When the Ever Given ran aground in the middle of the Suez Canal this week, blocking the route like a panicked driver in a tight alleyway, it quickly became the butt of countless jokes on the internet.
But the predicament is no laughing matter: it has blocked one of the world’s most important shipping routes, which usually has 12 per cent of global trade passing through it.
A major operation to dislodge the ship is underway, but experts have warned that it could take several weeks to clear the blockage and allow trade flows to return to normal.
The Ever Given’s Japanese owner, however, has suggested that it might be able to free the ship by Saturday evening.
Here we look at the key rescue techniques being used to free the vessel and how long the process is likely to take.
The billion-dollar dilemma
The ship is stuck in the Suez Canal, which passes through Egypt and serves as a crucial shipping corridor for thousands of vessels, connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Ever Given container ship stuck in Suez Canal
The Ever Given is stuck at a diagonal angle between two muddy, sandy banks. Experts say the weight of the vessel and suction has led it to sink deeper into the canal over the past few days.
Global trade has ground to a near halt, forcing many vessels to divert and take much longer, costlier routes to their destination. Some estimates say this could lead to additional costs of up to $10bn.
Ever Given ship stuck in Suez Canal — waiting ships
The vessels which cross through the Suez Canal carry all sorts of goods, but the delays are likely to most severely affect car part deliveries as they rely on "just in time" supply chains.
Option One: Tugboats
Some nine tugboats have already been deployed by the ship’s management company to try to free it from the banks of the Suez Canal.
They are currently pushing and pulling the 400m-long ship with cables in the hopes that it can break off the sandy banks on either side.
Floating the Ever Given container ship — 3 Tug boats
Suez canal, tug boat direction of pull
Two tugboats alongside the Ever Given
Credit: REUTERS
Unfortunately, this method has not met with much success so far. This is because the ship is firmly stuck in sand at both ends, and the tug boats lack the power to pull it free.
This is what prompted rescuers to combine the tugboats with another technique: dredging.
Option Two: Dredging
Those who have been following the Suez fiasco this week will have seen photographs of a digger, dwarfish in size compared to the enormous vessel, working to clear sand mud from the bow.
A digger excavating the bank in an attempt to dislodge the ship
Credit: Suez CANAL/AFP via Getty Images
This was the beginning of a technique called dredging, the process of excavating a canal mechanically, and if successful it will give the ship a bit more room for manoeuvre. Specialist dredging boats have now been brought in to cut away the river bed.
But experts said the structure of the Suez canal has made the dredging a particularly difficult task.
A dredger alongside the stranded container ship
Credit: REUTERS
Floating the Ever Given container ship — 2 Dredging
“The canal has a bathtub-like structure rather than a v-structure,” said Peter Aylott, director of policy at the UK Chamber of Shipping. “That is a problem as it creates suction.”
“At the same time, the vessel clearly has got a lot of weight and then it sinks because the canal is made of sand rather than concrete.”
The combined force of the suction and the weight pushing the ship deeper into the canal is what has made the dredging process so difficult, he explained.
However, there is a third option to which rescuers can resort if the dredging fails.
Option Three: Weight removal
The Ever Given weighs more than 200,000 tonnes and carries up to 20,000 shipping containers, which makes the challenge of dislodging it even greater.
One solution, which would be used alongside tugging and dredging, is to lighten the load by removing its containers with floating cranes and draining the ship’s fuel.
Floating the Ever Given container ship — 1 unloading
But this is a potentially hazardous exercise, one that could damage the vessel or even throw it off balance.
And, if it proves necessary, it will make the process of freeing the ship much more time consuming.
How long will all this take?
According to the experts, it could be anywhere between a few more days – if the dredging is successful — and potentially several more weeks.
However, the Ever Given’s Japanese owners have set themselves the potentially optimistic target of Saturday evening.
"We are continuing work to remove sediment as of now, with additional dredging tools," said Yukito Higaki, the owner of Shoei Kinsei.
Mr Aylott pointed out that the tide was likely to have risen somewhat during this time frame, which could help lift the vessel away from silt and sand.
But he stressed that, if the combination of dredging and tugboats fails, then the Ever Given will not be freed from its sandy, muddy prison for quite some time.
“We will be looking at a couple of weeks potentially,” he said.
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