i'm now joined by captain john conrad
he's a licensed captain
of the world's largest ships and author
and founder of the shipping website
captain.com mr conrad welcome to dw
from a captain's perspective tell me how
could it come to this
right these ships have gotten incredibly
larger over just the last 10 years so in
the last 10 years they've gone from
about 10 000 container ships
to 20 000 container ships but as the
size has
increased the international maritime
organization the u.n
arm that does maritime in london
they have not increased the crew size
and they have not put
new requirements for technology on the
ship so you have
significantly bigger ships and the same
size crew the same technology
and really the same tugboats and
equipment navigating these ships
and it's not just the length i mean this
ship
is about 60 meters longer than the
biggest
aircraft carriers in the world but it's
also the weight
with a doubling of the number of
containers on board
these ships weigh two to three hundred
percent
more than the ships at ten years ago and
again we're using
ten twenty year old technology on board
can gusts of wind
really blow such a massive ship sideways
as the owner of the ship
says absolutely
uh as you stack these containers
up higher that's you know you're a big
steel wall
where all the wind pushes against these
containers at an incredible rate
the average speed of transit through the
canal
is eight knots this ship was going 13
knots and we believe it was going faster
to try to provide the momentum and
inertia
to overcome those gusts of wind but as
you know driving fast uh
down a narrow passageway on the autobahn
or during construction
uh the faster you go the more careful
you have to be
especially when that wind comes and can
easily
push a ship like this or some of the new
cruise ships think of those all those
cabins that are stacked stories high
that's another ship that can be easy
captain we only have about 30 seconds i
want to get this last question in which
is
the the race to remove the blockage is
proving
extremely challenging how long do you
think it will take to dislodge
the ever given well there's
there's a lot of hope that next week in
the higher high tide they can get some
fuel out and they can do what they're
calling
a back twist where they can corkscrew it
out backwards
after digging and dredging both ends if
that doesn't work they have to bring in
fuel barges
take out the fuel and then somewhere in
the world they have to find
gigantic cranes on barges tall enough to
reach those containers
and start removing the weight so they
can float it up higher
but again as dr mercogliano said
there is a risk of hulk crack the ship
was not designed and
every time the tide comes in and out
it's like
bending a piece of metal it's doing
micro cracks in the hull
and you do that enough time and it could
crack and that would take
weeks at least if you have to stop it
there uh
captain john conrad really appreciate
your time thank you very much
thank you now taking a detour
would lead to major delays for most
shippers have a look at this map
the route through the canal is just 000
kilometers long enough from the arabian
sea to ports in the mediterranean
but the way around the cape of good hope
this is the alternative route
a whopping 20 000 kilometers now
assuming that freighters are traveling
around 25 knots or about 45 kilometers
an hour
that adds more than a week to their
journey the stock ship is costing the
global economy billions
as trade is delayed and desperately
needed goods cannot be delivered
they're doing what they can but the 400
meter long container ship
won't budge diggers are at work on the
bank alongside a vacuum excavator which
can suck up to 2
000 cubic meters of sand an hour no one
really knows how long it'll take to
dislodge the ship
estimates on when the vessel could be
freed varying from a few days
to a few weeks in the worst case but
what i am
quite surprised and maybe what i would
maybe expect to start seeing soon is if
the if they are not successful in
getting the vessel
floated back naturally then the next
best option is to actually lighter the
vessel so which means
they will have to bring small feeder
container vessels next to the ship
and start offloading part of the
containers from the main ship into the
smaller one so that
they're basically offloading the weight
of the vessel in order to get it
refloated naturally
a lengthy salvage process would have
wide reaching effects
oil prices have already risen due to the
many oil tankers caught in the suez
traffic jam
supply chains could also be affected
because of missing parts
yet it's it's an absolutely essential
part of our modern life
and this webcam would not have reached
me without modern shipping
and this computer and pretty much
everything on my desk
because shipping still brings us 90
of everything and i think in the uk it's
95 percent of everything
and we are absolutely fundamentally
reliant on it
the massive container ship has been
stuck between the suez canals banks
since tuesday
blocking the waterway which is critical
for trade between europe and
asia the incident is now a historic
event for the 150 year old canal
all right for more on this i'm joined
now by klaus brandt he's managing
director of the german maritime center
in hamburg that's a thank tank for the
maritime industry
colossus good to have you on the show we
talked a little bit about the costs
generally speaking that are building up
from a shipping
company's perspective what are the daily
costs that they're seeing
well it depends on the size of the
vessel so maybe for
a vessel which has 3 000
containers there will be cost per day
round about between 25 000 or 30 000
which will occur every day and
no revenues against it who
eats those costs i guess the shipping
company is responsible for it
so it's it's for the shipping companies
a great problem
uh because the customers of the shipping
companies
uh only pay for the transport and not
for the problems
during the transport of the containers
what about insurance can they be injured
for these kind of delays i mean surely
they're
acts of god or i don't know if there's
anything for a ship stuck in the suez
canal
we have in these times a lot of delays
and therefore
it is not normal to have an insurance
for this
uh we have these times a very specific
situation because
since october last year since september
last year
all the vessels around the world are
very good utilized
and there's a lot of cargo
on the way and therefore there is no
capacity
really available that is coming up
in respect to the pandemic and as well
there is some other problems
which occurs as well in this case
so it's a big problem in these times
when something happened like this
in the sewers canal so businesses are
already paying more just to get these
containers now prices could go up it
sounds like if things are even more
pinched
um at what point for a ship does it
become more attractive
to take the cape route when you're
looking at what's going on now
um a route around the cape of cotope
will take around about
eight to nine days more time when you
compare it with a
route through the sewers canal
we have now to see that more than 200
vessels
are waiting northbound and southbound
in front of the sewers canal and
only looking for an example if
it is possible that tomorrow the kennel
will
again open it will take around about
four to five days maybe more
if it is possible to go again in a
normal way through
the kennel so we have to consider as
well
there are clear of the congestion
of the canal and therefore it might be
a good decision to go around
the cape of kotope but then
there will occur additional costs
because
a longer trip will have impact
on the cost of a vessel and as well it
will occur bunker costs because the
longer trip
will then consume more bunker
all right so no good solutions visible
at the moment kloss brand managing
director of the german
maritime center thank you so much
thank you
you