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Do you think the Ever Given was blown by wind, or hacked?

Asked by crazyguy (3207points) March 28th, 2021

As most of you probably know, the Ever Given, a 200,000 ton container ship carrying 20,000 containers, has been blocking the narrow portion of the Suez Canal for about a week now. Normally, about 9–10 billion dollars worth of goods go through the Suez every single day. Not using the Suez Canal adds about a week to the transport.

There have been reports that the ship was allowed to enter the narrow passage in spite of a severe wind storm. See
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/sandstorm-winds-blamed-for-container-ship-fiasco-in-suez-canal

While the storm was severe by Middle East standards, it packed winds of under 50 mph, which means it was barely strong enough to qualify as a tropical storm. However the passage way is narrow, no wider than the length of the stranded ship. Even narrower, if you consider water depth at the sides.

My rough calculation using a total weight of 200,000 tons, length of 1,300 feet and width of 200 feet shows that the ship needs to displace about 25 feet of water. So figure the minimum depth required is 30 ft. Since the canal is shallower at the sides than in the middle, I estimate the canal is about 700 feet wide with adequate depth center for the ship. Allowing such a large ship into the canal during a storm represents either incompetence or bribery to my mind.

The next question is if somebody was desperate to block the canal, would they rely on fickle winds, or would they perhaps take more proactive measures. What I am thinking is possible hacking of the computerized navigation system of the ship.

So my question is: Do you think the ship was hacked or was it just the wind?

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