The strange curse of being a geography major and seeing commentary about “shipping” on this site only to realize it has nothing to do with containerization and the transformation of the global supply chain…
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW PLEASED I AM THAT WE’RE ALL NOW TALKING ABOUT CONTAINER SHIPS
You know, of all the fucking things I would have guessed would become memes on tumblr this week, “massive disruption to european supply chains via international shipping accident” was, let’s say, not highon the list.
1) As a former sailor here’s my hot take on the stuck boat in the Suez. I’m actually in admiration of the skill of whoever did this. They managed a crash in one of the busiest water ways and all they damaged was a wall. No lives lost. No other boat involved, no damaged cargo. A+
2) Lemme tell you about pilots. Pilots are tug boats or crew who lead you through challenging passages. Usually harbours or narrow water ways. The Suez requires you to hand over control of your boat to a government endorsed pilot crew. Some pilots are great. Suez Pilots are not
3) they don’t protecc. They don’t atacc. Mainly they sleep and snacc. Yep. The Suez takes roughly 13 hours for a big ship to navigate. I have yet to hear of a diligent Seuz pilot who actually stayed at the helm even half that time. And pilots are not free. We pay extra for them
a small private boat pays $500-1000 US. The #EVERGIVEN this would be over $10,000 US for the pilot crew alone on top of the $100,000 to use the canal. And the pilot crew are mandatory. Considering how much shipping goes through the suez, how are their bad pilots still not known?
So#EVERGIVEN got stuck in a sand storm with 40kt gusts&no visiblity. This is totally enough to blow them off course&disorient them, they’d be working off radar and sonar. Factor in possible confusion of who was responsible for driving, the pilot of the officer of the watch?
The#EVERGIVEN officer’s concerns went like this -my crew -my ship -other ships -my cargo definitely not holding up global shipping traffic. And probably not that wall they hit with the part of the hill that’s reinforced. The fact that they ran aground without damaging cargo?
A+#EVERGIVEN Officer & #Evergreen crew. I am truly amazed at your soft landing. I’m sorry no one is talking about the low quality Suez pilot crew who was supposed to be driving (I’m sorry to the good Suez pilots, I know you’re out there somewhere not napping & working hard)
Considering 10% of the world’s shipping traffic goes through the Suez, the fact that government endorsed mandatory suez pilots are negligent& harsss female crew in one of the world’s busiest canals should be known outside the boating world. Good luck #EVERGIVEN, you can do it!
IN ADDITION, because it seems to be really hard for people to grasp that steering a ship is nothing like steering a car, here is a really good FT article about some of the hydrodynamics involved and how this situation may have happened.
