H.hard and difficult life these days, I’d still rather sit on dry ground in a lockout than try to make a three-point turn on the Suez canal with a 400-meter cargo ship under my control. Wouldn’t you? The installation of the Ever Given cruise ship in the Suez canal has been a matter of great concern and concern. Vessels have previously been stuck in the canal: at its narrowest, the “ditch in the desert”, as the crew of the carrier I traveled with in 2010, said, only 300 meters wide. It’s tight. That’s why ships have to wait at each end to get through in a slow convoy. But the Ever Given is longer than the canal is wide, and is stuck on all sides. Simple shunt will not work off the banks.
The obstruction is costly in many ways, as well as a disgrace to Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, the company that operates the ship. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps hired a forced operation to build existing canals (which may have existed since the time of Pharaoh Senusret III) and created a vital route for maritime traffic, cost many stay in the process and take 10 years.
Moving on the canal saves ships more than a week and costs a lot of fuel compared to the longer route through the Cape of Good Hope. The canal is big money for the Egyptian government, earning several billion dollars every year. When I went through Maersk Kendal in 2010, in search of a book I wrote about the shipping industry, the move cost over $ 300,000. That charge included 14 hours of sedate trundling down what is actually a dull canal, once you have an hour or so of pleasure to see by see sand and palm trees, and realize that you have 13 more hours to go. It also included a mandatory “Suez crew,” who came in for the maneuver and had their own cabin, and a pilot who took control of the ship. This is the standard approach in modern shipping: ships often take pilots in difficult harbor areas or corridors because they have better local knowledge. Technically the pilot took control of the bridge, even though our pilot was too busy eating his way through the entire deck, and crouching, to be particularly commanding. The second officer had to keep him awake for instructions.
While the official reason given so far for the state of Ever Given is that it was blown on all sides by the wind, it is surprising. In most marine disasters, human error is to blame. And it’s no surprise: sailors, working in ever-smaller crews on ever-larger vessels, are beaten. Most of my trip was old enough to remember when they could stop for lunch in the port. Now, ships are rarely in port for more than several hours, and those are busy. As we entered the waterway, moving south with our mostly empty boxes to collect essential supplies and materials in China, medicine, the second officer was work on three nights of three hours of sleep, and would have no sleep during the transition. There is, as the Ever Given points out, a lot to watch in the aisle.
I often think of those tired workers, when I read about a crew who have been locked up on their vessels for the pandemic, forbidden to land, unable to go home. . Even 10 years ago, the Filipino team I worked with named their work “a dollar for nostalgia”. So amidst the jokes and references to beached whales, I think of the crews on the 150 boats stuck behind and in front of the Ever Given.
Over the years, shipping has become more and more prevalent, it is best to bring 90% of world trade to us – even if most people think that their breakfast cereals and electronics and clothing and fish arrive by air. In fact, modern shipping is so efficient, it is cheaper to ship Scottish fish to a landfill in China and back again than it would be to do the filling at home. But that efficiency comes at a price: of vessels that rely on this same waterway to get to Asian bounties, and of crews that spend months away from home, missing births and cousins. their children’s birthdays, to give us what we need, and what we think we need.