Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The willow is too close to the house.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Second rate reporter says what?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Everybody saw this coming.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Friday Evening Open Thread: Ever Given, Giving Back

Friday Evening Open Thread: Ever Given, Giving Back

by | 143 Comments

This post is in: ,

It’s quite serious business, of course… but it’s also cheap entertainment for those of us not involved…

Source of a million internet memes (link to your own faves!):


Every one of those bricks (shipping containers) is the size of a fully-packed truck trailer…

The Wreck of the Evergreen Ever Given…

Reader Interactions

143Comments

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Maybe now someone will realize they could just use two ships half that size and get the stuff delivered far faster.

     

    ETA: And if they don’t want to rethink that, maybe they’ll rethink the bullshit that’s Just in Time.

  3. 3.

    prostratedragon

    @debbie:  This is what you get when you don’t factor basic risks. You’d have thought that some idle engineer years ago would have napkin-sketched the size of deflection that would cause a 400m container to wall itself in a 200m channel, and then said something.

  4. 4.

    WhatsMyNym

    @debbie:

    Maybe now someone will realize they could just use two ships half that size and get the stuff delivered far faster.

    Nope. Accidents due happen though and the Suez Canal is not prepared for bigger ships.

    ETA: interesting in how the torpedo bow just buried itself in the sloped sand banks…like a torpedo.

  8. 8.

    SteverinoCT

    I went through the Panama Canal in a submarine, a boomer. We were surfaced, of course, and having a barbecue topside during the day-long transit. There is two-way traffic, and going the other way was a Honda car-carrier. Holy sh*t what a huge ship, with us maybe 15 ft off the water. They are enclosed to protect the cars. I can only imagine the effect the wind has on them.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    Did anyone else listen to Jen Psaki’s press briefing today?

    The Fox “News” guy whined about the lists of people Biden uses to call on people for questions because Fox News is never on his list… something something about not even getting called on during the campaign.  Jen Psaki let him have it.

    I hope there’s a video clip of her response.  She peppered him with questions.  We you called on to ask a question at this press event?  At that press event?  At the other press event?  Aren’t you called on every single day at my press briefings?  At one point he was talking over her as she replied to him, and she said something like, “Answer the Question, Yes or No?”

    It was a thing of beauty.  I was actually listening instead of watching, so if someone has a video of that exchange, I hope you will put it up.

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    Thread ???

    1. You've probably seen this picture of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his gaggle of white men signing the state's voter suppression law — the new, new Jim Crow. But there's a shocking angle to this story that you haven't heard. Sit down for this one… pic.twitter.com/edHPmyeoiu— Will Bunch Sign Up For My Newsletter (@Will_Bunch) March 26, 2021

  17. 17.

    Spanky

    One ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal and thereby fornicating shipping worldwide says a lot about worldwide shipping, and none of it complimentary.

    And as far as rerouting ships around the Horn, I’m not sure those beasties were designed to survive the Roaring Forties.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: I love Jen Psaki, but I’m definitely not going to watch it twice in order to see that again.  But it’s okay, I found the clip.  Thanks

    edit: The only thing that would have made her response better is if she said “well, maybe you guys at Fox News should consider whether you are actually a news show or just a propaganda channel.”  (she says, in my dreams)

  19. 19.

    laura

    I just attempted to comment to a blog father post and then there weren’t none. Jen Psaki handing lil doocey his ass on the daily – but especially today, was a bright spot in a day that ended a tough week.

  22. 22.

    Drdavechemist

    @Catherine D.: I think this (probably apocryphal) story might have been on Car Talk, but the upshot was that somebody was told that they couldn’t carry a five foot fishing pole onto a bus because carryon items were limited to four feet, so they wrapped the pole up in a three foot by four foot package. Pythagoras for the win.

  23. 23.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Spanky:

    One ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal and thereby fornicating shipping worldwide says a lot about worldwide shipping, and none of it complimentary. 

    Oh! Baby!  Sexy time in the Suez Canal!

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    When news of this ginormous thing that floats hit, it was reported as caused by a power failure. The freight line as quickly as they could shifted the blame to nature, i.e., “wind.” Industry analyst on BBC explained that if it was a mechanical, then the cruise line is possibly liable for the entire cargo disruption and as we now know, the liability here is potentially large enough to sink a battleship or in this case, the top-ten cargo line. IANAL and in particular, know nuttin’ about maritime law, nor Egyptian law since this occurred there and not on the open sea.
    To give the company the benefit of the doubt for just a sec, if wind can do that anytime it chooses, why does this thing exist? How the heck does it handle a gale? A hurricane?​

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Absolutely appalling!

    I loved this tweet from the Rep. who was arrested for daring to be uppity and knocking on the door as the governor signed this racists piece of shit bill into law.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    @debbie:

    ETA: And if they don’t want to rethink that, maybe they’ll rethink the bullshit that’s Just in Time.

    This.  It should be this.  But it won’t because they are addicted to short term profits and never considering long term.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @Spanky: ​
     
    I’m still flabbergasted that dudes with guns in Zodiacs can approach and board them on the open sea. Yarrrr!

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: Just saying.  You were looking for it, and I knew they’d posted it.

    Points off for them not being able to show Doocey’s socks. :(

  32. 32.

    Wakeshift

    I’m looking forward to the inspirational children’s book about that excavator.

    something along the lines of *The Old Steam-Shovel* or *The Little Red Lighthouse* (these are vague childhood memories, and vaguely approximate the actual book titles)

     

    My favorite tweet so far is the one positing that there’s only like 50 in the world, shared among governments. Probably saw it here.

     

    Assuming that a tiny excavator has also been photoshopped into the FL highway boat pic already. If I can think of a thing, that thing already exists on the internet.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @geg6: ​
     
    I have an idea. [everybody run] With the forthcoming huge oversupply of office and retail space, we’ll have warehouse space aplenty to build those parts inventories. Just need to figure out a way to make it not a tax liability to corporations to carry said inventory.

  35. 35.

    laura

    @rikyrah: Apartheid. The Republican Party is brazenly attempting to make apartheid the law of the land. In America. In 2021. With the whole world watching.

    Apartheid.

  36. 36.

    mrmoshpotato

    @trollhattan: Load on a few smaller, empty containers just for dropping.

    Yo ho ho, and a 25′ hunk of steel dropped on your pirate ass!  Shiver your bones!

    ETA – flabbergasted, hehe

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    My poor Tucker had his teeth cleaned on Wednesday and had 3 teeth removed.  :-(

    He is on one antibiotic and 2 painkillers, and he is supposed to take them 12 hours apart, and he needs to take them with food, so everybody has to eat dinner about 2 hours late because otherwise I would have to set the alarm for 5 am for breakfast and the first round of pills.

    He was feeling pretty rough until this morning, when he rolled around on the bed before he got up (his usual) and then ran to get one of his stuffed “babies”.  Now he is just indignant about dinnertime. Either that, or he thinks I am suddenly really stupid and do not understand that I am supposed to be feeding him NOW.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Source of a million internet memes (link to your own faves!)

    You’d think somebody would’ve done one with Mitten Bernie on deck overwatching the whole thing. Hmmph.

  42. 42.

    pluky

    Regarding the satellite images: imagine the resolution on the classified military surveillance satellites.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    The kid’s been getting help from her track coach with strategies for getting into med school, and reports this text exchange after thanking him for setting up a Zoom meeting with his wife, who’s an M.D. and attended her college:
    “You’re gonna donate so much money back to this team.””So THAT’S your master plan.””Duh.”
    I like this guy.​

  44. 44.

    Kent

    Since this is an open thread.

    For those who have been following our college search journey, the decision is finally finally done.   The daughter was accepted into University of Washington and also got into the UW Honors College and we finally sealed the deal and put down the deposit.  Now it’s just a matter of picking dorms, finding a roommate, orientation, registering for classes, and then showing up early for Husky Marching Band Camp next fall.  And, of course, paying the tuition bill.

    I really hope to God that colleges are mostly back to normal in-person learning in the fall.   It sounds like UW is going to require vaccinations for all incoming students.  I hope they do and don’t cave on that requirement.  They are on the quarter system so don’t start until about September 30 which gives them plenty of time to make that happen

    She went ten for ten on her college admissions, getting into UW, WSU, WWU, UO, Whitman, Lewis & Clark, Reed, Occidental, Gonzaga, and University of Puget Sound.  But I think she made the right choice

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Wakeshift:

    I’m looking forward to the inspirational children’s book about that excavator.

    Yeah. Where the fuck is Little Toot when we could really use him?

  47. 47.

    WhatsMyNym

    @trollhattan:

    When news of this ginormous thing that floats hit, it was reported as caused by a power failure

    I tend to believe that first report because this is supposed to have two 2,500 kW (3,400 hp) bow thrusters.  Though they may not be as useful with sloped sand banks of this canal.

  49. 49.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sukabi: Haha

    Having a bad day? Just remember you didn’t get your ship stuck in the Suez Canal!

    What they need are mules! Where’s Sal and her entire family?

  50. 50.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl:

    Did anyone else listen to Jen Psaki’s press briefing today?

    The Fox “News” guy whined about the lists of people Biden uses to call on people for questions because Fox News is never on his list… something something about not even getting called on during the campaign.  Jen Psaki let him have it.

    I hope there’s a video clip of her response.  She peppered him with questions.  We you called on to ask a question at this press event?  At that press event?  At the other press event?  Aren’t you called on every single day at my press briefings?  At one point he was talking over her as she replied to him, and she said something like, “Answer the Question, Yes or No?”

    It was a thing of beauty.  I was actually listening instead of watching, so if someone has a video of that exchange, I hope you will put it up.

    Heh!   She should have put him further on the spot:  “What Question did you have for President Biden?”  ask it now and I will be happy to get you an answer.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    Whooo, that’s a Big Deal Decision!

    IMO fall will see return to campus and in-class courses. Smart schools will require vaccines, and you’re as far from the Confederacy as possible, so a good start.

    Go Huskies! Who beat Utah in Utah–women’s soccer–today and are #4 in Pac 12, which was predicted by [checks notes] zero people at the beginning of the season. Good shot at going to the NCAA tournament.

  52. 52.

    Ken

    Every one of those bricks (shipping containers) is the size of a fully-packed truck trailer…

    Every one of those bricks is a fully-packed truck trailer, minus the wheels.  Also a fully-packed train boxcar, ditto.  Intermodal is amazing, not least because they got the entire planet to agree on the sizes

    I was also struck by this tweet:

    Experts say there are virtually no alternatives to the Suez Canal for shipping goods from Asia to Europe.

    Europe’s a peninsula of Asia, I’m sure there are land routes. I suppose they mean no competitive alternatives; container shipping is hellaciously cheap.

  53. 53.

    Kent

    @WhatsMyNym: I guarantee that every ship that size has massive bow and stern thrusters. You couldn’t possibly maneuver a ship that large without them.

  54. 54.

    dmsilev

    @Kent: Congratulations! Both to you and your daughter.

    I can only speak for my small corner of academia, but we’re certainly planning on having a normal (or at least normal-ish) fall term. By that point, vaccines will be readily available and will be under a full approval authorization, so if necessary we can simply require everyone get the shots (with exceptions for genuine medical can’t-get-it reasons).

  56. 56.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Kent: Congratulations! I know it has been a looooong process to get to here.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    Intermodal is amazing, not least because they got the entire planet to agree on the sizes.

    Yet I need two different chargers for my cell phone and my ipad.

  59. 59.

    kirbster

    Is this just another case of 19th century infrastructure that needs updating for the 21st century world? The canal was clearly built for ships of another era.

  62. 62.

    sukabi

    @mrmoshpotato: I find it amazing that they’ve only got 1 backhoe on shore…. You’d think that by now there would be an all out effort to unstick it…

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    My crude understanding is that a goodly percentage of the oil Britain imports travels through the canal. Delays stretching into weeks are gonna bite hard. Same likely holds true for other countries bordering the Mediterranean.

    Transferring the containers onto barges in order to lighten the ship seems the Occam’s Razor solution to raising it to float higher on the sandbar, enough for tugs to wrest it free?

  66. 66.

    CaseyL

    @Kent: ​
      Congrats to your daughter!

    UW is expecting to have “largely in-person instruction” by autumn quarter – provided nothing happens between now and then to set the schedule back.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @kirbster: The canal was substantially widened and expanded just a few years ago. Similarly, a new set of locks were built a decade or so ago for the Panama Canal to allow for bigger ships and more throughput.

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    @kirbster

    There actually is an ongoing project to widen and otherwise revamp the canal. The project hasn’t gotten to the section this far south yet. Egypt isn’t exactly flush with infrastructure monies.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @laura:  My poor boy, it was heartbreaking.

    The first night I gave him several little bits of my homemade still-warm-from-the-oven bread, which he could just swallow without chewing.  He was happy about that, at least in the moment.

  71. 71.

    bjacques

    Could the Feds get around state voter restriction laws by deploying water, snacks, voter registration facilities and extra voting machines to federal courthouses and other federal property? And military installations, outside the fences? Entrances to national parks, especially Civil War battlefields? How about rafts and pontoons on navigable waterways? Georgia has only the Chattahoochee River and Fort Benning, which are pretty rural, but Houston, Austin, Chatranooga, Cleveland, New Orleans, St. Louis and other big cities in red states have rivers running through or by them.

  72. 72.

    Kent

    @CaseyL: Every single school in the country is saying the same thing right now.  We are getting emails to that effect from all the places she applied now that it is decision season and all the schools are trying to rope in their upcoming freshman class.  None of them want to be the last school standing that doesn’t commit to full in-person learning while a parade of students say “thanks but no thanks” and decide to go elsewhere.

    Whether they can all pull it off depends, of course, on the progress of the pandemic by then.  I’m hopeful but F U C K if the damn MAGAt are doing their best fuck everything up.

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @Kent:

    Heh!   She should have put him further on the spot:  “What Question did you have for President Biden?”  ask it now and I will be happy to get you an answer.

    Oh my god, that would have been perfect.

  77. 77.

    Kent

    @bjacques:Could the Feds get around state voter restriction laws by deploying water, snacks, voter registration facilities and extra voting machines to federal courthouses and other federal property? And military installations, outside the fences? Entrances to national parks, especially Civil War battlefields? How about rafts and pontoons on navigable waterways? Georgia has only the Chattahoochee River and Fort Benning, which are pretty rural, but Houston, Austin, Chatranooga, Cleveland, New Orleans, St. Louis and other big cities in red states have rivers running through or by them.

    They could get around some of them by putting red ballot drop boxes in front of every single post office in the country.  Since they would be Federal mail boxes they would be untouchable by State regulations, as long as it is legal to drop your ballot in the mail, then it would be legal to put it in a red ballot drop box in front of a post office.

    The way to get around the prohibition on giving of water and snacks would be to sell them.   Go down the line and give a penny to each voter in line (they didn’t ban handing out pennies).  Or just scatter pennies about.   And then follow up by selling water bottles, sandwiches, pizza, etc. for a penny each.   Shit like that.

  78. 78.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: I’ve sent that story out to friends.  It makes me think they’ll be sending invites to parties celebrating the bills with “surprise”* entertainment.

     

    *Minstrel show, black face, lynching?

    These people are doing Darwin in reverse.  They might want to consider what happens to species who take this route.

  80. 80.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Kent: Heartfelt congratulations to your daughter.  It sounds like you are all very happy about how everything turned out and did all the due diligence to make it so.

    I’m childless and old but I wonder if and why the number of colleges applied to has gone up over the years. I applied to 3 in the early 70’s. It was like $20 fee per application and there were no tours with the ‘rents.

    This and the amount of financial burden college is on parents and our youth really astounds me.

  81. 81.

    Mike in NC

    We took onboard a pilot at one point when our destroyer was transiting the Suez Canal, and the captain invited him to have lunch. He asked the Supply Officer what was on the menu that day: a choice of ham sandwiches or pork chops! The CO had a minor fit until they found a chicken dish to serve him instead. Good times way back when…

  82. 82.

    Cermet

    @trollhattan: Open ocean allows one to mostly compensate via course heading and drift. A narrow canal, not so much …actually, almost zero. That is why they have wind restrictions; however, that isn’t fool proof as we have now seen.

     

    Also, the Horn of Africa is where Somalia is located; to go around Africa, one must pass the Cape of Good Hope. Even papers are screwing this up.

  86. 86.

    Martin

    What hasn’t been well explained is that only the westernmost ⅔ of the canal is dredged. The front ⅓ of the ship is probably beached. Maybe not as badly as the very bow, but I don’t think they can just dig that out with the backhoe.

  89. 89.

    FelonyGovt

    @Kent: Congratulations! College time for your kid is exciting. I hope she is able to get the full in-person college experience.

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @prostratedragon:

    You’d have thought that some idle engineer years ago would have napkin-sketched the size of deflection that would cause a 400m container to wall itself in a 200m channel, and then said something. 

    An engineer probably did, and then the Owner’s rep said, “Naaaah, that’s never gonna happen!” and declined the suggestion due to cost. And that Owner’s rep quit or died a long time ago but got a bonus for cost savings.

    Do I seem bitter?

  93. 93.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  This has been discussed.  The company has been acting as if this won’t be necessary, but their track record on estimates isn’t looking so good.  Apparently it could take weeks.  Just saw at Guardian that livestock on some of the blocked ships could become an issue at some point.

  94. 94.

    Dan B

    @Kent: Congratulations on the selection of the UW!  It’s a huge school and some students get overwhelmed but most thrive on the nearly infinite opportunities.

  95. 95.

    Martin

    @Kent: Very nice. Good school.

    For the record, the UCs are returning to in-person instruction in the fall. Due to the expected need to continue distancing, there will still be a fair bit of remote teaching simply due to lack of capacity through Winter 2022 and the hope is that we’ll be able to lift the distancing requirements and have things pretty much back to normally by Spring 2022.

    That is, provided that P.1 doesn’t get a foothold in the US because stupid fucking people won’t continue distancing policies.

  97. 97.

    CaseyL

    Can someone explain why, if the ship’s name is Evergreen, it’s being referred to as Evergiver?  Is this an inside joke of some sort?

  98. 98.

    Kent

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    @Kent: Heartfelt congratulations to your daughter.  It sounds like you are all very happy about how everything turned out and did all the due diligence to make it so.

    I’m childless and old but I wonder if and why the number of colleges applied to has gone up over the years. I applied to 3 in the early 70’s. It was like $20 fee per application and there were no tours with the ‘rents.

    This and the amount of financial burden college is on parents and our youth really astounds me.

    Without Covid we probably would have applied to fewer schools. Part of this was just getting in the applications with the intent of touring and taking a closer look later.  But these days with the online common app and coalition app it is ridiculously easy to apply to multiple schools.   You basically just add all the schools you want to your application portal.  Some have additional essays or questions, or portfolio requirements.   But must just rely on the standard common app essay prompt.  Some schools have no application fee, for other it ranges from $50-80. So applying to 10 schools is not much harder than applying to one.

    What is different today compared to the past is that the sticker price is most definitely NOT the sticker price.  My daughter earned merit aid awards ranging between zero and $35,000/year from the different schools that she applied to.  The range in bottom costs for tuition/room/board/fees was from about $20,000/year for WWU and WSU to about $76,000 for Reed and Occidental.   UW was about $25,000.  The mid-level privates like Gonzaga, Lewis & Clark, and Whitman were in the $30,000-$35,000 range.  Out of state at UO was going to be about $45,000.  And the top private schools that didn’t offer merit aid were all in the $70,000 range.

    We are affluent enough to not qualify for much if any need-based aid.  So the price tags came in wildly different.  Were we of much more modest means the costs would likely have been much more similar, or actually flipped with the most affluent schools offering the most need-based scholarships and the lesser schools offering a financial aid package heaver with loans.

  100. 100.

    Kent

    @CaseyL:Can someone explain why, if the ship’s name is Evergreen, it’s being referred to as Evergiver?  Is this an inside joke of some sort?

    That isn’t the name of the ship, that’s the name of the shipping line: https://www.evergreen-line.com/

    They are a huge Taiwanese shipping conglomerate and they write Evergreen on the sides of all their hundreds of ships and hundreds of thousands of containers.

  101. 101.

    Ken

    @Gin & Tonic: Helicopters.

    Good idea. The ship doesn’t look that much bigger than a Jaeger, and in Pacific Rim it only took four cargo copters to lift one of those.

  104. 104.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: Wouldn’t it be faster to just cut out the middleman (middlerobot?) and just use the Jaeger to directly move the ship?

  105. 105.

    Kent

    @Ken: The idea would be to use cargo helicopters to lift the containers off the ship and stack them on the sand.  They wouldn’t use them to lift the whole ship.

    But I suspect that most of those containers that are full of things heavier than running shoes would be too heavy for even the largest cargo helicopters.

    The better bet would be to blow all the ballast tanks to make the ship float higher, which would probably put a lot of pollution into the canal and make the ship very top heavy and unstable.  So they’ have to be careful not to tip the damn  thing over and create an even bigger mess.

  106. 106.

    The Pale Scot

    @debbie:

    The mind boggling thing is that those ships have one desiel engine the of a house and one propeller. The ships that go around the Horn sometimes have spare prop lashed to the deck. I don’t know if that’s to give to it whatever salvage ship or dry dock, or the do it themselves at sea, which would be pretty exciting down around the 40s

  108. 108.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: I think in the movie[*] a Jaeger did pick up a ship and beat a Kaiju over the head with it, so it might work.

    But yeah, I’m just kidding around, because I’m sure that none of my ideas would be of any help at all.  In fact I’m trying to develop a habit: every time I think “Why aren’t they trying….”, I break off and finish “…because they know a lot more about ships and salvage than you do.”

    [*] Some people would say “the first movie”, but I prefer not to acknowledge the sequel.

  109. 109.

    Martin

    Simple solution, folks.

    If this is costing $9B a day, the ship and its cargo is worth less than that, then you plowshare it. Clear the area, vaporize it with a small nuclear device. Easy peasy. Cheryl could work this out on her lunch break.

  113. 113.

    Kent

    @Ken: Since they are basically on land, it would seem to me that the best solution would be to drop some giant cable winches along the shoreline and use those to slowly winch the ship back off the bank while they also try to float it higher.  Basically use a huge amount of mechanical advantage with gearing and such and then winch it slowly, inch by inch.  But what do I know?

  115. 115.

    lurker

    @Kent: not really seeing a backup school listed there … oh, wait, UO is there, ok, you’re good.

    …

    ; – )

    On a slightly more serious note, congrats on that accomplishment, and on predicting the outcome a while back in comments.

  116. 116.

    Ken

    @Kent: I’ve been wondering the same thing, except about tugboats. But I’ve been fascinated by tugboats since I was a kid, and found out they’re basically a huge engine with just enough hull to keep it afloat.

  117. 117.

    Martin

    @Kent: I looked up the largest industrial winch: 3800 tons. You run into problems making cables strong enough that are flexible enough to move through a winch.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @SteverinoCT:

    I served in a DDG and we played plane guard with CV66 America for a bit of time and refueled from them. Going alongside to refuel was entertaining to say the least. It was over twice as long and with the flight deck 75 feet off the water, and our main deck about 6 feet it was just slightly imposing standing at fwd refueling. I believe our masthead was about the same height as the flight deck.

  119. 119.

    Kent

    @Ken:@Kent: I’ve been wondering the same thing, except about tugboats. But I’ve been fascinated by tugboats since I was a kid, and found out they’re basically a huge engine with just enough hull to keep it afloat.

    I would think that tugboats would have much less mechanical advantage or force than land-based winches of some sort.  Or even just a dozen giant bulldozers harnessed together.  It is a lot easier to get traction on land than water.  And you could pull with a lot more precision and directed force inch-by-inch with land based locomotion rather than water-based.

  121. 121.

    emrys

    I transited that section of the canal on the carrier Teddy Roosevelt.  The edges of the flight deck were pretty much even with the sides of the canal.

  122. 122.

    lurker

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    @Kent:

    Based on a vague recollection, I applied to something like seven or eight of the UCs on a common application. It was all on paper, but applying to each school was checking a box and adding a fee then sending the application to a central processing facility of some sort.  Used the same essay/personal statement for a lot of other schools as well – total applications was probably close to twenty.  My mother and I both did a lot of typing for that.  Might have used the xerox at my dad’s office for a few things where we could.  It was long ago.  For example, xerox has since reclaimed its trademark.  Watching the stunning rise in cost of college has been amazing, and not in a good way.

  123. 123.

    Yutsano

    @Kent: It hurts my Coug soul…but oh man is she gonna have a great time marching under Brad! And if all goes well she might end up being my brother! Now I don’t have any influence there but if she mentions something about a fraternity you can e-mail me if you have questions about it.

  124. 124.

    Martin

    @Gin & Tonic: I think only one has ever been built, and it’d be quite an effort to build a foundation that can sustain that kind of load. Not that it’s terribly hard to do so, but it’s not terribly fast to do so.

  125. 125.

    Kent

    @Yutsano:@Kent: It hurts my Coug soul…but oh man is she gonna have a great time marching under Brad! And if all goes well she might end up being my brother! Now I don’t have any influence there but if she mentions something about a fraternity you can e-mail me if you have questions about it.

    She is a pretty lefty LGBT kid and pretty damn unlikely to ever voluntarily get near a frat party.  So the chances of them meeting are slim I expect.  The Cougs were a no-go after we did the drive out to Pullman.   The comments were along the lines of “Dad, this is why we LEFT Texas.  To get away from places like this.

    On the other hand, the youngest and final daughter is in 9th grade and not proving to be such a diligent student so she might be stuck choosing between WSU and one of the directional schools like Western or Central.   Or maybe, God forbid, UO.

  127. 127.

    Gvg

    @Kent: that would still be illegal as I understand the law is justifying itself by calling the water and snacks “gifts” which could influence a vote. Pretending to sell them at reduced rates would still be gifts. The law itself is bullshit and needs to be overturned in court immediately. I think it can be, but I am not a lawyer. What I would really like to see is these legislators go to jail for trying to rig an election. Surely this must be illegal with penalties. I want more than just the law cancelled, I want those corrupt officials jailed.

  128. 128.

    lurker

    @Kent: trying to imagine a kid with that point of view in a place like pullman or walla walla takes some effort … good choice there.

    I initially read WWU as CWU, so was thinking about Ellensburg as well.  Turns out she could have gotten the same weather as UW at WWU or Puget Sound.

  129. 129.

    Kent

    @Gvg: What they need is HR1 to be rammed up their asses.  Pre-empt all of this Trumpist bullshit in GA and every other damn red state.

  130. 130.

    The Pale Scot

    @NotMax:

    The problem with unloading containers and fuel from a  huge ship like that is if it’s not done right it could break the back of the ship. Which would turn days into weeks, weeks into months, as Spock says

     

    So nobody is going to rush this if they want to be able to buy insurance in the future

  131. 131.

    Yutsano

    @Kent:

    She is a pretty lefty LGBT kid and pretty damn unlikely to ever voluntarily get near a frat party.

    It’s…not that kind of fraternity. In fact, that kind of diversity would be welcomed. It was for me way back in the 90s. I mean yeah there will be band parties and we had our own get-togethers. But it’s nowhere near a traditional fraternity.

  133. 133.

    CaseyL

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Kent:

    Ah, one of life’s smaller mysteries, cleared up. Thanks!  I kept thinking it had to do with the ship running aground, a sarcastic reference to the items being shipped never getting to their destination.

  135. 135.

    The Pale Scot

    @Kent:

    Hard points, the towing stanchions are bow and stern. These things aren’t battleships. Every pound that could was removed to lower costs

  136. 136.

    Kent

    @The Pale Scot:  Yeah, who knows.  It might be easier to dig out around the ship rather than move it.  Use some giant hydraulic sluices to just widen the canal where the bow and stern are currently stuck.

    But then again, I’m sure there are hundreds of professionals who know their shit who are figuring this out.

  141. 141.

    beef

    @Martin:

    If this is costing $9B a day, the ship and its cargo is worth less than that, then you plowshare it. Clear the area, vaporize it with a small nuclear device. Easy peasy. Cheryl could work this out on her lunch break.

    I know you’ve got tongue in cheek, but I find it morbidly fascinating to work out the details.    Turns out you’d need about 100 kilotons to get a fireball radius comparable to the 400m size of the Ever Stuck.  Presuming that the goal is to vaporize the ship, and passing lightly over the fact that that the blast would destroy all those neighborhoods on the east bank, wreck the canal, and rain fallout all over Egypt.

    Anyhoo, 100kt is about typical for the US arsenal, but not exactly small.   A small one might just leave us with an irradiated wreck sitting in the canal.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    On the sub-tender I was on, we did replenishment at sea training once, with a DE, and I remember wondering what the long term effects of the DE’s radar sweeping our boat deck — where I was working — would be.

    Big ship sending pallets of gear to smaller ship. But I was on the big ship, and you were on the small ship. Was ’round about 1971? Off east of FLA, or maybe Charleston SC.

Comments are closed.