For six days, the world was obsessed with a big boat. People mistakenly called the boat Evergreen, but that’s the name of the boat company. The boat’s actual name is Ever Given. She’s HUGE. Ever Given is the size of a very big skyscraper. She’s carrying a lot of sh-t too. So she got tired and she wasn’t paying close attention to the narrow passage of the Suez Canal. So this very big boat went cockeyed and got STUCK. All of the king’s horses and all the king’s tugboats could not un-stick this big boat. Live boat-watches were created, breathless boat reporting became a thing and everyone tried to figure out why there only seemed to be one lil’ earthmover on one side of the canal, doing its best to un-stick the big boat. Billions of dollars were lost because of a big, stuck boat. Boat memes flourished. Engineers tried to make sense of what exactly went wrong and what could be done to fix it. Well, guess what? She’s unstuck!!
🚨The Ever Given is floating🚨pic.twitter.com/GNzlzaom8q
— Evan Hill (@evanchill) March 29, 2021
Here’s footage from one of the boats around Ever Given, and you can hear the Egyptian boat crew praising Allah for un-sticking the boat.
BREAKING : EVER GIVEN ship has been UNSTUCK & Moving into #Suez Canal after 6 Days!!
Egyptian crew managed to float it moments ago. It’s 5:42 am there: pic.twitter.com/GoMlYjQerL
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) March 29, 2021
If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering about just what changed, and what feat of engineering solved this crisis. Sorry, I’m an engineer’s daughter, and I like the mechanics of this kind of sh-t! Apparently, it wasn’t any kind of feat of engineering. Yes, Egyptian authorities had crews on land and in water working to physically dislodge the boat, but the biggest factor for dislodging the stuck boat was… the moon and the tides. As the NYT noted: “As water levels swelled overnight, the hours spent digging and excavating millions of tons of earth around the Ever Given paid off as the ship slowly regained buoyancy, according to officials.” As you can also see from the videos, it appears that they’ve been able to move the boat over to one side, so in theory, smaller boats would be able to begin to use the canal. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure it will soon. I mean, they would have to??
— Joel Derig (@ODerigRulez) March 26, 2021
Video of the Ever Green after it has been re-floated in the Suez Canal. Egypt’s Port Authority say passage can restart in the Suez Canal soon. pic.twitter.com/zzyfvLvEu8
— IntelOmarion (@IntelOmarion) March 29, 2021
Photos courtesy of Getty.
My son has been gleefully following this very closely.
Apparently according to accounts from other ships, besides the wind and sandstorm and the fact it was too big for the canal, the ship was going way too fast and cut off another ship on purpose, that’s why it lost control and went sideways.
The guy in control of the canal and the president of egypt are both talking about user error being a huge factor.
Interesting. Makes sense. And presumably the captain has been relieved of his job?
I saw an amazing photo of all the boats waiting to pass through the canal. What a cluster, literally.
I”m an engineer’s daughter as well. We’ve been talking about this all week. My Dad keeps an eye out on live camera feeds from various major ports and the Panama Canal.
As of a hour ago it was sailing up the canal!
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374438210315513864?s=20
Yeah!!! The giant skyscraper ship that could!!!! I have been obsessed with this and my engineer husband could care less. Lol
I’m glad you’re covering this story. I’ve been low-key obsessed with it.