Only about the center third of the channel is actually deep enough for this massive ship. Both ends of the ship is stuck in several meters of sand. So far they've only managed get two bulldozers on to try and dig it out but progress is slow.
Those excavators are there for show while they try to figure out what to do. There is absolutely no chance that 2 guys with excavators are going to dredge out enough of the canal to free the ship, and the canal authorities know this.
It there was even shadow of a chance that that might work, then every single excavator in Northern Africa would be on it's way to the canal to dig it out and free the ship.
In fact I'd say that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell that that would work, China would be airdropping excavators into the area as we speak.
> In fact I'd say that if there was even a snowball's chance in hell that that would work
Damn straight, considering the law of salvage[1]:
> The law of salvage is a principle of maritime law whereby any person who helps recover another person's ship or cargo in peril at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property salved.
>Thus, if the ship was not a under command, unable to navigate or to reach port unaided, the service will be considered salvage even though the ship was not in imminent danger of destruction.
>It was in the light of this that Gilmore posits that releasing a ship that has run aground or on reefs, breaching a ship to keep her from running on rock, raising a sunken vessel, putting out a fire, and recapture of a ship taken by pirates, are all salvage acts.
The maritime salvor as a volunteer adventurer, Nzeribe Ejimnkeonye Abangwu, International Journal of Law, Volume 3; Issue 5; September 2017
Well, the law of salvage wouldn't apply since there's no "peril at sea" involved - the ship and its crew and its cargo are in no imminent danger. They are stuck, but there's no damage or destruction expected to them that would justify salvage. Losses by ship inactivity or blocking the channel are out of scope for salvage, since these are costs to someone else, and salvage law applies when you rescue the property of the ship owner/operator, it refers only to value of ship and cargo and (recently) environmental damage like oil spills (if it would be the liability of the ship operator).
Commensurate means proportionate, not equivalent. A $100 reward for rescuing a $100 billion ship is not commensurate, and neither is a $100 billion reward.
Oh it gets better, they could declare General Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_average and then instead of buying new one of what you lost you are chipping in for everyone else on board.
Kind of amazing that in 48 hours, an event happens that threatens one of Egypts major income streams and political power sources, and the maximum they can spare is 2 bulldozers...
Like why not call in the army, rent every bulldozer in the district, and within 12 hours you'll have 30 on site and be able to move a lot of sand quickly to free it?
> Like why not call in the army, rent every bulldozer in the district, and within 12 hours you'll have 30 on site and be able to move a lot of sand quickly to free it?
Because that would all be a tremendous waste of money, and would not get the ship any closer to being free.
That’s not fairness. Chinese expatriates bought up a lot of the world’s stock of masks early on when the pandemic was limited to China. Also, ventilator shortages ended up not being a thing. Keep up. The world is not as simple as “America bad.”
Why? Out of malice and ignorance? No other country in the world ramped up masks immediately. People put too much stock in the presidency, a position held for 8 years max, and too little stock in the massive systems decades, or hundreds+ years old with incredible inertia that are really responsible for 90% of what happens in the world.
Turns out blanketing the population with surgical masks, which are designed to block the sputum coughed into the air by a sick person, is an effective tactic against a respiratory disease!
Sure, and at this same time Europe still hadn’t, Nancy Pelosi was telling everyone to come party with her in SF Chinatown, Biden was still running campaign events, and the CDC was saying masks are ineffective.
Most people didn’t realize how bad covid was going to get, even the experts.
Nope, only Germany had the fiber machines, the reason they take a year to build is the global supply chain is so distributed, and you have to build many parts in series.
It's almost been a year and I don't see an end for masks in sight (even with vaccines). Anyone who didn't put money into more production of masks is just greedy. It certainly wasn't a matter of time.
They are, it just takes a year or so to build these mech/chem tech ology machines when the specialized work force is so small and the training takes so long for knowledge transfer... this flows all the way down to high purity polypropylene sourcing itself.
I'm no expert, but I think it makes a huge difference whether you're in a flimsy, wooden ship with even flimsier sails made of cloth, or in a 400m long, extremely massive steel vessel with a reliable internal combustion engine.
Vs. storms at sea it's not a major difference, and if anything the sail boat is in better shape. The real advantage is accurate weather reports to avoid the worst of it.
Why? That sounds implausible. Firstly, the larger a ship, the less affected it is by waves. Secondly, high winds will shred your sails, but without sails it's hard to maneuver .
