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Suez Canal part 2!


howardang

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25 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Do they not use a canal pilot when in the canal?

It would be very wasteful to send it halfway around the world completely empty.  I thought it had hull damage?

That is what I thought, Thought she was being blacked at the same time 🤣

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33 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

Why would it have any need to go back loaded. What do China need that they can't make locally for a fraction of the price here?

A product to copy in the first place, Cars for a example.

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/dead-ringers-history-chinese-copycat-car

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/87772/chinese-copycat-cars-how-do-they-get-away-with-it

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Dav and Pen said:

It’s going back empty to dry dock in Asia as there is hull damage.

I understand that Lloyds List today reported that she is bound for  Qingdao in China, and then the ultimate destination may well be Singapore for repairs. I believe she may have a part cargo on board. There have been a number of rumours over the last few weeks that bercause of some bottom damage she has had a speed restriction imposed on her- I assume by her classification society - and I see that she has seldom exceeded 12.5 knots since she left the Canal heading for Europe.

 

Howard

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Ah, Qingdao. Hard weather. A decent sports history, big lads who provide many of China’s basketball players and a few soccer stars. More importantly, due to the imperialist era German concession, the home of perhaps the (eponymous) actual best lager anywhere. Pretty readily available at your local specialist.

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5 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

Half the latest Volvos you see on the roads were built in China. As it happens they are not delivered to the UK by sea. They come by rail via Russia. The  Chinese didn't  copy them, to misquote an old TV advertisement they liked them so much  they  bought the company 

Edited by Slim
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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

I noticed this morning that my toothpaste is made in China

All the boxes of NHS lateral flow tests proudly state China as the country of manufacture, Fujian province listed on the one I'm looking at. 

 

Edited to add: they're not 'Lateral flow', they're 'Rapid Antigen Test' kits. We've had to learn a whole new lexicon. Who had ever heard the word 'furlough' before March 2020?

Edited by BilgePump
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21 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

De Lesseps was French, and in French they are the same word

The Suez design was more the work of the Austrian Alois Negrelli who, I think, was also involved with the Corinth Canal. This is his grave in the Centralfriedhof in Vienna.

Alois Negrelli 1.jpg

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15 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

 

Unfortunately this is a legal requirement. And probably the reason why they had an accident last time 🙄

 

Could you expand on that please? Do you know the technicalities of why it happened?

 

I've never seen a peep in the mainstream media explaining why the vessel lost control and steered up the bank. On my NB, going too fast in a narrow and shallow channel makes the boat dive for the bank but somehow, I suspect ships of this size are (usually) better controlled. 

 

Thanks.

 

(My guess has always been some sort of mechanical or systems failure, rather than human failure.)

 

 

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15 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

Or possibly some sort of mechanical or systems failure, combined with human failure.

 

Possibly yes. But it is curious the way no-one seems to know for sure though, and how the media is Just Not Interested. 

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I first went through the Suez in 1959. The pilot was East German and was a Baltic pilot. Apparently when all the old pilots left and the Egyptians took over there were not enough trained local ones so their friends the soviets supplied some of theirs. This man said he was promised his family would be sent so he took the job hoping to get them all out but of course the family never came.

Our captain did not like the Germans after being sunk in WW2 so wouldn’t speak to the pilot all the way through but kept repeating the steering orders to the helmsman . This pilot certainly didn’t get a bottle of scotch or carton of cigarettes as was normal practice.

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46 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Could you expand on that please? Do you know the technicalities of why it happened?

 

I've never seen a peep in the mainstream media explaining why the vessel lost control and steered up the bank. On my NB, going too fast in a narrow and shallow channel makes the boat dive for the bank but somehow, I suspect ships of this size are (usually) better controlled. 

 

For example:

https://splash247.com/damning-report-emerges-of-the-pilots-onboard-the-ever-given/

 

It's quite normal for the idiots that pass for Suez pilots to order "full ahead" without any understanding of the performance of the vessel involved - in some cases on vessels capable of speeds nearing 30 knots. In most cases the master of the ship will just refuse to comply with the pilot, and proceed at a more sensible speed instead. It's not unheard of for pilots to sulk and refuse to do their jobs if the ship's captain refuses to bribe them with cartons of cigarettes.

 

In the case of the Ever Given, the (likely inexperienced) Indian captain has failed to overrule the pilot, leading to excessive speed and exactly the same result as your NB - which, I expect is probably better controlled.

 

Edit: the comments on the article paint a picture by themselves!

Edited by phantom_iv
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