Photo: Screenshot from Marinetraffic app by Twitter user @MikeSchuler
Remember when a large ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked traffic? Some of us remember it as if it was last week, but it happened more than a year ago. Now, another ship got stuck in the essential shipping corridor, but it did not take that long to set it free. This is what happened.
It all started on the night of August 31st to September 1, 2022, when the Affinity V got stranded in the Suez Canal. Maritime traffic had to be halted because of the 826-foot (252-meter) long oil tanker that was registered in Hong Kong. The vessel was freed after five hours, and it has since been in its navigational course.
It is worth mentioning that the tanker got stuck near the Al Shaid Ahmed Hamdy Northern Tunnel, which is roughly the same place where the Ever Given got stuck when it made the entire world take a closer look at the Suez Canal. In other words, while there were problems in the same place as last time, the situation is better now, but this is a shorter ship, mind you.
Can we get a “whew” as a group? Yes, this is important, because the last time this happened, shipping traffic was affected for months. Even the smallest delay in a process like this has a ripple effect, as schedules need to be kept everywhere these ships go.
It is just as complicated as airline traffic, if not even more complicated if you will, and we have all seen what kind of domino effect can happen if just one large ship blocks traffic in an indispensable transit area.
As gCaptain noted, the oil tanker was freed using the Suez Canal's new tugboats, which were upgraded after the whole Ever Given debacle. Moreover, the Suez Canal Authority has been working on making the Canal wider in some portions, which is meant to allow two-way traffic, at least in those areas.
If there is something to learn from this, as a group, it would be the fact that there are places where you are bound to encounter more problems than on the rest of your trip, and that you need to be prepared to handle those problems without losing your head.
At the same time, authorities need to pay attention to trouble spots in the infrastructure that they manage, and this situation proves why these trouble spots need to be addressed.
In this case, we were all fortunate that the vessel is not as long as the one that got stuck the last time one of these incidents took place, as well as the fact that the Suez Canal is better prepared to handle situations like these than it was before. Sadly, nobody can guarantee that this is not going to happen again, but that is an entirely different story.
It is worth mentioning that the tanker got stuck near the Al Shaid Ahmed Hamdy Northern Tunnel, which is roughly the same place where the Ever Given got stuck when it made the entire world take a closer look at the Suez Canal. In other words, while there were problems in the same place as last time, the situation is better now, but this is a shorter ship, mind you.
Can we get a “whew” as a group? Yes, this is important, because the last time this happened, shipping traffic was affected for months. Even the smallest delay in a process like this has a ripple effect, as schedules need to be kept everywhere these ships go.
It is just as complicated as airline traffic, if not even more complicated if you will, and we have all seen what kind of domino effect can happen if just one large ship blocks traffic in an indispensable transit area.
As gCaptain noted, the oil tanker was freed using the Suez Canal's new tugboats, which were upgraded after the whole Ever Given debacle. Moreover, the Suez Canal Authority has been working on making the Canal wider in some portions, which is meant to allow two-way traffic, at least in those areas.
If there is something to learn from this, as a group, it would be the fact that there are places where you are bound to encounter more problems than on the rest of your trip, and that you need to be prepared to handle those problems without losing your head.
At the same time, authorities need to pay attention to trouble spots in the infrastructure that they manage, and this situation proves why these trouble spots need to be addressed.
In this case, we were all fortunate that the vessel is not as long as the one that got stuck the last time one of these incidents took place, as well as the fact that the Suez Canal is better prepared to handle situations like these than it was before. Sadly, nobody can guarantee that this is not going to happen again, but that is an entirely different story.
twitLooks likes she’s on the move again. Grounding was about 5 hours pic.twitter.com/xpE1ZkqUbT
— Mike Schuler (@MikeSchuler) August 31, 2022
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