When the Suez canal was built ships were much smaller. It was built as cheap as possible by just digging an open ended ditch that is affected by tides, and heavy winds. It is 120 miles long and narrow in most places. If emergency locks had been built into it at least in four, or five places tides would not be a problem. Then in a case such as this locks could be closed, and flooded to refloat a stuck ship. That might take a day or two but would be easy. While little is being said about the cause of this grounding the cause is very clear. In a 8 knot speed zone the Captain was traveling at 15 knots (over 18 MPH). A gust of strong wind pushed the ship off course, and because of the speed he was unable to have time to correct. Traffic through the Canal in monitored, and in fact moves by convoys in line. That means the Canal authority not only knew of the excessive speed, but violated their own regulations as the entire convoy had to be speeding. Luckily there wasn't a chain of collisions, so the ships were well spaced. Thank God for that !
A positive spin on this mess, lets just forget about it and ok back to the free donuts krispy creams giving if you get the plan-demon shot. Its good for 1 donutz a day for a year. Homer likey.
When the Suez canal was built ships were much smaller. It was built as cheap as possible by just digging an open ended ditch that is affected by tides, and heavy winds. It is 120 miles long and narrow in most places. If emergency locks had been built into it at least in four, or five places tides would not be a problem. Then in a case such as this locks could be closed, and flooded to refloat a stuck ship. That might take a day or two but would be easy. While little is being said about the cause of this grounding the cause is very clear. In a 8 knot speed zone the Captain was traveling at 15 knots (over 18 MPH). A gust of strong wind pushed the ship off course, and because of the speed he was unable to have time to correct. Traffic through the Canal in monitored, and in fact moves by convoys in line. That means the Canal authority not only knew of the excessive speed, but violated their own regulations as the entire convoy had to be speeding. Luckily there wasn't a chain of collisions, so the ships were well spaced. Thank God for that !
A positive spin on this mess, lets just forget about it and ok back to the free donuts krispy creams giving if you get the plan-demon shot. Its good for 1 donutz a day for a year. Homer likey.