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![]() ![]() ![]() The Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, was operated by the Taiwan-based shipping company Evergreen, which had chartered it from its Japanese owners, Shoei Kisen Kaisha. The Ever Given was escorted to an anchorage in the Great Bitter Lake, a third of the way up the canal, and detained there while the Egyptian government demanded $916 million in compensation from its owners and insurers. Canal journeys resumed, and the world’s attention shifted elsewhere.īut that wasn’t the end of the story for the seafarers on board. Six days later, with excavators digging around the bow and tugboats pushing and pulling the hull, the rising tide floated the ship just long enough for it to be freed. European car factories dependent on just-in-time parts from Asia – all coming through the canal – had to halt production. Some shipping companies immediately began to divert their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. It had run aground, blocking a passage through which $10 billion worth of cargo travels every day. Despite the attempts of the Ever Given’s captain and the pilots to right its course, the ship was pushed sideways and its bow lodged in the riprap at the side of the canal. gusts were near gale-force strength, and photographs taken from the Maersk ship behind show a sky tinted sand yellow. Meteorological records show that at 7.40 a.m. The Ever Given was the fifth ship in a line of twenty, and although it had pilots on board, it didn’t have tugboats accompanying it. On the morning of 23 March 2021, as freighters in the Gulf of Suez queued up to convoy northward, winds were gathering in the Eastern Desert. But not the MV (‘merchant vessel’) Ever Given. Most ships that are stranded are freed within hours. Their knowledge of winds and currents reduces the chance of ships running aground. That is why two experienced pilots from the Suez Canal Authority board every ship that enters the canal. Even motorised navigation is subject to the whims of the weather. O ver a fifty-day period each spring, Khamsin winds from the Sahara blow transversely across the Suez Canal, making transit under sail almost impossible. ![]()
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