• Un porte-conteneurs s’échoue et bloque le canal de Suez - Nice-Matin
    https://www.nicematin.com/faits-divers/un-porte-conteneurs-sechoue-et-bloque-le-canal-de-suez-661220

    Un porte-conteneurs géant s’est échoué dans le canal de Suez après avoir été déporté par une rafale de vent, a annoncé mercredi la compagnie maritime qui l’opère, et le trafic maritime s’est arrêté sur l’une des routes commerciales les plus fréquentées du monde.

    • analyse de la situation de l’Ever Given

      https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1374470486801838086.html

      Je reprends ici mes différentes réponses à ce tweet :
      #1 - Causes :
      J’ai pas d’info, mais d’expérience, une erreur humaine est très peu probable (rien ne l’indique ici). L’environnement ne peut pas créer ça tout seul. Il ne reste qu’un problème mécanique.
      Ça impliquerait que le contrôle de la manœuvre du navire soit perdue : soit avarie de barre, soit perte totale de la propulsion, soit un moteur (principal ou prop d’étrave) qui s’emballe de façon incontrôlée - rare).
      #2 - Dégâts au navire
      Ces bateaux sont costauds, et le bulbe (à l’avant) peut être écrasé sans couler le bateau. Les berges du canal ne sont pas rocheuses, d’ailleurs. Donc la coque va sûrement « pas trop mal » dans le sens où le bateau n’est pas coulé sur place.

      Par contre il est bien monté sur la berge (cf l’assiette, visible à la ligne de flottaison). Donc il est possible que certains apparaux de coque à l’avant soient touchés (prises d’eaux, etc). Si la réfrigération est bouchée par exemple, c’est vite la galère pour les moteurs.
      Plus grave : à la poupe, si les hélices ou le gouvernail se sont trop rapprochés de la berge ou du fond, ça pue. Notamment si on voile une ligne d’arbre ou une mèche. Ça peut signifier un passage au bassin rapidement après déchargement.
      #3 - situation des autres navires
      Le canal est fait pour gérer des zones d’attentes aux deux extrémités et le long de ses berges internes. Les bateaux vont donc accoster ou mouiller (et l’autorité du canal va donc facturer un max). Rien de bien inquiétant techniquement.
      #4 - évolution probables
      Il faut éviter à tout pris le déchargement sur place. D’abord parce que l’idée d’alléger le bateau pourrait le faire chavirer, et que ce n’est pas nécessaire. Ensuite parce qu’il n’y a pas d’infrastructures pour le faire.
      Il faudrait commencer par couler du béton armé sur les berges, puis faire venir d’immenses grues, et 10000 camions pour décharger. Ou tout faire par l’eau. Rien de simple.
      Le mieux est donc de contrôler l’étanchéité de la coque (par plongeurs et/ou de l’intérieur), de dégager le bulbe (coucou le ptit tractopelle), puis de procéder au déséchouage.

      Ce qui sera sûrement choisi, c’est une manœuvre ou l’on remorquera par le cul du navire, en tirant dessus avec un gros remorqueur, pendant que deux remorqueurs (minimum) seront en pousseurs sur l’avant de chaque bord, et un dernier en remorque inverse côté cul, pour freiner.

      Une fois déséchoué, j’imagine que le navire sera remorqué (avec ou sans aide de sa propre propulsion) vers l’extrémité du canal (Port Saïd).
      Là, des réparations et vérifications seront entreprises. Si besoin, des containers seront déchargés (si besoin d’une immobilisation longue)

      C’est sûrement le moment où la Suez Canal Authority procèdera à une très généreuse facturation (déjà qu’en temps normal, ça douille …). Le Canal est l’une des principales ressources du pays (surtout en ces temps de disette touristique).

      #5 - Plus grave ?
      Oui, toujours possible, même si rien ne l’indique encore. C’est déjà assez grave (et rare), mais ne sera pas un phénomène majeur pour le commerce mondial.
      Si le canal devait être bloqué plus d’une semaine par exemple, chacun d’entre nous devrait ressentir rapidement notre dépendance au canal (pétrole du Golfe et produits chinois en tout genre : tout passe par là !).
      Voilà. N’hésitez pas si vous avez d’autres questions !
      Ah et si vous voulez de l’accident plus grave, et plus débile (= impardonnable erreur humaine selon moi), n’hésitez pas à retrouver mon thread sur le Helge Ingstad ici :

    • À noter, en milieu d’après-midi, Le Monde (et d’autres médias) présentaient l’affaire comme étant en voie de règlement. On en trouve la trace dans la formulation initiale de l’adresse de l’article… (Le canal de Suez bloqué [plusieurs heures] à cause d’un cargo échoué en travers)
      et dans la formulation hybride du chapeau (_s’était retrouvé
      , plus que parfait)

      Le canal de Suez bloqué à cause d’un cargo échoué en travers
      https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2021/03/24/le-canal-de-suez-bloque-plusieurs-heures-a-cause-d-un-cargo-echoue-en-traver

      Le porte-conteneurs «  Ever Given  » s’était retrouvé en travers du canal reliant la mer Rouge à la Méditerranée, bloquant toute circulation. Le retour à la normale n’était pas acquis en milieu de journée.

      L’article expliquait que le navire avait été amarré parallèlement à la berge.

    • Suez Canal Block: How to Dislodge a 200,000 Ton Ship From a Canal Wall - Bloomberg
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/how-to-dislodge-a-200-000-ton-ship-from-a-canal-wall

      When you can’t shift a ship that’s stuck fast into the wall of a canal that’s vital to world trade, there’s only one thing to do: call the salvage guys.

      The Ever Given container ship — a 200,000-ton behemoth — has been blocking what is arguably the world’s most important waterway, the Suez Canal, since Tuesday morning.

      The struggle to dislodge it is now turning the world’s attention to the work of SMIT Salvage, a legendary Dutch firm whose employees parachute themselves from one ship wreckage to the next, saving vessels often during violent storms. The company is synonymous with some of the most daring naval salvages, including lifting a sunken Russian nuclear submarine in 2001, and removing fuel from inside the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it ran aground in Italy in 2012.

      SMIT, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, is one of the companies appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel. The first job will be to work out exactly how entrenched in the wall the ship is, said Boskalis spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer.


      A digger clears the area around the bow of the stuck Ever Given container vessel in the Suez Canal on March 25.
      Source: Suez Canal Authority

      It will be critical to inspect the vessel and how deeply it is lodged in the embankment,” Schuttevaer said. “The question is how solidly she has been grounded.

      The answer to that question will dictate what comes next. The salvors could have to find a way to lighten the vessel’s enormous weight so that it can be pulled to a less obstructive position. At the moment, it’s blocking the path of more than 100 vessels.

      The canal handles something like 10% of seaborne trade, spanning everything from finished goods to oil, gas, and dry-bulk commodities. And those cargoes aren’t flowing while the Ever Given is stuck.

      The process of making the ship lighter means removing things like the ballast water, which helps keep ships steady when they’re at sea. Fuel will probably have to be unloaded too, Schuttavaer said.


      The stuck Ever Given container ship in the Suez Canal on March 25.
      Source: Suez Canal Authority

      In a worst-case scenario, it could be that some of the carrier’s containers — usually filled with everything from furniture to televisions — may have to be taken off. How long that process lasts would depend on how much equipment is around to do the heavy lifting. It can often involve flying in helicopters to remove the crates one by one.

      SMIT was due to fly an 8-person team in at dawn Thursday local time to board and inspect the vessel and the grounding. A big part of the initial underwater assessment is how much the banks slope at that point in the canal. Japan’s Nippon Salvage Co. has also been hired to assist in the re-floating, according to a person familiar with the matter.

      Such teams are usually led by a salvage master, often a former captain or someone with knowledge of the industry, but can also include divers, welders and crane operators, according to Joseph Farrell III, director of business development at Resolve Marine, another company that offers salvage services. He declined to comment specifically on the Ever Given.

      Stern Test
      Pictures now seen across the globe of the vessel spread fully across the canal, point to the first major hurdle. It ran aground both at the front and at the back, almost perpendicular to the canal walls. That’s leaving very little room to simply tow it away from either end, SMIT says.

      For now, the focus is on dredging around the vessel. The canal authority has dispatched two of its dredgers, the Mashor and the 10th of Ramadan, to remove sand from underwater before rescuers attempt to pull it. From the shore, excavators are also working around the vessel. Western shipping experts who analysed photos of the Ever Given calculated that her protruding bulb was as much as 5 meters buried into the canal wall.


      The container vessel MV Ever Given blocks the Suez Canal on March 24.
      Source: Planet Labs Inc. via AP Photo

      Not everything in the grounding has been bad news. One thing that’s likely to make the process easier is that the ship has gotten itself stuck in sand, rather than rock. More malleable material around the Ever Given should make for a slightly smoother escape.

      There are already tug boats around the ship working to help with its removal, but with such a giant vessel, bigger ones with more horsepower are usually needed. Crews are hoping that periods of higher tide over the next few days will be conducive to helping free the Ever Given.

      Until then, the world’s commodity and maritime markets — and the world trade they serve — will be left hanging, waiting on the professionals to help shift a 200,000-ton ship.

      There’s only a few companies in the world that do what we do,” said Farrell. “It’s a challenge, the container ships are always the biggest jobs.

    • Suez Canal could be blocked for weeks by ’beached whale’ ship | Reuters
      https://www.reuters.com/article/egypt-suezcanal-ship-int-idUSKBN2BH0BP

      A huge container ship blocking the Suez Canal like a “beached whale” may take weeks to free, the salvage company said, as officials stopped all ships entering the channel on Thursday in a new setback for global trade.

      The 400 metre Ever Given, almost as long as the Empire State Building is high, is blocking transit in both directions through one of the world’s busiest shipping channels for oil and refined fuels, grain and other trade linking Asia and Europe.

      Late on Thursday, dredgers were still working to remove thousands of tonnes of sand from around the ship’s bow.

      The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said earlier that nine tugs were working to move the vessel, which got stuck diagonally across the single-lane southern stretch of the canal on Tuesday morning amid high winds and a dust storm.

      We can’t exclude it might take weeks, depending on the situation,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, one of two rescue teams trying to free the ship, told the Dutch television programme “Nieuwsuur”.

      A total of 206 large container ships, tankers carrying oil and gas, and bulk vessels hauling grain have backed up at either end of the canal, according to tracking data, creating one of the worst shipping jams seen for years.

      The blockage comes on top of the disruption to world trade already caused in the past year by COVID-19, with trade volumes hit by high rates of ship cancellations, shortages of containers and slower handling speeds at ports.

      The world’s number one line A.P. Moller Maersk said it was considering diverting vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, adding five to six days to the journey between Asia and Europe. It said time-sensitive cargo could be sent on trains and airplanes, although no decisions had yet been made.

      “ENORMOUS WEIGHT”
      The SCA, which had allowed some vessels to enter the canal in the hope the blockage could be cleared, said it had temporarily suspended all traffic on Thursday. Maersk said in a customer advisory it had seven vessels affected.

      Berdowski said the ship’s bow and stern had been lifted up against either side of the canal.

      Explainer: How a giant container ship is blocking the Suez Canal
      It is like an enormous beached whale. It’s an enormous weight on the sand. We might have to work with a combination of reducing the weight by removing containers, oil and water from the ship, tug boats and dredging of sand.

      Dredging work to remove 15,000-20,000 cubic metres of sand surrounding the bow continued after dark on Thursday, in coordination with the team from Boskalis subsidiary Smit Salvage, the SCA said.

      The dredging work, which began on Wednesday evening and has involved two dredgers, aims to return the ship to a draft of 12-16 metres at which it could be refloated, the authority said.

      (Graphic: Suez blockade - )

      Japanese shipowner Shoei Kisen apologised for the incident and said work on freeing the ship, which was heading to Europe from China, “has been extremely difficult” and it was not clear when the vessel would float again.

      Another official with knowledge of the operation said that was likely to take days. “If you end up in the scenario that you have to remove cargo then you are looking at a time consuming exercise,” he said, declining to be named.

      A higher tide due on Sunday may help the rescue efforts.

      However, the Egyptian meteorological authority is also warning of a “disruption of marine navigation” due to an expected sea storm on Saturday and Sunday, with winds forecast to reach up to 80 kph (50 mph) and waves up to 6 metres high along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez.

      Roughly 30% of the world’s shipping container volume transits through the 193 km (120 mile) Suez Canal daily, and about 12% of total global trade of all goods.

      Slideshow ( 5 images )

      Every port in Western Europe is going to feel this,” Leon Willems, a spokesman for Rotterdam Port, Europe’s largest, said. “We hope for both companies and consumers that it will be resolved soon.

      CONTAINER CRUNCH
      Consultancy Wood Mackenzie said the biggest impact was on container shipping, but there were also a total of 16 laden crude and product oil tankers due to sail through the canal and now delayed.

      The tankers were carrying 870,000 tonnes of crude and 670,000 tonnes of clean oil products such as gasoline, naphtha and diesel, it said.

      Russia and Saudi Arabia are the top two exporters of oil through the canal, while India and China are the main importers, oil analytics firm Vortexa said. Consultancy Kpler said the canal accounted for only 4.4% of total oil flows but a prolonged disruption would complicate flows of Russian and Caspian oil to Asia and oil from the Middle East into Europe.

      The impact on oil prices has been limited so far as the destination of most oil tankers is Europe, where demand is currently weaker due to a new round of lockdowns. [O/R]

      The deputy managing director of Germany’s BDI industry association, Holger Loesch, expressed concern, saying earlier shipping holdups were already affecting output, especially in industries depending on raw materials or construction supplies.

      About 16% of Germany’s chemicals imports arrive by ship via the Suez canal and the chief economist for the association of German chemicals and pharmaceuticals producers VCI, Henrik Meincke, said they would be affected with every day of blockage.

      The owner and insurers face claims totalling millions of dollars even if the ship is refloated quickly, industry sources said on Wednesday. Shoei Kisen said the hull insurer of the group is MS&AD Insurance Group while the liability insurer is UK P&I Club.

    • Canal de Suez : le navire débloqué ce samedi soir ? - Monde - Le Télégramme
      https://www.letelegramme.fr/monde/canal-de-suez-le-navire-debloque-ce-samedi-soir-27-03-2021-12726032.php


      Le porte-conteneurs est bloqué depuis mardi dans le canal de Suez.
      Photo EPA

      Le navire qui empêche la navigation sur le canal de Suez depuis mardi pourrait être débloqué ce samedi soir, a déclaré son propriétaire.

      Yukito Higaki, le propriétaire du porte-conteneurs qui obstrue depuis mardi le canal de Suez, a dit avoir bon espoir que le navire soit débloqué dès ce samedi soir, alors que des jours voire des semaines étaient précédemment évoqués. « Nous sommes en train d’éliminer les sédiments, avec des outils de dragage supplémentaires », a déclaré vendredi Higaki, le président de la compagnie japonaise Shoei Kisen. Il a dit espérer un déblocage du Ever Given pour « demain (samedi) soir », c’est-à-dire dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche au Japon. « Le navire ne prend pas l’eau. Il n’y a aucun problème avec ses gouvernails et ses hélices. Une fois qu’il aura été renfloué, il devrait pouvoir fonctionner », a ajouté le dirigeant.

      10 % du commerce maritime international
      La société mandatée pour le « sauvetage » de l’Ever Given s’était auparavant montrée plus prudente, évoquant « des jours voire des semaines » pour assurer le déblocage du navire et la reprise du trafic sur le canal qui voit passer 10 % du commerce maritime international, selon des experts.

      Depuis mercredi, l’Autorité égyptienne du canal de Suez (SCA) tente de dégager ce navire de plus de 220 000 tonnes et d’une longueur équivalente à quatre terrains de football, coincé dans le sud du canal, à quelques kilomètres de la ville de Suez. Une opération menée vendredi par la SCA avec l’aide de remorqueurs « n’a pas réussi », a indiqué la Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), compagnie basée à Singapour qui assure la gestion technique du navire. « Deux remorqueurs (égyptiens) supplémentaires de 220 à 240 tonnes » doivent arriver d’ici dimanche pour une nouvelle tentative, selon cette société.

    • Mega-ship in Suez Canal moved ’80%’ in right direction
      https://news.yahoo.com/ever-given-ship-suez-canal-051538431.html

      The Ever Given was turned away from the bank of Suez Canal on Monday, raising hopes it could be soon be refloated

      la poupe a pu être dégagée, semble-t-il.
      il va falloir hâler fort en arrière pour dégager la proue (et le bulbe, bien planté…)

    • MV Ever Given Partially Refloated in Suez; Ship Still Blocking Canal – gCaptain
      https://gcaptain.com/mv-ever-given-partially-refloated-in-suez-ship-still-blocking-canal


      Screen shot shows the position of the MV Ever Given following reports that the ship had been refloated. Taken Mar 23, 04:17 UTC.
      Credit: VesselFinder.com

      The giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal has been at least partially refloated, the first step toward getting one of the world’s most important trade arteries moving again.

      The Ever Given was successfully refloated at about 4:30 a.m. local time in Egypt and the vessel is currently being secured, maritime services provider Inchcape Shipping Services said in an email. It followed a new attempt to dislodge the ship involving 10 tug boats, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

      There was no immediate clarity on the crucial question of when traffic in the canal will restart. The ship has a damaged hull and it’s not clear how soon it will be able to clear the way for other vessels to pass.