At first it seemed like a joke. A ship was blocking the Suez Canal? How could that even happen? But this was no joke, even though it rapidly became one online. Soon, a flood of memes was pointing out the obvious: a giant ship somehow stuck in a narrow canal was a too-perfect metaphor for the train wreck that was 2021. Even if you were having a bad day, at least you weren’t a 50,000-ton container ship that was somehow blocking 10% of global trade.
It was the perfect mix of ludicrous and ominous. How could one ship in one place bring global trade to a halt? Stuck in the Suez has the answers.
It all began on 23 March 2021. While travelling along the Suez Canal, the Ever Given (not to be confused with the company name, Evergreen) was hit by a seasonal sandstorm, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour. Blown off course – though man-made factors can’t be ruled out – the crew struggled to keep control overnight in the face of gale-force winds. By morning, Egyptian officials announced the unthinkable; the colossal ship was wedged diagonally across the Suez Canal. It wasn’t going anywhere – and as it was blocking a single-lane stretch of the canal, neither was anyone else.
This French documentary (with dialogue in French, English and Arabic) is full of mind-boggling stats. One of the world’s largest container ships, the Ever Given is basically a floating skyscraper, a seagoing giant the size of the Empire State Building and heavier than 30 Eiffel Towers, capable of carrying 20,000 containers of cargo. When it got stuck, the estimated value of its cargo was US$775 million, much of it fruit and vegetables which later had to be destroyed. (It also held a 10-metre model of Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Dino destined for a UK adventure golf course.)
Life goes on: a boy plays football, watching over the Ever Given. Photographer: Mohamed Shokry/dpa Source: Getty Images
During the six days the canal was blocked, almost 400 cargo ships were held up at either end, bringing to a halt almost US$10 billion dollars’ worth of trade. Global oil prices fluctuated due to delays in supplies, markets for other commodities such as superconductors also took a hit and the effects on global supply chains were still being felt months later. All of which you’d think would have provided a lot of motivation to avoid this exact thing happening. What went wrong?
Stuck in the Suez uses a mix of interviews, CGI re-enactments and actual footage to put together the story from start to finish. Like all good retrospectives, it makes it clear that in many ways this was a disaster waiting to happen. Global trade has expanded enormously over the last 50 years, with the sheer volume of traffic putting global choke-points like the Suez Canal under increasing pressure, and while there are constant efforts to widen and deepen the canal, they’re still lagging behind.
Operations to free the Ever Given continue at night. Source: Getty Images
The Ever Given is one of the first of a new generation of extra-large container ships, and its sheer size causes problems not faced by smaller ships. For one, when it’s fully stacked it’s 164 feet high – that’s like a sail larger than two soccer fields. When faced with fierce side-on winds, keeping it on course is a major challenge. Speed was a factor; so was something known as “the bank effect”, which effects large ships going through narrow passages of water.
Stuck in the Suez leaves no doubt about the size of the operation to re-float the Ever Given. Simply removing the containers to make the ship lighter would have been massively complex and probably impossible. Over the six days it was stuck, they removed ballast, used heavy machinery to dig the bow of the ship out from the sand, brought in a fleet of tugboats, and eventually took advantage of a king tide caused by a supermoon. It was a remarkable achievement; the technical side alone makes this intriguing viewing.
A spectator watches on as the Ever Given is finally freed. Photographer: Islam Safwat/Bloomberg Source: Getty Images
The blockage was solved within a week, but the effects took months to subside. One of the biggest problems caused by the Ever Given was tying up supply of shipping containers, which were already scarce; even now that’s still a pressing issue. Today, with delays for almost everything lengthening and even regular post slowing down, we’re living in the world this disaster warned us about. The Suez Canal might be flowing freely, but global trade is still stuck in the sand.
Stuck in the Suez is streaming at SBS On Demand:
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