So there are no powerful enough helicopters to be useful, IOW? Even for removing containers?
I believe in theory you could lift individual containers with big choppers. I don’t know how feasible that would be vs bringing in a big crane. To make a difference, you’d have to move a rather large number of individual containers.
This article says that the world’s biggest helicopter (which also has among the biggest payload capacities) is the Russian Mi-26, which can carry up to 44,000 pounds, or 22 tons. This article says that the Ever Given weighs over 200,000 tons by itself, and its cargo, in total, weighs nearly as much.
So, you might be able to use really big helicopters like the Mi-26 to take off containers, probably one at a time. I imagine that that would be a tremendously slow process, before you got enough weight off of the ship to make any sort of difference, as the Mi-26 would need to make over 9000 trips (at its maximum capacity) to fully unload the ship.
I saw this posted on Twittweet:
A cite I found says that a 20’ shipping container has a maximum payload of 55,000 pounds, and another 5,000 for the container itself. Not all the containers on the Ever Given will be at the maximum weight, but it still sounds like helicopters won’t be much help.
The article does say that, but I believe it should read “managed to move the rudder 30 degrees in two directions.”
Official March 27 update from BSM:
- Further attempts to re-float the vessel began again at approximately 1400 local time after significant progress was made last night at the stern of the ship where the vessel’s rudder was released from sediment.
- 11 tugs have been working throughout the day alongside the ongoing dredging operations which continue to remove sand and mud from around the port side of the vessel’s bow.
- These re-floating efforts are scheduled to continue until approximately midnight local time.
- The two additional tugs that will be arriving by 28 March to assist in the re-floating of the ship are the ALP Guard registered in the Netherlands and the Carlo Magna, registered in Italy.
- There have been no reports of pollution or cargo damage and initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding.
This event may give this more impetus:
Now it turns out that the bow is stuck on hard rock.
Dredgers working to dislodge the stranded vessel have so far shifted 27,000 cubic meters of sand, to a depth of 18 meters
However, two SCA sources told Reuters that a mass of rock had been found at the bow of the ship, complicating salvage efforts.
Rescue workers from the SCA and a team from Dutch firm Smit Salvage have been weighing whether some of the Ever Given’s 18,300 containers will need to be removed by crane in order to refloat it.
Experts have warned that such a process could be complex and lengthy.
So probably no short-term solution.
The ship must have rammed the bank with tremendous force. Imagine all that weight travelling at about 12kn and then shopped short when it hit the bank. If the bow rode up on a mass of rock, it’s not going to be easy to free it.
The red paint at the bottom of the hull is where the waterline should be, so you can see how high the bow is out of the water.
If it’s actually on solid rock, I’m wondering if some strategic application of explosives might speed things up. Not right under the ship, but nearby. And not enough to blow the rock up but just break it into pieces that can be easily removed. Remove the rock on either side and the rock directly under may become unstable and collapse.
Hey they’ve brought Smit and Boskalis in… That only happens when really up shit creek. Yay us (the Dutch)…!
Probably too dangerous.
The forward void space (in the bulbous part under the waterline) and the housing of the bow thrusters are already taking on water. They say it’s not serious, but it shows that there’s already been some damage to the hull.
Subjecting it to nearby explosions probably wouldn’t do it any good. Or pulling it off so that it scrapes over rocks.
Good cite.
That sounds like a lot at first glance. But not on the scale of the problem.
18 meters is a bit more than the ~15 meter maximum draft of the ship. The ship’s beam is 60m. So they’ve dug an underwater pit which, if magically rectangular with straight sides, is deep enough and wide enough to float 27,000/18/60 = the first 25 meters of the ship. There’s probably triple that much ship sitting hard on the bottom. So by that reckoning they’re 1/3rd of the way done.
Given the reality that underwater dredging in sand doesn’t leave vertical sides, you need to remove (major WAG) 3x that much material to end up with a shallow-sided trench that’s deep, wide, and long enough at the bottom to float the ship. So now they’re closer to just 10% of the way done.
Yeah. You know you’re having a really bad day er week um couple of months when anything labeled SMIT shows up at your problem. More so if they bring a whole damn fleet of equipment.
They’re like International Rescue or Boots and Coots but a) for real, and b) for ships. Don’t forget your wallet; you’re gonna need it.
President Sissi of Egypt has ordered preparations to go ahead for unloading the containers, so it’s not looking good.
It could take weeks to move a significant fraction of the cargo.
Of course, we’re Dutch. 
There’s a reason we’re as rich as we are.
[Total aside] I loved the Thunderbirds (Lady Penelope and Nosey Parker), but Captain Scarlet was my favorite of the Supermarionation shows. [/ta]
Same problem, different scale!
I doubt that this Dutch couple will be calling in SMIT to free their houseboat, though!
Nah. Probably some guys on bikes 
There’s a couple issues with removing the cago to lighten the ship.
- The containers at the top are the lightest. They put the heavy ones on the bottom for stability.
- They need to remove containers from the middle as well as the fore and aft. Just removing the fore and aft ones could destabilize the ship, maybe cause it to roll over.
These mean they’ll need a crane that can reach a long ways out and they’ll have to remove more containers than you’d think would be necessary.