound ones that are bottled up, hence clearing them out of the lake is a necessity before normal traffic can resume.
Click to expand...

That's what I said. The only NB ships In my comment are those from the Red Sea going toward the GBL and the Med.
 
DWG said:
PMN1 said:
I would have thought people would have been thinking about the use of blockships for several decades....
Click to expand...
True, but it's the kind of practical demonstration that concentrates the mind. Particularly as it showed even just a beached and otherwise seaworthy vessel is a much more difficult salvage task than might have been predicted.
Click to expand...
This incident says plenty about the level of competence and preparedness of the Egyptian government. Or lack thereof.
The Iranians, Yemeni Libyan and AQ factions must have taken notes at some point, and could be smiling.
 
dan_inbox said:
DWG said:
PMN1 said:
I would have thought people would have been thinking about the use of blockships for several decades....
Click to expand...
True, but it's the kind of practical demonstration that concentrates the mind. Particularly as it showed even just a beached and otherwise seaworthy vessel is a much more difficult salvage task than might have been predicted.
Click to expand...
This incident says plenty about the level of competence and preparedness of the Egyptian government. Or lack thereof.
The Iranians, Yemeni Libyan and AQ factions must have taken notes at some point, and could be smiling.
Click to expand...

They managed to unstuck the ship pretty fast and pretty well considering its size, mass, and the way it was stuck.

But I agree this may give ideas to many terrorist SOBs waiting in the shadows (sigh).

"9-11 / USS-Cole hybrid attack & floating bomb - to play havoc with the Suez canal" - for example. Those "people" minds (I'm no sure people is the appropriate word - "animal" or "barbarian" might be better) are so insane and wicked, better not to give them too many ideas of this kind...
 
With so many silly Suez-related memes I thought the above was a joke ! d'oh !
 
Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. Then again, this is the person who thought that nuclear powered trebuchets were viable weapon systems, back when he was younger.
 
I was wondering if some money had changed hands for the incident to happen in the first place, cheaper than terrorist attacks, fore shore.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I was wondering if some money had changed hands for the incident to happen in the first place, cheaper than terrorist attacks, fore shore.
Click to expand...
There are reports that the Ever Green had suffered a major computer systems failure at the time of the accident.


Wyvern said:
nuclear powered trebuchets were viable weapon systems
Click to expand...
Aieeeee! You'll give desperate bean counters ideas!

On an interesting note, I believe the idea of a canal along the border has actually been seriously proposed in the recent past!
 
dan_inbox said:
DWG said:
PMN1 said:
I would have thought people would have been thinking about the use of blockships for several decades....
Click to expand...
True, but it's the kind of practical demonstration that concentrates the mind. Particularly as it showed even just a beached and otherwise seaworthy vessel is a much more difficult salvage task than might have been predicted.
Click to expand...
This incident says plenty about the level of competence and preparedness of the Egyptian government. Or lack thereof.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure the Egyptian government really comes out of it that badly, the major factor in the time taken was apparently sourcing ocean-going salvage tugs.
 
On a less humorous tangent:
www.wsj.com

America’s Imports Are Stuck on Ships Floating Just Off Los Angeles

With ships moving again through the Suez Canal, another bottleneck in the supply chain remains—this one in Southern California, where the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle more than a third of U.S. container imports.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com
 
There was an article in my newspaper that describes how Rotterdam is handling the expected influx of containers: they're clearing the container storage areas as much as possible, looking for spaces they can temporarily use to store containers and e.g. requesting haulage companies not to deliver containers earlier than they're needed.
 
On another tangent:
asiatimes.com

China-Iran pact paves way for alternative to Suez - Asia Times

The extraordinary confluence between the signing of the Iran-China strategic partnership deal and the Ever Given saga in the Suez Canal is bound to fuel a renewed drive to the Belt and Road Initiative and all interconnected corridors of Eurasia integration. This is the most important...
asiatimes.com asiatimes.com
 
Grey Havoc said:
On another tangent:
asiatimes.com

China-Iran pact paves way for alternative to Suez - Asia Times

The extraordinary confluence between the signing of the Iran-China strategic partnership deal and the Ever Given saga in the Suez Canal is bound to fuel a renewed drive to the Belt and Road Initiative and all interconnected corridors of Eurasia integration. This is the most important...
asiatimes.com asiatimes.com
Click to expand...

unfortunately that article is paywalled. It seems to be about the Eurasian land bridge, i.e. rail links between China and Europe. Some of these are already in operation.

Their big limitation is capacity. A train carries ~50 containers. Ever Given carries 20,000, so each ship that size requires ~400 trains to replace it. Rotterdam receives on the order of 22000 containers/day, so you'd need a train to arrive every 3.6 minutes all day long to replace that. That much traffic requires 4 dedicated tracks all the way from Rotterdam to Shenzen.
 
Hobbes said:

A train carries ~50 containers. Ever Given carries 20,000, so each ship that size requires ~400 trains to replace it. Rotterdam receives on the order of 22000 containers/day, so you'd need a train to arrive every 3.6 minutes all day long to replace that. That much traffic requires 4 dedicated tracks all the way from Rotterdam to Shenzen.
Click to expand...
And considerably more than 4 tracks to unload it at the railhead! Each train would need access to an unloading crane, and a quick google suggests maximum unloading speed for quayside gantries is about 1 container a minute. I don't expect trackside cranes to be particularly faster. So a 50 container train would need at least 50 minutes to unload. Or close enough to an hour by the time you've marshalled it into place. 15 trains an hour means a minimum of a 15 track unloading facility, each track with its own crane. 15 tracks isn't unprecedented for goods yards, but it's still a big yard. And you either need trucks to take them away, or container stackers to shunt them around if you're holding them on site.
 
DWG said:
Hobbes said:

A train carries ~50 containers. Ever Given carries 20,000, so each ship that size requires ~400 trains to replace it. Rotterdam receives on the order of 22000 containers/day, so you'd need a train to arrive every 3.6 minutes all day long to replace that. That much traffic requires 4 dedicated tracks all the way from Rotterdam to Shenzen.
Click to expand...
And considerably more than 4 tracks to unload it at the railhead! Each train would need access to an unloading crane, and a quick google suggests maximum unloading speed for quayside gantries is about 1 container a minute. I don't expect trackside cranes to be particularly faster. So a 50 container train would need at least 50 minutes to unload. Or close enough to an hour by the time you've marshalled it into place. 15 trains an hour means a minimum of a 15 track unloading facility, each track with its own crane. 15 tracks isn't unprecedented for goods yards, but it's still a big yard. And you either need trucks to take them away, or container stackers to shunt them around if you're holding them on site.
Click to expand...
I happen to work in that sector... Ships, trucks and trains...
You can have multiple cranes per track... Depends on how big the terminal is..
But 15 tracks is not something I have seen at a (intermodal)terminal, I see usually around 8 tracks.
I see more and more terminal pop-up in Eastern Europe that are connections between the Asian trainnetworks and the European networks. Specialising in moving containers from one track-system to another.
It is also possible to store containers 2 on top of each other, so in effect doubling capacity of a train. ( Something common in China and the USA, but not allowed in Europe)
There are already different routes from China into Europe, and more may be on the way.

Rob
 
Whether double-stacking is allowed, depends on the loading gauge of the rail network (the maximum dimensions of a train). Much of Europe's rail infrastructure predates the ISO container, it's difficult/expensive to modify existing rail lines for a new loading gauge because you have to rebuild all the viaducts and tunnels.
 
BAROBA said:
DWG said:
15 tracks isn't unprecedented for goods yards, but it's still a big yard. And you either need trucks to take them away, or container stackers to shunt them around if you're holding them on site.
Click to expand...

But 15 tracks is not something I have seen at a (intermodal)terminal, I see usually around 8 tracks.
Click to expand...
The big classification yards can go much bigger. The one at Kijfhoek for Rotterdam is 42 tracks, and Amsterdam-Noord is apparently over 100, but they aren't intermodal. Maschen outside of Hamburg is supposed to be Europe's largest at 112 tracks.
 
Outside of capacity, there is also the issue of cost. It’s hard to beat containership pricing so long as travel time isn’t a factor.
 
Hobbes said:
Whether double-stacking is allowed, depends on the loading gauge of the rail network (the maximum dimensions of a train). Much of Europe's rail infrastructure predates the ISO container, it's difficult/expensive to modify existing rail lines for a new loading gauge because you have to rebuild all the viaducts and tunnels.
Click to expand...
Which is why few if any European train designs get adopted as-is by the UK despite otherwise similar requirements, our loading gauge* is more restrictive than the European loading gauges which means they need to be physically re-sized, which may mean internal re-arrangement of the power systems, and it all gets fiendishly expensive. (It's also why the UK doesn't do double-deck passenger trains)

* Except for the HS1/Channel Tunnel Line, and HS2 specific stock in the future.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom