If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence. Yes the captain has ultimate authority, but the port authority also has intimate knowledge of this region, and thus the weather and it's capabilities. We can only know more there after the investigation.
On the other hand, the Suez Canal has had a lot of time to even begin construction of a second canal on the southern stretch and hasn't. I'm sure now they will consider that a higher priority as if this block happened further north where there are two canal lanes this wouldn't have been as big an issue.
I agree that reparations for the actual true cost of the salvage are due -- the cost of the tugboats, the dredger etc, but to pay damages on lost revenue due to a freak weather occurrence (if that was the case) and the lack of the Suez Canal to build out their infrastructure is disagreeable to say the least.
It's most probably just for show, as they'd have a tough time of actually finding them guilty considering the state of the canal. They'll bluster about huge damages, then "settle for an undisclosed amount" which is realistically more like just the costs of the fix itself, and maybe a bit extra for compensation.
Absolutely. They see an opportunity to make some revenue, and they will. This is, in the nicest possible way, the way business is done in Egypt. You start from an absolutely outrageous position, and settle on something both parties are generally happy with. This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it.
You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.
It has nothing to do with cultural reasons. Every lawsuit in the U.S. and other places does the exact same thing, claim very high numbers, then perhaps settle for much less.
Yes - my business provided ecommerce infrastructure for a major Egyptian brand. The negotiations were... actually rather fun. It all started by phone and email, they tried to rip us off, we poked fun at their attempts, and returned in kind. Ultimately I flew out to Alexandria and after an afternoon of Very Serious Business we shook on it, and became best friends.
Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.
Perhaps I'm making too many assumptions, but wouldn't such a lawsuit be filed in an Egyptian court? It could be very easy to find them guilty. In the article the port authority is already holding the ship hostage for the money, and they could easily bar Evergreen from using the canal if they don't pay up. What motivation do they have to negotiate?
I doubt that the contract between the company operating the ship and the canal authority includes the settlement of disputes in Egyptian court. If it goes this way, the company may seek for compensation abroad - this will damage the reputation of Egypt and result in a very long and difficult litigations everywhere around the world.
Besides that, new risks associated to this route may push shippers to look more closely to an alternative route. Northern route is much shorter, does not have vessel size limits and it becomes more easier to navigate with global warming. It's not hard to imagine ice class nuclear merchant ships carrying 30-40k TEU there in 10 years.
I imagine that it's not so much the "nuclear ship" part as much as it is the "nuclear merchant ship" part. Of course you can build big nuclear-powered vessels. But how many governments are willing to part with enough uranium to power such a vessel? Civilian use of nuclear material is extremely restricted and enforcement of maritime law is already something of a problem area due to how international the whole thing is.
Well, Russia already operates such fleet and generally considers it as the only feasible way to go with Northern route - to break ice you need a lot of power. I'm pretty sure China won't see a problem with admitting such vessels in their ports or even operating some on their own. With Northern route it's the only way to go in next 50 years, while Arctic is still fully freezing.
I'm not convinced Egypt's reputation matters much when a company is calculating whether to go through the Suez Canal vs. around South Africa? As long as the Suez is substantially cheaper, the only effect of this kind of tail risk will be in the cost of insurance.
They do have contracts and Terms of Service when there's a six figure number involved just to cross the channel. How the contracts are judged could indeed be a matter of jurisdiction, but the terms wont be nice to begin with.
At one billion I reckon its a matter of foreign relation so they won't be ripped off in a dark back alley.
And in return they receive protection from other claimants, who will have to bear their own risks no doubt.
Especially if it was force majeure as the GP implied.
Evergreen is also probably facing liabilities from affected customers if the cargo were to never reach it's destination. It would apparently create the need for whoever is receiving the goods to perhaps negotiate with Egypt separately in such an event.
My guess is that if Egypt decides to push responsibility entirely on the ship's owners and operators then it would open itself up to more vocal criticism from other customers afraid of also being sued for mistakes caused by Suez being unfit.
> it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence.
Yes. It is. And to be insured against it happening. So at this stage the Egyptian authorities don't necessarily know who they are picking a fight with.
I disagree. The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority because of their knowledge of the port at hand.
If there was a sandstorm with strong winds that pushed the ship aground what could the captain do? Dismiss the pilot and gain control of an already out-of-control ship? The pilots know more about this area, so before the point of no return the captain, I'd imagine, would trust their judgement. Remember: pilots from port authority's are experts about the ports they pilot through.
Also, the pilots are not meteorologists and even if they were how many times does your local weather station, or mine, or anyone else's, get the weather forecast wrong.
Huge ships of this size have so much momentum that I'd imagine as a captain or a pilot or anyone else who works in the bridge concerning the ships movement has to plan dozens of minutes and kilometres in advance. Want to stop the ship? That requires about 3 Km of runway. Want to turn around? About a 2 Km radius of turn space required. That's a lot of planning. By the time the ship is definitely running aground it's too late to do anything about it and before then the best the captain can do is "umm" and "ahh" every decision the pilots are making.
Yes there should be an insurance claim but it's not against the Ever Given it should be against this freak weather event much like how if a tornado blows a house down you have a claim for a natural disaster and not a claim against your local council you live in.
>The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority
This isn't quite true and has to be worded carefully to explain how responsibility is assigned.
The ship is not allowed permission to come into port/harbor/canal without a local pilot on board. That's very different from relinquishing control to the local pilot.
The local pilot acts more like an advisor and guide for navigation but the ship's helmsman & captain still retain physical control of the ship's speed and steering.
From the reports I read of this specific Ever Given incident, the local guide pilot didn't command the helmsman to speed up to 13 knots. The ship's captain is still ultimately responsible for what happens.
Does that mean that even when I'm required to use the local pilot, he still can't be blamed for things going wrong?!? Yes, that's how it works. The ship has no choice of not accepting that deal if it wants access to that port.
EDIT : I found a video with a chief engineer from a cargo ship explaining maritime responsibility. Deep link: https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s
Think of pilots like the air traffic controller in a airport
The pilots don't drive anything. they are only supposed to advice on local geography and weather etc.
Most experienced captains will basically ignore them and keep them in their cabins for the journey in crossing the suez.
The system is inherited from hundreds of years maritime practice, back in those days pilots were essential to maneuver through local complexities in geography and weather, and were bribed for better service/smuggling etc.
Giving bribes in ports is very old practice even the US navy got into hot water recently in Asia for it.
> I disagree. The captain of the ship relinquishes control to the pilots from the port authority because of their knowledge of the port at hand.
I thought these where on board in advisory, hands-off-controls roles only.
So the real fight will happen around the cabin logs and recordings, to whether the ship pilot followed all the advisor pilots demands or not, and even then it is going a long, complicate mess to pin down responsabilities.
But the log will eventually surface and these will be super interesting.
>> He said in a phone interview with a pro-government TV talk show that the amount takes into account the salvage operation, costs of stalled traffic, and lost transit fees for the week that the Ever Given had blocked the Suez Canal. <<
It makes no sense for the lost transit fees to be paid by the insurance companies as most vessels waited the 6-day period and then got to traverse the canal with some days in delay (so Egypt still got that money).
In the end the claim seems exaggerate and might be indicative of Egypt's lack of focus on long term relations. It's one thing to pay 500'000 USD for a passage, but if I know that I have a 0.05% probability of paying 1 billion dollars (which is another 500'000 USD expected payout on average) then surrounding Africa without any fees is all of a sudden a lot more attractive.
The number may have been chosen for legal reasons. Here in Ontario, we have no fault insurance, but if you're in an accident with another car from out-of-province, and you caused the accident, you/your insurance will be sued for $10M. It'll always be $10M, because that's the maximum that can be awarded; if you did $3000 in damage and they ask for $3000, then $3000 is the most they can get, but if they ask for $3000 in damages and $9,997,000 in punitive damages... they'll probably still get $3000, but they might more, so why not?
I really wish it was named something else, because it causes all sorts of confusion:
> A common misconception about no-fault insurance is that insurance companies won't determine who is at fault after an accident. However, this isn't the case. According to the Ontario Insurance Act, in every accident with multiple drivers, insurance companies must always assign a percentage of fault to each driver involved. Other provinces have similar laws.
> No-fault insurance simply means your insurance company will handle your claim and pay your damages regardless of who is determined to be at fault for causing the collision. The other person’s insurance company will do the same.
> It makes no sense for the lost transit fees to be paid by the insurance companies as most vessels waited the 6-day period and then got to traverse the canal with some days in delay (so Egypt still got that money).
Except during those six days no ships went through, and so no revenues were collect. That is, Egypt could have gotten more revenue if no ships were delayed—and remember some ships started going around Cape Horn in South Africa.
It's about the 'opportunity cost' of the blockage.
So is the opportunity cost 6 days of outage or maybe 0.2 days since most of the traffic was just delayed rather than Re-routed?
Also I am not a lawyer, but if I were one, I would wonder if there have been previous outages like this and how has that cost been recovered? And how many times has the canal delayed the ships anyways and not paid them?
Also would the canal pay from this money the ships that were delayed as they were also an affected party.
The super short summary is that they say a further expansion is not necessary. Even the previous one wasn't needed an hasn't brought in the benefits they had hoped/promised.
This is a slightly complicated issue: the ship was being piloted so the person with the authority is basically the pilot (someone who’s job is to take ships through the canal but not anywhere else). The captain can order the pilot off the ship (and then take control) but not much else. And doing that in the middle of a sandstorm would probably not be so clever.
I can't find the quote, but I recall one ship captain saying in the multiple decades he'd been transiting, he'd never had the Suez Canal pilots leave their crew quarters between start and finish.
I dont hear this being a once-in-a-century sandstorm.
This may not be a recurring ocurrence precisely because weather-induced groundings on that zone are particularly strange, because its not an area with weather that can impair a bih ship cruising by
> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence.
The second part of your sentence does not follow from the first part. If you have a large storm every with low but non-zero probability (and, actually, a higher probability than 1/(36575) given the weather conditions, let's say 1/(4075) = 1/3000) - then the parties to the agreement regarding the use of the canal need to plan for this contingency; and I assume the contract governs who has responsibility for such planning: The canal for salvages/re-floating, or the ships for being able to maintain buoyancy even in this kind of conditions.
In other words: The point is not to predict the occurrence, it's to be ready for when it occurs.
> If the Ever Given really was ran aground to due a once-in-a-75-year-sandstorm then it's hardly the fault of either the captain or the port authority to predict such a freak weather occurrence.
An interesting hypothesis that I ran across (on gCaptain? blancolirio?) is that it may actually have been a wind lull that caused the issue.
There was supposedly a steady cross wind in the area in question, and given the ship is 400m long and 13 storeys high, that's a lot of area. The wind seems to have been coming from the west/port-side, so the ship had rudder to port to counteract the pushing to starboard/east.
When the wind dropped suddenly, the pushing-to-starboard force suddenly disappeared, and so the steering to port all of a sudden became 'unnecessary' and if it was not corrected soon enough may have been the reason why the ship steered to port and into the channel wall.
Just an hypothesis though.
I'm sure a sorts of folks will be looking at the sensor logs.
I wonder if the Canal authority has any kind of instruments along the route to measure conditions. If not, they should consider it. Perhaps set up some "buoys" on land next to the channel that broadcast things out via AIS so pilots and captains can see things on their chart plotters.
Even with modern weather prediction technology and windsocks, it can happen that airplane encounter very unexpected wind drafts up or down during takeoff or landing. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
Here [1] is a link from the Financial Times that talks about the hypothesis you mention, where a combination of a lull in the wind and the bank effect pushed the bow of the ship away from the bank while pulling the stern in.
The Egyptian armed forces are in a very good position to keep the ship in the great bitter lake as long as they want, question is, what's the value of the cargo onboard?
Never. The Egyptian government could simply issue itself a letter of marque. But a country impounding a ship while it is within its sovereign territory over unpaid fees would never be considered piracy anyway.
Whatever been said on Egyptian TVs is mostly directed to Egyptians, as on going government propaganda, it does not reflect what will really happen for those cases.
When they say "Standard Arabic propaganda show", they're speaking from personal experience. Calm down with your racism accusations -- that shit's dangerous.
Edit: just to one more thing... Yes Egypt is in theory in control of the Suez canal. But legaly they are just an operator operating under colonial rule. They never fully nationalized the Suze after the 57 wars.
Ok, sorry for saying that. It was wrong of me to assume a comment like that came from a European or American and was driven by bias and I apologise for doing so.
My wider point was that it's just politicians being politicans and happens everywhere, whether it's in Egypt, the UK, France, America, Brazil, China, the US, or Libya. Few governments ever want to admit weakness.
As for still being a colonial property, that ship sailed when we humiliatingly were forced to end the Suez war, and pretty much marked the end of the UK as a super-power. It's never going to be in UK hands again.
In the end someone said that what we all do in the comment section is basically a self monologue, I do the same, and the more I realize that more nicer we would be in textual discord ;)
You are correct, politicians will be politicians. Problem is that arabic politicians are so driven by archaic traditional means like bloodlines and honor, that sometimes I wonder if it is as obvious for a person with non-arabic background as it is for a everyone else.
The problem with arabic governments is that they are, firsty, not really democratic, no matter what is being said. Second, alot of governence revolves around tradional and party relegious norms. Watch an Arabic debate on TV about homesexuality...
And third. They last for a very short time in comparison to the countries in power over them (France, GB, US)
There is alot of social and relational ties that end up being very important for people in power. In turn this translate to alot of "actions" that are easily seen as just a show from an Arabic perspective.
The problem for me arises of how far from what is said the final result would be, because most of it will be dictated by bribery in internal dealings.
It doesn't matter where someone comes from when commenting on the internet, you chose to assume racist intentions.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. - HN Guidelines
The comment may seem flippant—yet, having been a boarding clerk on a vessel ship captains would often offer cigarettes and scotch to save themselves some trouble.
Can anyone qualified explain how this could be the shipper's fault? I understood the canal requires (extremely expensive) pilots supplied by the canal authority aboard for any passage. It's mentioned in the article:
> Bernhard Schulte has said previously that two Egyptian canal pilots were aboard when the ship got stuck. Such an arrangement is customary to guide vessels through the narrow waterway, but the ship’s captain retains ultimate authority, according to experts.
Remember that Egypt is a hopelessly corrupt developing country. It doesn't really matter who is at fault. The matter would be decided by an Egyptian court where the judge will rubberstamp whatever narrative and claim the government wants to present.
Remember that Egypt nationalized (stole) the canal in the first place from the UK. The only reason they were not bombed to oblivion was that it suited US goals of further humiliating former European imperial powers after WWII. Egypt operates tha canal as spoils of war and their only real concern would be if shippers begun considering the risks of relying on the Suez authorities higher than going through the Horn of Africa.
I am only saying that if the canal was still UK property we could probably at least rely on the courts to impartially decide who is at fault. People don't realize things don't operate the same way in 3rd world countries as they do in the West.
Now the fault lies at where ever Egypt says it does. The only recourse is to hope they are lenient enough to not spook other maritime freight operators.
I doubt Suez Canal disputes are adjudicated by some local court out in the the desert. It's either some special tribunal with at least some internationally recognised expertise. Or, most likely, a binding arbitration committee at Loyd's of London.
> I am only saying that if the canal was still UK property we could probably at least rely on the courts to impartially decide who is at fault. People don't realize things don't operate the same way in 3rd world countries as they do in the West.
Hey now! As a European, we've gone through a lot of grief due to Britain's wish to feel special. Let's try being consistent, at least:
the British are salty over losing an Empire. They're also the only ones where that term is appropriate.
The French are fine since they got to keep Camus and Couscous.
The Belgians never did any colonialising, brutal or otherwise. No, sir. Nothing to see here. If you insist otherwise, yours must be a Heart of Darkness.
The Germans are sorry about that Genocide, as well.
Nasser paid full compensation for shareholders based on the share price of the company on the Paris Stock Exchange, as he had said he would before the nationalisation.[1] So this was not much different to the nationalisation of companies in the UK that had been happening around the same period,[2] or to the compulsory sales that happen even now in the US.[3]
> only reason they were not bombed to oblivion was that it suited US goals
There was also the Soviet threat against the UK and its allies in the war.
The only reason Egypt was not bombed into oblivion is that the colonial powers tried a weak ass illegal move in 1956 that spectacularly and humiliatingly failed, after triumphantly killing a bunch of civilians off course.
I'm not a fan of Arab governments but this comment reads like an angsty 14-year-old nostalgic for the empire they learned about in school.
Not sure of the angle for claiming on "costs of stalled traffic" (is that lost revenue?), surely the brunt of that loss is on the commercial concerns of the boat operators themselves?
If $1bn were the 'true costs' then clearly there are a lot of costs in running the canal over a year. It seems like the number is highly inflated, on face value. Not an expert, just an observation.
Why does Google have to f.-up the back button? And then they pat themselves on the back for being on the vanguard of web development (I’m on Safari on an iPhone SE).
I am shocked to see Google use that dark pattern. I even assumed for a second that I was on some kind of fake site that appeared like Google but wasn’t actually them.
I'm not being snarky; can you just make it explicit in your comment instead of leaving a vague comment linking to something that takes 15-20 minutes to read?
Is there a good resource that could make someone not knowing anything about cricket understand it to a level that watching a game would be enjoyable, without spending ages on learning what it is about?
It’s a report on a cruiser yacht’s experience passing through the canal, which among other things concludes the level of baksheesh and Marlboros involved is excessive compared to elsewhere nearby.
Maritime insurance doesn’t usually cover some freak weather (acts of God). It is too risky for the insurer to have large amounts of their book exposed to the same event. I’m not sure if this sandstorm counts as an act of God, but $1B to Egypt for a canal blockage probably pales in comparison to the claims that might be made against late-delivery insurance. It is probably those claims which insurers are most worried about, and those claims which they want to dismiss as due to acts of God (but the cause of “ship blocking canal” feels to me even less like an act of God than “big sandstorm”)
The Church would then refer them to Genesis 3:6, which led to the decision in Genesis 3:16-19, as that breach of covenant by mankind is the original cause of our continuing hardship. They'd then go ahead and cite all the additional breaches of covenant.
> The average size of most vessels has increased exponentially over the last 15 years. The ability to salvage these bigger ships has not," said Peter Townsend, a marine insurance industry veteran.
Well - Either you allow gigantic ships that have this risk through, and set aside cash for when shit like this eventually happens - Or you don't allow them through at all. Learn how to budget for your risk profile.
Damn right they should. That fcukinig indian crew really stunk up the place with their erratic route and deliberate ramming of the ship. Those people literally stink.
- The ship had, as required, two pilots on board at the time. These are agents of the canal and have ultimate authority during the passage.
- the loss in fees seems far smaller, and can easily be counted by the numbers of ships that went the long way around.
- I doubt the salvage operation got close to that cost. There just isn't enough equipment to lease to run up a billion in four days or so., even counting stuff that may have never arrived
- Egypt still knows it's French. Force Majeur should ring a bell.
That being said, I wonder if it matters? They could have the right, or at least the power, to simply refuse passage to all vessels operated by the company. Egypt is probably party to some international agreement precluding arbitrary decision in that regard for political reasons. But they'd obviously be allowed to do so for vessels not paying the regular fee. This case would seem to resemble the latter more than the former?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 197 ms ] threadOn the other hand, the Suez Canal has had a lot of time to even begin construction of a second canal on the southern stretch and hasn't. I'm sure now they will consider that a higher priority as if this block happened further north where there are two canal lanes this wouldn't have been as big an issue.
I agree that reparations for the actual true cost of the salvage are due -- the cost of the tugboats, the dredger etc, but to pay damages on lost revenue due to a freak weather occurrence (if that was the case) and the lack of the Suez Canal to build out their infrastructure is disagreeable to say the least.
Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it.
You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.
Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.
Besides that, new risks associated to this route may push shippers to look more closely to an alternative route. Northern route is much shorter, does not have vessel size limits and it becomes more easier to navigate with global warming. It's not hard to imagine ice class nuclear merchant ships carrying 30-40k TEU there in 10 years.
This is very hard for me to imagine.
Imagine one of these with stuff on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
The only question is if it is economically viable at current level of technology.
At one billion I reckon its a matter of foreign relation so they won't be ripped off in a dark back alley.
And in return they receive protection from other claimants, who will have to bear their own risks no doubt.
Especially if it was force majeure as the GP implied.
My guess is that if Egypt decides to push responsibility entirely on the ship's owners and operators then it would open itself up to more vocal criticism from other customers afraid of also being sued for mistakes caused by Suez being unfit.
Yes. It is. And to be insured against it happening. So at this stage the Egyptian authorities don't necessarily know who they are picking a fight with.
If there was a sandstorm with strong winds that pushed the ship aground what could the captain do? Dismiss the pilot and gain control of an already out-of-control ship? The pilots know more about this area, so before the point of no return the captain, I'd imagine, would trust their judgement. Remember: pilots from port authority's are experts about the ports they pilot through.
Also, the pilots are not meteorologists and even if they were how many times does your local weather station, or mine, or anyone else's, get the weather forecast wrong.
Huge ships of this size have so much momentum that I'd imagine as a captain or a pilot or anyone else who works in the bridge concerning the ships movement has to plan dozens of minutes and kilometres in advance. Want to stop the ship? That requires about 3 Km of runway. Want to turn around? About a 2 Km radius of turn space required. That's a lot of planning. By the time the ship is definitely running aground it's too late to do anything about it and before then the best the captain can do is "umm" and "ahh" every decision the pilots are making.
Yes there should be an insurance claim but it's not against the Ever Given it should be against this freak weather event much like how if a tornado blows a house down you have a claim for a natural disaster and not a claim against your local council you live in.
This isn't quite true and has to be worded carefully to explain how responsibility is assigned.
The ship is not allowed permission to come into port/harbor/canal without a local pilot on board. That's very different from relinquishing control to the local pilot.
The local pilot acts more like an advisor and guide for navigation but the ship's helmsman & captain still retain physical control of the ship's speed and steering.
From the reports I read of this specific Ever Given incident, the local guide pilot didn't command the helmsman to speed up to 13 knots. The ship's captain is still ultimately responsible for what happens.
Does that mean that even when I'm required to use the local pilot, he still can't be blamed for things going wrong?!? Yes, that's how it works. The ship has no choice of not accepting that deal if it wants access to that port.
EDIT : I found a video with a chief engineer from a cargo ship explaining maritime responsibility. Deep link: https://youtu.be/ltdHRdtEHE4?t=3m14s
I dont know much about ships, but thanksfully on land law doesnt work that wY
The pilots don't drive anything. they are only supposed to advice on local geography and weather etc.
Most experienced captains will basically ignore them and keep them in their cabins for the journey in crossing the suez.
The system is inherited from hundreds of years maritime practice, back in those days pilots were essential to maneuver through local complexities in geography and weather, and were bribed for better service/smuggling etc.
Giving bribes in ports is very old practice even the US navy got into hot water recently in Asia for it.
I thought these where on board in advisory, hands-off-controls roles only.
So the real fight will happen around the cabin logs and recordings, to whether the ship pilot followed all the advisor pilots demands or not, and even then it is going a long, complicate mess to pin down responsabilities.
But the log will eventually surface and these will be super interesting.
Besides such interactions do not need to be conducted on the bridge at all.
Lot more likely the insurance company will negotiate for actual salvage plus some compensation to the government, plus few palms will be greased.
It makes no sense for the lost transit fees to be paid by the insurance companies as most vessels waited the 6-day period and then got to traverse the canal with some days in delay (so Egypt still got that money).
In the end the claim seems exaggerate and might be indicative of Egypt's lack of focus on long term relations. It's one thing to pay 500'000 USD for a passage, but if I know that I have a 0.05% probability of paying 1 billion dollars (which is another 500'000 USD expected payout on average) then surrounding Africa without any fees is all of a sudden a lot more attractive.
I really wish it was named something else, because it causes all sorts of confusion:
> A common misconception about no-fault insurance is that insurance companies won't determine who is at fault after an accident. However, this isn't the case. According to the Ontario Insurance Act, in every accident with multiple drivers, insurance companies must always assign a percentage of fault to each driver involved. Other provinces have similar laws.
> No-fault insurance simply means your insurance company will handle your claim and pay your damages regardless of who is determined to be at fault for causing the collision. The other person’s insurance company will do the same.
* https://www.insurancehotline.com/resources/no-fault-insuranc...
There are legislated rules on determining fault in the most common cases:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Fault_Determination_Ru...
Except during those six days no ships went through, and so no revenues were collect. That is, Egypt could have gotten more revenue if no ships were delayed—and remember some ships started going around Cape Horn in South Africa.
It's about the 'opportunity cost' of the blockage.
Also I am not a lawyer, but if I were one, I would wonder if there have been previous outages like this and how has that cost been recovered? And how many times has the canal delayed the ships anyways and not paid them?
Also would the canal pay from this money the ships that were delayed as they were also an affected party.
The game can be played from multiple sides.
(Probably unfortunately behind a PayWall)
The super short summary is that they say a further expansion is not necessary. Even the previous one wasn't needed an hasn't brought in the benefits they had hoped/promised.
This is a slightly complicated issue: the ship was being piloted so the person with the authority is basically the pilot (someone who’s job is to take ships through the canal but not anywhere else). The captain can order the pilot off the ship (and then take control) but not much else. And doing that in the middle of a sandstorm would probably not be so clever.
Seems most boats that wish to transit have to come prepared with many bribes, and be ready for multiple shakedowns: http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm
Clearly this is Egypt's authorities trying to save face and deflect blame for their failure to provide actual, competent piloting.
I dont hear this being a once-in-a-century sandstorm.
This may not be a recurring ocurrence precisely because weather-induced groundings on that zone are particularly strange, because its not an area with weather that can impair a bih ship cruising by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrgh5sJa-A
The second part of your sentence does not follow from the first part. If you have a large storm every with low but non-zero probability (and, actually, a higher probability than 1/(36575) given the weather conditions, let's say 1/(4075) = 1/3000) - then the parties to the agreement regarding the use of the canal need to plan for this contingency; and I assume the contract governs who has responsibility for such planning: The canal for salvages/re-floating, or the ships for being able to maintain buoyancy even in this kind of conditions.
In other words: The point is not to predict the occurrence, it's to be ready for when it occurs.
--
PS - I've ignored the question of insurance.
An interesting hypothesis that I ran across (on gCaptain? blancolirio?) is that it may actually have been a wind lull that caused the issue.
There was supposedly a steady cross wind in the area in question, and given the ship is 400m long and 13 storeys high, that's a lot of area. The wind seems to have been coming from the west/port-side, so the ship had rudder to port to counteract the pushing to starboard/east.
When the wind dropped suddenly, the pushing-to-starboard force suddenly disappeared, and so the steering to port all of a sudden became 'unnecessary' and if it was not corrected soon enough may have been the reason why the ship steered to port and into the channel wall.
Just an hypothesis though.
I'm sure a sorts of folks will be looking at the sensor logs.
I wonder if the Canal authority has any kind of instruments along the route to measure conditions. If not, they should consider it. Perhaps set up some "buoys" on land next to the channel that broadcast things out via AIS so pilots and captains can see things on their chart plotters.
Here [1] is a link from the Financial Times that talks about the hypothesis you mention, where a combination of a lull in the wind and the bank effect pushed the bow of the ship away from the bank while pulling the stern in.
[1] https://archive.is/pmUEm
> the Ever Given and its some $3.5 billion worth of cargo would not be allowed to leave Egypt
When does it become piracy?
Never. The Egyptian government could simply issue itself a letter of marque. But a country impounding a ship while it is within its sovereign territory over unpaid fees would never be considered piracy anyway.
According to the article, $3.5Bn.
> $3.5 billion worth of cargo
The whole statement was target towards the Egyptian audiance. Standard Arabic propaganda show.
Knowing how things work in Egypt. I bet the whole thing will be settled for a couple of million usd and an undisclosed amount of Marlboro packets...
Who was going to pay for his wall, do you remember? The Mexicans. Did that ever happen? Of course not.
Pick any populist leader and they'll do exactly the same thing.
When they say "Standard Arabic propaganda show", they're speaking from personal experience. Calm down with your racism accusations -- that shit's dangerous.
Where are you getting this information? It doesn't seem to be present in that user's comment history (though maybe my tired eyes ain't seeing it).
Ordinarily this would be called "doxxing" in any case ;)
It's literally at the top of page 2.
And no, that's not doxxing. It's not an identifying detail and it's something someone voluneteered about themselves.
It's perfectly fine to keep people accountable to their comment history and that's not even what's happening here.
Not doxing because I have previously posted it on a public comment related to my Public Id.
I have crossed arbic borders many times. Bribery is basically standard operating procedure.
Bottom line is Egypt will say many things just to "save face".
So off personal experience I wager that the settlement will be off the books...
If it is proven true it is not racist.
https://eu-asia.essca.fr/the-marlboro-canal-or-the-standardi...
Edit: just to one more thing... Yes Egypt is in theory in control of the Suez canal. But legaly they are just an operator operating under colonial rule. They never fully nationalized the Suze after the 57 wars.
My wider point was that it's just politicians being politicans and happens everywhere, whether it's in Egypt, the UK, France, America, Brazil, China, the US, or Libya. Few governments ever want to admit weakness.
As for still being a colonial property, that ship sailed when we humiliatingly were forced to end the Suez war, and pretty much marked the end of the UK as a super-power. It's never going to be in UK hands again.
In the end someone said that what we all do in the comment section is basically a self monologue, I do the same, and the more I realize that more nicer we would be in textual discord ;)
You are correct, politicians will be politicians. Problem is that arabic politicians are so driven by archaic traditional means like bloodlines and honor, that sometimes I wonder if it is as obvious for a person with non-arabic background as it is for a everyone else.
The problem with arabic governments is that they are, firsty, not really democratic, no matter what is being said. Second, alot of governence revolves around tradional and party relegious norms. Watch an Arabic debate on TV about homesexuality...
And third. They last for a very short time in comparison to the countries in power over them (France, GB, US)
There is alot of social and relational ties that end up being very important for people in power. In turn this translate to alot of "actions" that are easily seen as just a show from an Arabic perspective.
The problem for me arises of how far from what is said the final result would be, because most of it will be dictated by bribery in internal dealings.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. - HN Guidelines
They have a bunch of angry pilots on their hands because they spent a whole week not able to collect any bribes.
> Bernhard Schulte has said previously that two Egyptian canal pilots were aboard when the ship got stuck. Such an arrangement is customary to guide vessels through the narrow waterway, but the ship’s captain retains ultimate authority, according to experts.
With tens of thousands of ships making that passage each year, it was bound to happen sometime.
The sandstorm is just an excuse IMO...
Remember that Egypt nationalized (stole) the canal in the first place from the UK. The only reason they were not bombed to oblivion was that it suited US goals of further humiliating former European imperial powers after WWII. Egypt operates tha canal as spoils of war and their only real concern would be if shippers begun considering the risks of relying on the Suez authorities higher than going through the Horn of Africa.
Ah, still salty over European powers losing their imperial holdings?
> The only reason they were not bombed to oblivion
... yeah, I guess so.
Now the fault lies at where ever Egypt says it does. The only recourse is to hope they are lenient enough to not spook other maritime freight operators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Imprisonment_an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
...
the British are salty over losing an Empire. They're also the only ones where that term is appropriate.
The French are fine since they got to keep Camus and Couscous.
The Belgians never did any colonialising, brutal or otherwise. No, sir. Nothing to see here. If you insist otherwise, yours must be a Heart of Darkness.
The Germans are sorry about that Genocide, as well.
Nasser paid full compensation for shareholders based on the share price of the company on the Paris Stock Exchange, as he had said he would before the nationalisation.[1] So this was not much different to the nationalisation of companies in the UK that had been happening around the same period,[2] or to the compulsory sales that happen even now in the US.[3]
> only reason they were not bombed to oblivion was that it suited US goals
There was also the Soviet threat against the UK and its allies in the war.
1. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/suez-affair-highlighted-brit...
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsd68mn/revision/6
3. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-orders-chinese-firm-to-se...
I'm not a fan of Arab governments but this comment reads like an angsty 14-year-old nostalgic for the empire they learned about in school.
If $1bn were the 'true costs' then clearly there are a lot of costs in running the canal over a year. It seems like the number is highly inflated, on face value. Not an expert, just an observation.
Wow. Is that a lot for a ship that size or just standard? Anyone know what it was carrying?
A couple of containers filled with Cpus, Gpus or other small pricy items adds quickly up hundreds of millions of usd.
The Ever Given was carrying around approx. 18 000 containers
So that is an avarage price of around 150 000 usd, per container. That is equal to around 150 iphones. Or 300 ryzen 5950x cpus.
Here is a reference pic to see how much volume are 150 iphones.
https://images.app.goo.gl/gsykpZZcSdQqDD7A9
This is a mind-boggling number, I didn't realize those ships carried so much load. Insurance premiums must be crazy
Passage fees on the Suez can run up to half a million usd for a ship this size.
http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm
I'm not being snarky; can you just make it explicit in your comment instead of leaving a vague comment linking to something that takes 15-20 minutes to read?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_against_God
Well - Either you allow gigantic ships that have this risk through, and set aside cash for when shit like this eventually happens - Or you don't allow them through at all. Learn how to budget for your risk profile.
- The ship had, as required, two pilots on board at the time. These are agents of the canal and have ultimate authority during the passage.
- the loss in fees seems far smaller, and can easily be counted by the numbers of ships that went the long way around.
- I doubt the salvage operation got close to that cost. There just isn't enough equipment to lease to run up a billion in four days or so., even counting stuff that may have never arrived
- Egypt still knows it's French. Force Majeur should ring a bell.
That being said, I wonder if it matters? They could have the right, or at least the power, to simply refuse passage to all vessels operated by the company. Egypt is probably party to some international agreement precluding arbitrary decision in that regard for political reasons. But they'd obviously be allowed to do so for vessels not paying the regular fee. This case would seem to resemble the latter more than the former?