They used a technique called parbuckling. it took months to build the structure to hold all the cranes in place.
Today it’s being reported that the issue was not a loss of power. They’re saying a GUST OF WIND caused it to run aground.
Highest reported gusts in the region were 31 mph yesterday. That won’t move my car, they expect me to believe it would move a ship that big enough to run it aground?
Early reports speculated the vessel suffered a loss of power, but the ship’s operator, Evergreen Marine Corp, told Agence France-Presse it ran aground after being hit by a gust of wind.
Does your car present a flat surface 1000+ feet long and 200+ feet high?
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only disaster voyeur in the world, then people drop comments like this into a thread and I realize that I am not the only one.
The point might not be to inconvenience militaries. It could be part of economic warfare, as the impact on economies would be significant.
Side of the ship + the surface area of the cargo stacked on deck results in a very large “sail” area. Sure, sounds plausible to me. Most folks don’t appreciate just how powerful air movement can be against a large surface area. It’s why a 35mph gust of wind can overturn a semi-trailer truck while your much smaller car/SUV just jiggles a little.
Cranes don’t need tractive force; just their weight and winches.
look for crane disasters on youtube.
Their booms wouldn’t be necessary either.
The vessel has a deadweight tonnage of 200,000 tons. How much do the cranes weigh?
Removing cargo from this ship will not be an easy task. Even the biggest mobile crane is probably not tall enough to do it. They’ll probably have to bring in a construction crane.
Again. They don’t need to lift the ship. They just need to pull the bow and stern in opposite directions, just like the tugs are trying to do without the benefit of statuary land under them.
It has a capacity of over 20,000 containers. Even with, say, 4 or 6 construction cranes, how long would it take to move even 10% of them, or 2,000 containers?
Maybe not tractive force (as in rotating the wheels), but they do need traction, which is a function of their deadweight and the surface they’re sitting on. Check out a big crane:
It can hoist 1200 tons, but it only weighs about 200 tons. Even on pavement, it wouldn’t be able to achieve a lateral pull any bigger than the biggest tugboats; it’ll just start sliding. Moreover, there aren’t that many of those big-ass cranes in the world.
Strange you would equate your car with a container ship. Perhaps you’re not aware of the scale involved here? Container ships are immense. This CNN article shows a pic of the bow, with homo sapiens included for scale.
According to Wikipedia, it’s 1300 feet long, and with a full load of containers, looks to be maybe 150-200 feet tall. Not going to do the math this morning, but a 40-knot wind will create a LOT of lateral force on something like this.
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There’s this cutting-edge technology called “anchors”.
The ship is carrying over 10,000 solid steel boxes filled with ten to forty tons of inert goods. It is beyond inconceivable that a terrorist organization could get a significant portion of one of the largest container ships in the world filled with explosives. Evergreen has contracts with customers trying to get their goods from place to place, and partners with their own customers, paying thousands of dollars per box to get them moved. Every box on the ship has a source and a destination, which would need to be faked hundreds of times over.
It would cost millions to create this attack, and you wouldn’t get more than a couple hundred people targeted, operators of cranes, tugs and other gear.
Can a construction crane lift a full shipping container? For a crane like this, I think the lifting capacity goes down the farther from the tower the load is. The way the ship is turned, you might be able to unload containers near the bow or stern, but not those amidships.
If unloading the whole ship does become the best option for moving it, could they build towers near each end and string cables over the ship (as if you were building a suspension bridge), and use those to hoist the cargo off?
You can see why they’re talking about digging out the sand under it to refloat it, as a better option.
You’re right, I guess all those people who are actually working on the problem are complete idiots.
I’m not saying there aren’t reasons for not using cranes (probably availability), just not your reasons.
“A gust of wind hit the ship.”
“Is that unusual?”
'Oh, yeah. In the desert? Chance in a million."
In that photo @GreenWyvern shared, if you zoom in to the bow of the ship (on the right) you can see what I assume is a digger attempting to move sand or whatever from the bank. Gives a good perspective how huge these ships are.
Another thing I noticed from the photos is the water level - looks like the canal is filled to the brim, so perhaps waiting for high(er) tide is not possible - maybe it is already at high tide and it’s not enough.
It is interesting conjecture about a nefarious plot, but given where the ship is stuck, I am going with Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, or just simply a gust of wind. Sometimes, sh!t happens.