Suez Canal blocked by stuck cargo ship

EVER GIVEN declares General Average. General Average is interesting under Admiralty Law (again Im not a atty). When shipping first started hundreds of years ago, merchant ships were often lost in storms or groundlings. The concept of GA is that when a ship is in peril, the crew may have to sacrifice some cargo to keep the ship afloat. Rather than decide which cargo gets thrown off the ship, the concept is that even if your cargo is not thrown overboard, you share in the cost of the incident. So in this case it appears EVER GIVEN's thousands of containers contain many "owners", these owners will have to share in the cost of the event. This is unique to merchant shipping admiralty law. One thing for sure...the attys. will get paid.
 
Don't Give Up the Ship said:
EVER GIVEN declares General Average. General Average is interesting under Admiralty Law (again Im not a atty). When shipping first started hundreds of years ago, merchant ships were often lost in storms or groundlings. The concept of GA is that when a ship is in peril, the crew may have to sacrifice some cargo to keep the ship afloat. Rather than decide which cargo gets thrown off the ship, the concept is that even if your cargo is not thrown overboard, you share in the cost of the incident. So in this case it appears EVER GIVEN's thousands of containers contain many "owners", these owners will have to share in the cost of the event. This is unique to merchant shipping admiralty law. One thing for sure...the attys. will get paid.
Click to expand...
You may have seen that the State of Egypt arrested the ship and will hold her until claims are resolved.
 
That's pretty interesting. I may show it to my students, especially the physics class.
 
I read that the owners of Ever Given are blaming it all on wind gusts. The ship had no mechanical issues and the two pilots were both senior chief pilots with 30-plus years of experience. The Captain has the sole responsibility for directing the ship. The pilots can offer their guidance and opinions, but the captain can choose to refuse it. In this case (according to the owners) the Captain and both pilots did everything right and there was no way to get a ship of that size with that many containers stacked on deck to react fast enough to steering movements after the wind gust(s) moved the ship toward the bank. The Ever Given has been through the canal several times before without incident, but never in this weather (dust storms).

That's their story, anyway.
 
THParent said:
I read that the owners of Ever Given are blaming it all on wind gusts. The ship had no mechanical issues and the two pilots were both senior chief pilots with 30-plus years of experience. The Captain has the sole responsibility for directing the ship. The pilots can offer their guidance and opinions, but the captain can choose to refuse it. In this case (according to the owners) the Captain and both pilots did everything right and there was no way to get a ship of that size with that many containers stacked on deck to react fast enough to steering movements after the wind gust(s) moved the ship toward the bank. The Ever Given has been through the canal several times before without incident, but never in this weather (dust storms).

That's their story, anyway.
Click to expand...
No way. I'm not believing it.
 
THParent said:
I read that the owners of Ever Given are blaming it all on wind gusts. The ship had no mechanical issues and the two pilots were both senior chief pilots with 30-plus years of experience. The Captain has the sole responsibility for directing the ship. The pilots can offer their guidance and opinions, but the captain can choose to refuse it. In this case (according to the owners) the Captain and both pilots did everything right and there was no way to get a ship of that size with that many containers stacked on deck to react fast enough to steering movements after the wind gust(s) moved the ship toward the bank. The Ever Given has been through the canal several times before without incident, but never in this weather (dust storms).

That's their story, anyway.
Click to expand...
Well there are several potential issues:

1. Egypt Pilots with 30 years experience does not mean they made no errors (Ive seen many experience mariners make mistakes).
2. Highly likely this was do to human error.
3. Wind is not an excuse...the wind is predictable and should be part of the transit plan
4. Often when there are two Pilots....they don't properly divide duties up and really only one Pilot is working...the other probably eating or reading a newspaper (really). Would be interesting to see the internal procedures for large ships (Suez Canal Authority). You can have 5 Pilots on the bridge...but if duties such as: comms, collision avoidance, conning, are not divided properly...it doesn't help.
5. You can easily loose control of a very large ship like this in a canal-bank cushion/suction. Would be interesting to see if the canal depth, shape is : 1. maintained, 2. designed against a the PIANC standard (standard for ship channels).
6. The wind excuse won't fill my sails.
7. Even though the Master is overall in-charge, he/she is highly dependent on the Pilots conning the ship with skill.

These are all based on not having the actual case facts and having investigated quite a few incidents over the years.

It's likely that even with Pilot error -- the ship is mostly responsible ..because of the Masters Responsibility. Like the courts will hold the ship and pilots each some % responsible. We shall see.

I bet the lawyers get paid before any cargo claims.
 
I completely agree, but it's just my gut feel as well. No other ships were sent into either bank that day, and it was windy for everyone.
Stated simply: That dog won't hunt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top