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How to Rescue the World’s Biggest Cargo Ships
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How to Rescue the World’s Biggest Cargo Ships

Enormous container ships ferry goods all over the world, but when one of them gets into trouble – as happened with the Ever Given and the Ever Forward recently – how can they be saved?

Chris Baraniuk
BBC, 2022
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Container ships transport 90% of the items moved in global trade, carrying goods through passages and ports vulnerable to blockage. The ship themselves may cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They are orders of magnitude larger than cargo ships used to be, so the cost and consequences of shipwrecks are correspondingly higher. When these giant ships run into trouble, salvage operators – “salvors” – come on scene to save them — if possible. Writing for BBC, Chris Baraniuk explains how salvors rescue ships, even in the midst of typhoons, and why their rescue efforts matter to everyone.

Summary

The gigantic container ships that enable global trade are at constant risk.

When a container ship’s distress disrupts trade, the disaster makes international news.Fully 90% of the world’s trade goods spend some time on a cargo ship carrying thousands of containers. When such a ship faces trouble, the ripple effects across supply chains and markets can be huge.

Consider when the gigantic Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal in 2021, causing a lasting, catastrophic trade and shipping bottleneck that caused scores and scores of commercial vessels to wait even though rescuers freed the ship in less than a week. Less well known problems occurred, for example, when the Kota Kado impeded Hong Kong harbor in 2010, the CSCL Jupiter blocked the Antwerp harbor in 2017 and the Ever Forward jammed Chesapeake Bay in 2022.

Salvage...

About the Author

Freelance science and technology journalist Chris Baraniuk contributes to The Scientist as well as to the BBC.

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