'Ever Given' Stuck at Suez Canal from Bank Effect in Gusting Winds?
Jay K Pillai
Maritime Consultant & Coach l Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company I Strategic Advisor for Dry Cargo Ship Owners I Former Director, Fleet leading ship management and new building teams of Pacific Basin Shipping Limited.
Ever Given is one of the largest container ships (199,629 DWT) in the world, built in 2018, with 400 meters long, about 59 meters wide with a draft of 15.7 meters. It has a capacity of 20,388 containers of standard size of 20 feet.
It's interesting to see this Financial Times article on the most probable root cause - bank effect in gusting winds - of this incident, as Owners, and Technical Managers have ruled out any machinery failures. Haven't seen any reported issues on vessel's machinery from Suez Canal Authorities either, who are losing their revenue from ships, re-routing via Cape of Good Hope.
While the Engineering and New Building Technology have advanced with 25,000 TEU vessels on order, it's none other than the Master, crew on board, and their Technical Managers, who are under tremendous stress from commercial pressure from the Container Liners and Shippers, to keep their schedule promptly for the goods on board to reach its destination to avoid factories shutting down, and supermarket shelves going empty.
It's also interesting to see the barrage of reports from media on assumptions on under-manning of the ship, and IMO not increasing the manning of these giant vessels. Well, with a crew size of 25, I don't think she is under-manned at all. SCA had assigned 2 pilots too.
It's interesting to see what the accident investigation findings (to be released by the Panama Flag State in conjunction with Owners, Technical Managers and Suez Canal Authorities) will be. Hope it will at least include tug escorts in the canal to keep these giant vessels in the center of the channel, limiting speeds, and delaying transit in certain weather conditions rather than overburdening the Masters, crew and Technical Managers with more and more systems and procedures.
Lastly, SMIT, Boskalis and interested parties seem to be focused on re-floating the ship safely, in one piece and removing the blockade. Hopefully, Panama Flag State in conjunction with the Owners, Technical Managers, SCA will release their preliminary findings and investigation report, once the vessel is afloat and moved out of the canal.
Panama Flag State has yet to release its report on the “Wakashio Casualty in Mauritius on 25 July 2020”
Managing Director (IntPE, CEng ECUK, MRINA, PrEng ECSA BEng Mech Eng, MSc Naval Arch)
3 年Please contact us for good options on Ship Maintenance, Repairs, Refit and Conversions enroute Cape of Good Hope, Port of Cape Town. 6Sigma EPCM (Pty) Ltd - Ship Building, Maintenance, Repair, Refit & Conversion
Marine Specialist
3 年Thanks for highlighting the most crucial elements connected with the voyage of Evergiven .Every mission has a clearance process and in case of Evergiven it must have cleared the Risk assessment through required mitigations to achieve the Risks As low as reasonably practical. The sudden onset of stormy winds from Mediterranean gusting SE are a unique phenomenon that has claimed victims over a period of time . Best of the crew, machinery , pilots , DP or even the escorting tugs possibly may not have succeeded the deviation of momentum in such close quarters where the width of channel was as narrow as the length of the vessel . So here the plight of the Owners, crew ,pilots and the Canal authorities although worthy of compassion must intrigue the minds evaluating the Risk analysis to advise whether the size of vessel justifies the passage through the narrows or there is a need of towage both ends when transiting the narrow passages . This could help to hold the con/steerage in such emergencies. Experts are working hard to find resolve to ever evolving dynamics of shipping industry and hopefully better options shall be available in times ahead .