How Big is Too Big?

 

Fortunately, the big ship Ever Given has been freed, and the Suez Canal is again open for traffic.

From this article from Reuters: 

 "With the 400-metre-long (430-yard) Ever Given dislodged, 113 ships were expected to transit the canal in both directions by early Tuesday morning, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie told reporters....The Ever Given had become jammed diagonally across a southern section of the canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia, in high winds early on March 23....At dawn on Monday, rescue workers from the SCA working with a team from Dutch firm Smit Salvage partially refloated the ship and straightened it in the canal. After several hours it shifted briefly back across the canal before being manoeuvred free by tugs as the tide changed, a canal source said."

From the Washington Post:  

At a quarter-mile, the ship is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall. When fully laden, Ever Given can carry 20,000 20-foot freight containers, stacked in 10 or 11 rows, both on the deck and in the ship’s hold. Because of its size and its deep draft, only the largest ports with deep harbors and the largest gantry cranes can receive the ship....

Since its inauguration in 1869, the Suez Canal has been one of the most significant arteries of global trade. Its construction by rival European powers — Britain and France — consolidated their empires in Asia and Africa. When Egypt nationalized the canal in 1956, Britain, France and Israel attacked the country through Sinai. In the war that ensued, the canal was closed, filled with war debris and sunken ships....

"The eight-month closure of the canal in 1956 and the eight-year closure after the 1967 war led to significant changes in global shipping. Here’s why: If oil tankers from the Middle East now had to round the Cape of Good Hope to reach Europe, their journey would take at least three weeks longer....To ensure profitability of this longer route, many freight carriers opted to take advantage of economies of scale by ordering massive new ships. In the space of a few years, oil tankers mushroomed in size, with the ultra large crude carriers reaching 1,300 feet, the same length as Ever Given...About 30 percent of the world’s seaborne trade today is in oil and petroleum products. Container ships like Ever Given primarily carry manufactured goods, and now account for one-third of the volume of global trade and an astonishing 60 percent of seaborne trade by value...Nearly 12 percent of the world’s cargo travels through the Suez Canal."

And from this article from MSN;  "President Vladimir Putin has long promoted the passage along the country's Siberian coast as a rival to the Suez Canal, and Russia seized on the Egyptian route's traffic jam to play it up again.....Russia has invested heavily in the development of the Northern Sea Route that allows ships to cut the journey to Asian ports by 15 days compared with the conventional route through the Suez Canal."

"As the route becomes increasingly free of ice due to climate change, Moscow is planning to use it to export oil and gas to overseas markets."

"On Thursday, Russia's weather monitor said the route was "in some years almost completely free of ice" by the end of the summer, having reached a "record low level" of ice cover in 2020."