Posted on 03/25/2021 5:35:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
Yeh I think 15 people have now pointed that out.
If and when it is possible weather-wise, inch a number of like-sized ships in a row near enough to the stuck ship specifically to hook up to it and daisy chain the free ships together and reverse engines using the combined force of all of the ships in unison to attempt to dislodge the stuck ship. Or back them into position retaining the option to get underway using as much forward power as is necessary.
I’m surprised it is so narrow and hasn’t any plans for widening/expansion especially with all the trade from Asia to Europe. Panama canal has been undergoing major expansion... may be finished by now
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That’s why Communist China wants the West Philippines Sea. That’s why Singapore Navy drills monthly to keep the Singapore Straits (between Singapore and Batam, Indonesia) open - Communist China has plans to capture/control it). Close one or both, plus the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, Communist China will control all shipping except between the US and Europe.
They don’t even have to blow the dam. The Chinese own the company that does the maintenance on the locks.Just disable those. As an aside, my father was stationed in Panama during the Korean war. He used to man the guns on the hill. They were always trained on the locks. They could never understand the point of that. If they fired on a ship in the locks, it would sink thus blocking the canal and putting it out of commission. I wonder if those guns are still there.
Taiwan.
Nice idea, but there are several other ships in the canal that cannot go forward, and are essentially ‘stuck’ in the canal as well.......................
Use the ships that are closest to the stuck ship to pull the ship out of the mud.
tank hulk (Arab) on the banks; remnants, well preserved in the desert environment, left over from the 67 war
They have cleared the ships that were in front and are sending in tugs to help, but they may not be enough..................
As posted earlier, most, and certainly all large, vessels passing through the canal, are not on their own power, but guided by tugs, and with a canal 'pilot' coordinating ship steering with tug operation.
Steering any vessel in constrained waters is an art. Add in some wind and its a challenge. Look at inexperienced boaters trying to load their Nautique Ski craft onto their boat trailer in a wind without rubbing up against the trailer or dock and marking up the hull. The slower you move the harder to maintain a heading. Now amplify that by about 3 or 4 orders of magnitude with a capitol ship hull with a very high cross section to the wind.
Stating: “hook a gigantic ship up to another gigantic ship” isn’t something that is going to be done in some simple fashion even if it is at all possible, taking into count the forces that would be introduced to both ship’s anchoring points. The chains would need to be equally taut distributing the force in an as equitable way as possible so who knows if it is even feasible?
Obviously, it would have to be the ships lined up to the aft of the stuck ship that could be brought into service as giant tugs.
When you are a professional know it all anything is possible. High five! ;0)
The structure of the ship isn’t likely strong enough to be able to hold that much tension. The cargo would have to be unloaded, and it still would be a monumental task............
They would probably be quicker to dredge around the ship, and I would call for high pressure pumps to pump massive amounts of water underneath the ship to loosen the mud, like a dozen or more fire engines....................
Does no one that that region have any missiles or high explosives? Fix that problem in 5 minutes. [/s]
I pilot a ferry boat 6 months out of the year up in the Sierras on a mountain lake, and the weather is always a factor- good or bad. Usually, the hairiest conditions are when the vessel is empty in a crosswind, complicated by a strong snowmelt-fed current, dumping into the docking area.
Taking into consideration the enormous scale of things, the ship is going to need the weather’s cooperation, seeing how weather was the culprit in the first place.
With the enormous financial pressure’s building, I imagine that dredgers are being rushed to the scene and mancamps are being set up to handle a massive logistical response, something on the order of FEMA turning out for a hurricane or a tornado outbreak.
One minor housekeeping chore- put the captain on suicide watch.
Good points. It will no doubt, take all of these things and likely some we haven’t thought of to free this ship anytime soon if that is even possible.
Just unloading the cargo would take weeks..................
Lol
Does that look like rust in being knocked off? When was the last non-destructive test done on that ship? And what flag are they flying under...
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