cruise ship stuck in canal

Here’s the Minute-by-Minute Breakdown of the Ever Given’s Crash

For 6 long days, the massive container ship stayed stuck in the Suez Canal, capturing the world's attention. Now, ship tracking data and maritime pilots reveal exactly how it got there.

Drifting Slowly in a Patternless Pause

On Tuesday, March 23, at 12:12 a.m. Egyptian local time (EET), the Ever Given, a container ship belonging to the shipping company Evergreen Marine and sailing under the flag of Panama, arrived at Suez Port. Nobody cared.

In the darkness, the 1,300-foot long, 200,000-metric ton megaship joined a group of vessels already idling in the anchorage—an enormous, yet unremarkable addition to a vast, aquatic waiting room at the foot of the Suez Canal’s southern terminus. For the next 5 hours and 37 minutes, the Ever Given drifted slowly in a patternless pause, killing time before the start of its half-day-plus voyage through the canal to the Mediterranean Sea.

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At 5:49 a.m., the Mosaheb 2, an Egyptian tugboat, sidled up to the skyscraper-sized ship, the official indication that the vessel’s journey was about to begin.

One hour and 53 minutes later, the Ever Given’s voyage was over. By then, it was the most famous ship in the world.

‘Thrilling Winds of Sand and Dust’

Days earlier, the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (EMA) had started to issue warnings. Infamous seasonal gusts of hot, dry, and sand-filled air, known as the Khamaseen winds, were sweeping intensely across the country, causing dramatic spikes in temperature and poor visibility. In a forecast for March 23, the EMA warned of “thrilling winds of sand and dust” and a “disruption of maritime navigation.” Wave heights on the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea, the EMA estimated, would reach 10 to 13 feet.

This information was likely top of mind for the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) pilots aboard the Mosaheb 2 as it approached the Ever Given on Tuesday morning. Pilots, who are required aboard all vessels transiting the canal, use their local expertise to verbally direct the navigation of a ship as its captain maneuvers it through the man-made passage.

On a normal day, pilots are a formality, a helpful addition to the ship’s bridge; when chaos strikes, they can be the last line of defense between a close call and an incalculable disaster.

At 5:53 a.m., the Mosaheb 2 departed the Ever Given, leaving behind two SCA pilots that would stay in the ship’s bridge until it reached Ismailia, a city near the canal’s halfway point. There, they would exit the ship and be replaced by new pilots, who would ride with the vessel until its passage through the canal was complete.

Captain John DeCruz is an expert in what can unfold on the bridge of a ship like the Ever Given from this point forward. DeCruz is the New York President of the Sandy Hook Pilots, one of a handful of organizations responsible for guiding vessels into and out of New York Harbor. For nearly two decades, DeCruz was an active pilot himself, guiding ships of all sizes through the waters of New York and New Jersey. Before he was a pilot, DeCruz worked on a ship that brought him to the Suez Canal.

According to DeCruz, the arrival of the two SCA pilots at the bridge of the Ever Given would initiate a briefing with the captain.

“You find out everything you need to know about the ship,” DeCruz tells Pop Mech . “If there’s any issues that they encountered on the way, you tell them if they’re going to encounter any traffic coming in, how many ships we’re going to meet. You give the captain of the ship a rundown of everything that we expect to see on that transit.”

The Suez Springs to Life

At 6:00 a.m., just 7 minutes after the pilots’ arrival, Suez Port sprung to life, with a select convoy of the day’s largest, top-priority vessels now officially cleared to sail northbound and enter the canal. First in line was the Al Nasriyah of the Marshall Islands, followed in order by the Cosco Galaxy of Hong Kong, the Ever Given, the Maersk Denver of the U.S., and so on. At 6:21 a.m., the Al Nasriyah turned to the north and started its transit to the canal’s entrance. The convoy had begun.

At 6:51 a.m., the Al Nasriyah arrived at the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. Seven minutes later, while navigating the canal’s approximately 4.3-mile gradual opening turn, it was joined at its stern by the Mosaed 2, a local tugboat employed to help direct its passage. Shortly thereafter, the Cosco Galaxy also picked up a tugboat, the Mosaed 3, which positioned itself behind the ship.

At 7:18 a.m., the Ever Given entered the Suez Canal, choosing, curiously, to proceed without a tugboat. Unlike pilots, tugboats aren’t a mandatory feature of a ship’s transit through the canal—the Maersk Denver, trailing the Ever Given, also proceeded without one. However, their usefulness as an extra precautionary measure, particularly during bouts of bad weather, is undeniable.

“If something goes wrong, you have something to help you,” Captain Robert Flannery, an active pilot and the President of New York’s Metro Pilots Association, tells Pop Mech . “They help you maneuver, they help you slow down, they can help guide your bow and your stern, and God forbid you lose an engine or something happens, you got a fighting chance. If you don’t have a tugboat, you’re shit out of luck.”

‘Too Much Speed for These Ships in a Tight Area’

At 7:22 a.m., as it took the opening turn of the canal, the Ever Given was alone. Up ahead, the Al Nasriyah was near the canal’s 151-kilometer (km) marker—its distance from the northern terminus at Port Said—with the Cosco Galaxy keeping pace. Behind the Ever Given, the Maersk Denver edged toward the canal’s entrance.

At this moment, the Ever Given’s speed, which had been gradually increasing and had already eclipsed the 8.6-knot limit set by the SCA, began to approach eyebrow-raising levels. By 7:29 a.m., as it pulled out of the opening turn, the Ever Given was traveling at 13.7 knots.

When DeCruz watched the Automatic Identification System (AIS) video replay of the Ever Given’s entrance to the canal, the number 13 jumped off his screen. Simulated voyages and live experience navigating slightly smaller megaships had made clear to him the dangers associated with such speeds.

“We determined that was too much speed for these ships in a tight area,” said DeCruz.

The pilots aboard the Ever Given, however, may have had no choice but to recommend an acceleration to the captain.

According to a statement issued by the Suez Canal Authority, as forecasted, powerful dusty winds bore down on the canal on Tuesday morning, lowering visibility and gusting at speeds as high as 46 miles per hour (mph). If a crosswind of that magnitude struck the Ever Given, the 18,300 shipping containers stacked high above it would have collectively acted as an enormous sail, and caused the ship to drift in the direction of the wind.

To effectively counter such a gust, a pilot would likely prescribe increased speed and an angled course against the wind.

“You can’t steer straight if it’s blowing you sideways,” Flannery says. “You’ll be aground. Speed gets you through it quicker.”

The Bank Effect

At 7:37 a.m., the Ever Given, traveling at 13 knots, appeared to initiate an approximately 2-minute northwesterly push toward the west bank of the canal, a maneuver presumably made in response to winds that had gradually pushed the vessel towards the east bank.

At 7:39 a.m., the Ever Given straightened and was again parallel with the canal, but was now sailing close to the edge of the west bank.

Ships like the Ever Given don’t mix well with banks. When a vessel of its size sails alongside one, the strip of water between the land and the ship is squeezed and displaced. As a result, the water’s flow quickens, its pressure drops, and, as it shallows in the ship’s wake, it sucks downward, like a flushing toilet, pulling in the stern of the vessel. This phenomenon, known as the bank effect, can wreak havoc on megaships, which displace large quantities of water and cannot correct course quickly if knocked off kilter.

.css-2l0eat{font-family:UnitedSans,UnitedSans-roboto,UnitedSans-local,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;padding:0.9rem 1rem 1rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.875rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}.css-2l0eat b,.css-2l0eat strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-2l0eat em,.css-2l0eat i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} “You can’t steer straight if the wind is blowing you sideways. You’ll be aground.”

At 7:40 a.m., the stern of the Ever Given suddenly swung toward the west bank of the Suez Canal, evidence that the ship had started to bank. As the stern swung clockwise to the west, the bow, pushed by the ballooning cushion of water between it and the west bank, swung clockwise to the east. The Ever Given was out of control.

“At that point, due to the displacement of that type of ship in that canal, the water was just taking it wherever the water wanted to go,” DeCruz says.

On the bridge of the Ever Given, the two SCA pilots and the captain now faced an emergency. Action was paramount.

“There’s no time for conversation,” Flannery says. “You need to concentrate on what you’re doing. We act now, talk later.”

“There were two pilots up there,” says DeCruz. “I guarantee you they were trying everything they could to see what was going on.”

The Grounding of the Ever Given

At 7:41 a.m., with the Ever Given’s bow careening toward the east bank, the only logical navigational option was to turn the ship westward. But, according to DeCruz, at that stage, the suctioned stretch of water between the west bank and the ship’s stern was likely too shallow for the vessel to gain the traction needed to change course.

“Once that stern tucked in, there was no way of turning the ship left,” says DeCruz. “There was nothing there but a limited amount of water. The propeller couldn’t do anything and the rudder couldn’t do anything.”

At 7:42 a.m., the Ever Given ran aground, driving its bulbous bow into the east bank of the canal at the 151-km marker. A minute later, its stern, drifting clockwise, connected with the west bank. The Suez Canal was officially blocked.

When a ship runs aground, crisis management begins instantly on the bridge. According to DeCruz, tugboats must be called and engineers must be dispatched to ensure that the boat is not taking on water or leaking fuel.

“You ain’t going nowhere,” said Flannery. “It’s time to make phone calls.”

One of the Ever Given’s phone calls likely reached the northbound Mosaed 2—the aforementioned tugboat trailing the Al Nasriyah—which, at 7:57am, turned on a dime near the canal’s 146-km marker, and sped south toward the Ever Given.

By 8:17 a.m., the Mosaed 2, along with the Mosaed 3, had reached the grounded ship. Thirty-five minutes after it struck land, the Ever Given’s rescue operation was underway.

Seven days, six hours, and 48 minutes later, that operation ended. On March 29 at 3:05 p.m., the Ever Given was refloated and, by 3:58 p.m., it had eased back into the canal, en route to nearby Great Bitter Lake for inspection.

As of press time, the Ever Given is still sitting in the Great Bitter Lake. Investigations, undoubtedly, are forthcoming, and blame will surely be passed around to all concerned parties. Eventually, the Ever Given will depart the lake, sail to and through its northern terminus at Port Said, enter the vast Mediterranean Sea, and press onward to its next destination. Out of sight, out of mind, but anonymous no more.

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Suez Canal traffic finally moving again after stranded Ever Given ship refloated

Helped by a high tide, a flotilla of tug boats has managed to wrench the ship's bow from the canal's sandy bank.

Tuesday 30 March 2021 00:49, UK

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Maritime traffic is on the move again in Egypt's Suez Canal after a stranded container ship, that had blocked one of the world's most important waterways for nearly a week, was freed.

The gigantic Ever Given ship, which had been jammed diagonally across a southern section, was successfully refloated by salvage experts on Monday.

Helped by a high tide, a flotilla of tug boats managed to wrench the ship's bow from the canal 's sandy bank.

It had been firmly lodged there since strong winds early last Tuesday , halting traffic on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

The 400m (1,312ft) long Ever Given, which is carrying 20,000 containers, was pulled by the salvage team to the Great Bitter Lake - a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where the ship will have a full technical inspection.

"She's free," said an official involved in the operation.

A statement from the Suez Canal Authority said: "Admiral Osama Rabei [SCA chairman] announces the resumption of maritime traffic in the Suez Canal after the authority successfully rescues and floats the giant Panamanian container ship Ever Given."

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Mr Rabei told reporters that 113 ships were expected to transit the canal in both directions by early Tuesday.

More than 400 vessels were waiting in line, including dozens of container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vessels.

Mr Rabei said it could take up to three days to clear the backlog in one of the globe's most vital maritime trade arteries.

:: Before the Ever Given became stuck, ships moved freely through the canal. The graphic below shows movement along a number of routes into and out of Port Said in the north, in the Mediterranean Sea. On the 23 March, to the south in the Gulf of Suez, the yellow dot of the Ever Given appears as it moves into the canal and then gets stuck. Most ships remained at either end - but several remained halfway, in the Great Bitter Lake. The graphic also shows the Ever Given heading north after it was refloated.

Live footage on a local television station had showed the mammoth 224,000-tonne ship surrounded by tugs moving slowly in the centre of the canal, reportedly at a speed of 1.5 knots.

Evergreen Line, which leases the ship, said the outcome of the inspection will determine whether it can resume its scheduled service.

It added that following the inspection, decisions will be made about the arrangements for the cargo on board.

The company that manages the vessel, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said: "There have been no reports of pollution or cargo damage and initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding."

Efforts to get the ship moving again appeared to have been frustrated when high winds swung it back across the channel after its partial refloating earlier on Monday.

There had been intensive efforts to push and pull it with 11 tug boats and two powerful sea tugs used, and about 30,000 cubic metres of sand was dredged - to a depth of 18m (59ft).

Mr Rabei confirmed the skyscraper-sized ship had responded successfully to "pull-and-push manoeuvres".

The price of oil fell 1% on Monday after the vessel was refloated.

It had been feared the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship might have been stuck for weeks.

On Saturday, Mr Rabei said strong winds were "not the only cause" for the Ever Given running aground. He said an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.

After the ship became stuck six days ago, the resulting disruption to the vital waterway held up £6.5bn in global trade each day.

Hundreds of other vessels had remained trapped in the canal waiting to pass, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle.

More than two dozen vessels opted for the alternative route between Asia and Europe around the Cape of Good Hope, adding around a fortnight to journeys and threatening delivery delays.

Usually, about 15% of world shipping traffic transits the Suez Canal, which is an important source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt.

Eyewitness: Alistair Bunkall in Ismailia, Egypt

For seven days the world has watched, captivated, as rescuers tried to free the giant Ever Given ship.

In the early hours of Monday morning, to whoops and shouts of Allahu Akbar onboard the tugs, they had some success.

By first light the ship had visibly shifted although its bow remained stubbornly embedded in the bank.

At the Suez Marine Training Centre in the canal city of Ismailia we waited for an update. Confidence was high but there was more work to be done and no guarantee it would come free.

Strong currents and high winds continued to frustrate rescuers - at one point the ship swung back to it's original position, astride the canal.

But a mid-afternoon spring tide raised the ship in the water and it was enough.

We drove south along the Suez Canal to watch it float free and move under its own power.

By six o'clock, as the sun was going down, the ship that had brought global commerce to a virtual halt, sailed into the wide Great Bitter Lake, and with that, the Suez Canal was open once again.

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Suez Canal reopens after stuck cargo ship is freed

In this photo released by Suez Canal Authority, the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, is pulled by one of the Suez Canal tugboats, in the Suez Canal, Egypt, Monday, March 29, 2021. Engineers on Monday “partially refloated " the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, authorities said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be set free. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)

This satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. shows the Ever Given cargo ship stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal as a mass of ships wait in the Red Sea to pass through the waterway Monday, March 29, 2021. Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, authorities said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be set free. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship that is wedged across the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in the vital waterway is seen Monday, March 29, 2021. Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, a canal services firm said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be fully set free. (AP Photo/Mohamed Elshahed)

In this photo released by Suez Canal Authority, the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship is accompanied by Suez Canal tugboats as it moves in the Suez Canal, Egypt, Monday, March 29, 2021. Salvage teams on Monday set free a colossal container ship that has halted global trade through the Suez Canal, bringing an end to a crisis that for nearly a week had clogged one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)

Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship that is wedged across the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in the vital waterway, is seen Monday, March 29, 2021. Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, a canal services firm said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be fully set free. (AP Photo/Mohamed Elshahed)

This satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. shows the Ever Given cargo ship stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal Monday, March 29, 2021. Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, authorities said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be set free. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

People watch Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, that has been stuck sideways and blocked traffic in Egypt’s Suez Canal, move past after it was set free by salvage teams, Monday, March 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Mohamed Elshahed)

FILE - In this March 28, 2021, satellite file image from Planet Labs Inc, the cargo ship MV Ever Given sits stuck in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt. Consumers may face shortages and higher prices for electronics, toys, furniture and other goods should attempts to free the mammoth container ship stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal drag on several weeks. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

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SUEZ, Egypt (AP) — Salvage teams on Monday finally freed the colossal container ship stuck for nearly a week in the Suez Canal, ending a crisis that had clogged one of the world’s most vital waterways and halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce.

A flotilla of tugboats, helped by the tides, wrenched the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized Ever Given from the canal’s sandy bank, where it had been firmly lodged since March 23.

The tugs blared their horns in jubilation as they guided the Ever Given through the water after days of futility that had captivated the world, drawing scrutiny and social media ridicule.

“We pulled it off!” said Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given. “I am excited to announce that our team of experts, working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully refloated the Ever Given … thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again.”

Navigation in the canal resumed at 6 p.m. local time (1600 GMT, noon EDT) said Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, adding that the first ships that were moving carried livestock. From the city of Suez, ships stacked with containers could be seen exiting the canal into the Red Sea.

At least 113 of over 420 vessels that had waited for Ever Given to be freed are expected to cross the canal by Tuesday morning, Rabei added at a news conference.

Analysts expect it could take at least another 10 days to clear the backlog on either end.

The Ever Given sailed to the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal, for inspection, said Evergreen Marine Corp., a Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship.

Buffeted by a sandstorm, the Ever Given had crashed into a bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. That created a massive traffic jam that held up $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.

Rabei said an investigation would determine why the Ever Given got stuck, and he estimated daily losses to the canal of between $12 million to $15 million.

“The Suez Canal is not guilty of what happened. We are the ones who suffered damage.” he said.

At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, had backed up to wait to traverse the canal. Dozens of others have taken the long, alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip — a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) detour that costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.

The canal is a source of national pride and crucial revenue for Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi praised Monday’s events after days of silence about the blockage.

“Egyptians have succeeded in ending the crisis,” he wrote on Facebook, “despite the massive technical complexity.”

In the village of Amer, which overlooks the canal, residents cheered as the vessel moved along. Many scrambled to get a closer look while others mockingly waved goodbye to the departing ship from their fields of clover

“Mission accomplished,” villager Abdalla Ramadan said. “The whole world is relieved.”

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo tweeted its congratulations to Egypt.

The breakthrough followed days of immense effort with an elite salvage team from the Netherlands. Tugboats pushed and pulled to budge the behemoth from the shore, their work buoyed by high tide at dawn Monday that led to the vessel’s partial refloating. Specialized dredgers dug out the stern and vacuumed sand and mud from beneath the bow.

The operation was extremely delicate. While the Ever Given was stuck, the rising and falling tides put stress on the vessel, which is 400 meters (a quarter mile) long, raising concerns it could crack.

Rabei praised the team, saying they “achieved a very difficult mission in record time,” without damaging the vessel or its cargo.

Berdowski told Dutch radio station NPO 1 the company had always believed it would be the two powerful tugboats it sent that would free the ship. Monday’s strong tide “helped push the ship at the top while we pulled at the bottom and luckily it shot free,” he said.

“We were helped enormously by the strong falling tide we had this afternoon. In effect, you have the forces of nature pushing hard with you and they pushed harder than the two sea tugs could pull,” Berdowski added.

The crew on the tugs was “euphoric,“ but there also was a tense moment when the huge ship was floating free ”so then you have to get it under control very quickly with the tugs around it so that it doesn’t push itself back into the other side” of the canal, he said.

Jubilant workers on a tugboat sailing with the Ever Given chanted, “Mashhour, No. 1,” referring to the dredger that worked around the vessel. The dredger is named for Mashhour Ahmed Mashhour, assigned to run the canal with others when it was nationalized in 1956 by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

Once the Ever Given is inspected in Great Bitter Lake, officials will decide whether the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship hauling goods from Asia to Europe would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam or head to another port for repairs.

The crisis cast a spotlight on the vital trade route that carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil. Over 19,000 ships ferrying Chinese-made consumer goods and millions of barrels of oil and liquified natural gas flow through the artery from the Middle East and Asia to Europe and North America.

The unprecedented shutdown, which raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers, has prompted new questions about the shipping industry, an on-demand supplier for a world under pressure from the pandemic.

“We’ve gone to this fragile, just-in-time shipping that we saw absolutely break down in the beginning of COVID,” said Capt. John Konrad, the founder and CEO of the shipping news website gcaptain.com. “We used to have big, fat warehouses in all the countries where the factories pulled supplies. … Now these floating ships are the warehouse.”

International trade expert Jeffrey Bergstrand predicted “only a minor and transitory effect” on prices of U.S. imports.

“Since most of the imports blocked over the last week are heading to Europe, U.S. consumers will likely see little effect on prices of U.S. imports, except to the extent that intermediate products of U.S. final goods are made in Europe,” said Bergstrand, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

DeBre reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed.

• International

Ship in Suez Canal has been freed

By Meg Wagner , Melissa Macaya and Melissa Mahtani , CNN

There's still a cargo ship traffic jam in the Suez Canal, satellite image shows

While the ship blocking the Suez Canal has just been fully dislodged , the shipping crisis the days-long blockage caused isn't over yet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a satellite image showing cargo ships backed up, waiting to enter the Suez Canal this evening, hours after authorities said the stuck ship had been freed.

You can see the ships in the image below. They're the tiny white dots lined up around the canal:

Ships stranded in Suez Canal will resume journeys after Ever Given anchors in Great Bitter Lake

From Magdy Samaan, Pamela Boykoff and Mostafa Salem

Ships stranded in the Suez Canal will restart their journeys after the Ever Given anchors in the Great Bitter Lake, a Suez Canal Official told CNN on Monday.

"As soon as the ship reaches the waiting place in the Bitter Lakes…the 43 ships waiting in the Bitter Lakes will begin to move south towards the Gulf of Suez,” the source said.

The ships will be traveling in convoys northbound and southbound of the Suez Canal, as the Ever Given stands by for inspections. 

The average number of ships that transited through the canal on a daily basis before the accident was between 80 to 90 ships, according to Lloyds List; however, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said that the channel will work 24 hours to facilitate the passage of almost 400 ships carrying billions of dollars in freight.

The journey to cross the canal takes 10 to 12 hours, and in the event the channel operates for 24 hours, two convoys per day will be able to successfully pass.

Still, shipping giant, Maersk issued an advisory telling customers it could take “6 days or more” for the queue created by the Suez Canal blockage to clear. The company said that was an estimate and subject to change as more vessels reach the blockage or are diverted.

Here's a bird's-eye view of the ship in the Suez Canal

From CNN's Paul P. Murphy

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies shows the Ever Given, the container ship that has been stuck in the Suez Canal, moving away from the eastern bank of the canal.

"As you will see in the imagery, the container ship has been moved away from the eastern bank of the canal and numerous tugboats are actively involved in trying to reposition the ship," Maxar's Stephen Wood said in a statement to CNN.

Earlier today, a Suez Canal Authority spokesperson told CNN the ship blocking the Suez Canal had been fully dislodged.

Here's a look:

Suez ship will be repositioned to the Great Bitter Lake for inspection

CNN’s Beijing bureau

The chartered Ever Given vessel will be repositioned to the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal for an inspection of its seaworthiness, the charter company, Evergreen, said.

The container ship is currently moving to allow the normal resumption of traffic in the Suez Canal, the statement said. 

“The outcome of that inspection will determine whether the ship can resume its scheduled service. Once the inspection is finalized, decisions will be made regarding arrangements for cargo currently on board,” Evergreen added.

The ship was refloated at 9 a.m. ET – 3 p.m. Egypt Standard Time – according to Evergreen.

“Evergreen will coordinate with the shipowner to deal with subsequent matters after the shipowner and other concerned parties complete investigation reports into the incident,” the statement added.

"We pulled it off!" Company that helped free Suez ship says

From CNN’s Rob North, Mick Krever and Mostafa Salem 

The salvage company which helped in the efforts to free a ship blocking the Suez Canal said in a statement, “We pulled it off!” 

“Boskalis announces the successful salvage operation of the grounded 20,000 TEU container vessel Ever Given in the Suez Canal. With a length of 400 meters and a width of nearly 60 meters this giant ship had been wedged in this vital shipping route since 23 March, 2021 blocking all shipping traffic ever since."

Videos show the ship floating in the Suez Canal after the bow was freed following intense tugging efforts Monday morning.

The ship is currently being tugged toward the Great Bitter Lake where it will park for inspections and an investigation, the head of the Suez Canal Authority Osama Rabie said, according to state-run Al Ahram newspaper. 

Marine traffic showed the ship moving at a speed of 1.5 knots north toward the Great Bitter Lake. 

The ship has been fully dislodged and is currently floating, Suez Canal Authority says

From CNN's Magdy Samaan, Mick Krever, Ben Wedeman and Mostafa Salem

The ship blocking the Suez Canal has been fully dislodged on Monday afternoon, a Suez Canal Authority spokesperson told CNN. 

Tugs were working to free the bow of the ship after dislodging the stern Monday morning. 

Marine traffic websites showed images of the ship away from the banks of the Suez Canal for the first time in seven days.

Egypt state TV showed the ship fully floating. 

Authorities have temporarily suspended efforts to free front of container ship as high tide fades

From CNN’s Mostafa Salem, Mick Krever and Lina El Wardani

Authorities have temporarily suspended efforts to free the front of the Ever Given container ship as the window for high tide faded on Monday afternoon, Egyptian local media said. 

A live shot on state media showed tug boats pulling the ship in an attempt to free the front or bow, which is still stuck “rock solid” as per the description of the CEO of a salvage company working to free the ship, Peter Berdowski.

The efforts to pull the ship out will resume later in the day, a reporter said on a local media newscast.

Despite the delay in fully dislodging the ship, Egypt’s President issued a statement Monday saying “Egyptians have successfully managed to end the crisis of the stranded ship.”

“[Egyptians] were able to get things back on track,” he said in a presidential statement on Facebook.

Dozens of ships that planned to travel through the Suez Canal are instead rerouting to the Cape of Good Hope around Africa, adding 8 days of sailing time and expending an additional 500 tons or so of fuel, Lloyds List Intelligence said.

However, more than 350 ships carrying billions of dollars’ worth of freight still await transit through the canal. 

It could take days for the backlogged ships to successfully transit, but the head of the Suez Canal Authority said in an interview with Sky News Arabia that “they will work 24 hours” a day to allow the vessels to transit.

The maximum passages per day on average through the Suez Canal for the past three months were 80 to 90 vessels, as per data from Lloyds List.

World's largest shipping company says it could take 6 days or more to clear Suez Canal backlog

From Charles Riley and Pamela Boykoff

Shipping Giant Maersk has issued an advisory telling customers it could take “6 days or more” for the queue created by the Suez canal blockage to pass. The company said that was an estimate and subject to change as more vessels reach the blockage or are diverted. 

Maersk currently has 3 vessels stuck in the canal, 30 waiting to enter and has redirected 15 to Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.

“These decisions were made close to the point of no return and it is expected that they will continue via the south of Africa, also to reduce the number of vessels in the queue,” the advisory said. 

Maersk expects the long term impact of the blockage could take months to resolve. “Even when the canal gets reopened, the ripple effects on global capacity and equipment are significant and the blockage has already triggered a series of further disruptions and backlogs in global shipping that could take weeks, possibly months, to unravel.” 

The ship stuck in the Suez Canal has been partially dislodged — but it's not fully free yet

From CNN's Asmaa Khalil, Mostafa Salem, Magdy Samaan and Jessie Yeung

The  Ever Given container ship  has been partially dislodged after blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week, authorities say, but efforts to fully refloat it are likely to continue for some time.

There were promising signs early Monday when the rear of the vessel was freed from one of the canal's banks, but the boss of the Dutch company working on the operation says its bow is still stuck "rock solid."

Egyptian officials struck a more optimistic note, saying that crews plan to refloat the vessel later Monday. But the shipping crisis that has dominated headlines and captured the world's attention for a week appears destined to continue.

About the ship: The Ever Given, a 224,000-ton vessel almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall, ran aground in the Egyptian canal on March 23. Crews from Egypt and around the world have been working nonstop to try to refloat the ship, with the operation involving 10 tug boats, sand dredges and salvage companies.

Previous efforts have failed — but this latest attempt is being executed during high tide where the water in the channel is at its highest.

The massive salvage effort has focused on dredging sand from below the front and rear of the ship, before pulling the ship with tugboats.

Rescue teams started digging deeper and closer to the ship on Sunday, with dredging reaching 18 meters (or about 59 feet) at the front of the ship, the SCA said in a statement. Over 27,000 cubic meters (953,000 cubic feet) of sand has been removed so far, said Rabie.

The rescue operation has intensified in both urgency and international attention as each day ticked by. Ships from around the world, carrying vital fuel and cargo, were blocked from entering the canal on both sides, raising alarm over the impact on global supply chains.

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How the Giant Boat Blocking the Suez Canal Was Freed: Dredgers, Tugboats, and a Full Moon

T he congregation of tugboats and dredgers that freed a skyscraper-sized container ship from Egypt’s Suez Canal on Monday had help from an extremely foreign body over the weekend: The moon.

The recovery vessels took advantage of high spring tides around the full moon on Sunday to free the Ever Given, which had blocked Egypt’s Suez Canal for almost a week . Its partial refloating just before dawn on Monday drew cheers and foghorn blasts from the bridges of other vessels caught in the bi-directional snarl that had held up hundreds of ships and billions of dollars worth of cargo each day since March 23.

Images on shipping trackers and reports from on the ground gave credence to the Suez Canal Authority’s (SCA’s) Monday afternoon announcement that the ship had been “fully refloated”, allowing for “restoration of the vessel’s direction so it is positioned in the middle of the navigable waterway”. As of Thursday evening, the Ever Given was headed for Great Bitter Lake, a wider stretch of water where the vessel will be examined according to its Taiwanese operator Evergreen Marine.

Only hours after tug boats had initially wrenched the stern free, some news outlets reported that strong winds had blown it back to its stuck position across the 205-meter southern section of the canal. Although the SCA confirmed the Ever Given had been fully refloated soon after, the incident underscored the precariousness of the operation and will likely prompt further scrutiny of the vessel’s apparent vulnerability to strong winds.

Here’s what to know about the freeing of the Ever Given:

Who refloated the vessel and how was it freed?

It took 14 tugboats conducting pulling maneuvers from three directions to achieve, according to the SCA. Their task was made easier by dredgers that worked over the weekend to dislodge the stranded vessel, shifting some 27,000 metric tons of sand to a depth of 60 feet. The tides helped too: Suez Canal forecasts showed that the Ever Given vessel was partially refloated as spring high tide levels peaked. After Tuesday, high tide heights will begin to decline again.

Both domestic and international recovery teams helped out. On Monday, Egypt’s authoritarian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi thanked “every loyal Egyptian who contributed” to refloating the ship. “Today the Egyptians succeeded in ending the crisis of the grounded ship in the Suez Canal, despite massive technical complications which engulfed this operation,” he wrote in an Arabic-language tweet .

But international teams were also involved. Dutch dredging and heavy-lift firm Boskalis dispatched a team to assist the vessel as early as Wednesday, according to shipping publication Trade Winds . “Don’t cheer too soon,” Boskalis CEO Peter Berdowski cautioned amid celebrations as the Ever Given was partially refloated on Monday morning, warning that the hardest part was still to come. But later that day, he confirmed the operation had been a success. “We pulled it off!” Berdowski said in a later statement. “I am excited to announce that our team of experts, working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully refloated the Ever Given …thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again.”

How did the ship get stuck in the first place?

It’s still not clear. Initial reports from the SCA stated that Ever Given lost control amid strong winds and sandstorms. Evergreen Marine, its operator, said the same: that it “was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind .” Meanwhile, vessel management firm Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said Thursday that initial investigations ruled out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding.

But on Saturday, the chairman of the SCA Osama Rabie offered a contradictory version of events. “Weather factors were not the main reasons for the ship’s grounding,” he said, and “technical or human errors” may have played a role in the accident.

How much did the blockage end up costing?

It’s difficult to determine because delays affect the different goods in different ways. Still, the costs would have been considerable: about 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal. The most vulnerable were already feeling the pinch. Over the weekend, Syria’s oil ministry announced that it had begun rationing the distribution of fuel in the country amid concerns that oil shipments could be delayed. The war-torn country where some 80% of the population lives in poverty is already suffering from fuel shortages, and the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad has already raised fuel prices three times this year, the AP reports .

For Egypt, the Ever Given’s refloating must have come as a relief. The canal is a vital source of foreign revenue and its blockage was costing some $14-$15 million a day, SCA’s chairman Rabie said.

There would have been reputational concerns too. As early as last Thursday, some large ships had begun to divert away from Suez and towards the African cape, even though that route can take an additional two weeks. But for container ships traveling between Asia and the U.S. East Coast, there is another option. The Suez Canal began to gain market share from the Panama Canal as manufacturing centers gradually moved south from northeast Asia to southern China and Southeast Asia. But a longer-term impediment to transit through the canal could have reversed that trend.

What happens next?

The question of whether Ever Given —and container ships of similar magnitude—have a propensity to lose control during strong winds is likely to attract further scrutiny.

Insurers were already wary of the risks posed by mega-ships carrying expensive cargo, experts say. Data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that the average size of the largest container ship that ports manage has more than doubled over the past 15 years. The Ever Given is the same size as the largest bulk container ships that transport commodities like iron ore. But the ship—which was reportedly involved in a separate accident attributed to high winds in 2019—carries a far more valuable cargo.

Some 3000 containers were lost in the North Pacific in the first two months of 2021. Last December, 1,900 “boxes” were lost in a single incident, including some containing dangerous goods, says Diane Gilpin, founder of the U.K.-based Smart Green Shipping Alliance.

But it is not only the possibility of accidents or loss of cargo that is cause for concern with massive container ships, says Jan Hoffman, chief of UNCTAD’s trade logistics branch. Although mega-ships still make savings in terms of CO2 per tonne mile on the sea-leg of their journeys, “in the ports and hinterlands there is lots of additional expenditure necessary to cope with the higher peak demand,” he says. “We have reached dis-economies of scale for the total logistics chain.”

Correction, April 1

The original version of this story misstated the size of the largest container ships that ports managed in the first quarter of 2006 and the fourth of 2020. It was 9,380 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) and 23,963 TEU respectfully, not 100 TEU and 225 TEU.

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Massive container ship stuck in Suez Canal, blocking world's busiest shipping route

50 ships a day normally pass through the canal between the mediterranean and red sea.

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• Roughly 100 other ships are now either waiting to enter or stuck in the canal

A container ship almost as long as the height of the CN Tower and twice as heavy is wedged across Egypt's Suez Canal, having blocked all traffic in the vital waterway for more than a day — with no sign that it's moving any time soon.

The MV Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow, man-made canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. Images showed the ship's bow had collided with the eastern wall of the canal, while its stern looked lodged against the western wall.

Nearly a dozen tugboats worked together to try to nudge the obstruction out of the way as ships hoping to enter the waterway began lining up in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

An earlier report Wednesday suggested that the ship has been "partially refloated," but Ahmed Mekawy, an assistant manager at marine agency GAC, says that report was wrong, and that the 400-metre-long ship with a sailing weight of 220,000 tonnes was still very much stuck late in the day local time.

Price of oil spikes

It remains unclear when the route, through which around 10 per cent of world trade flows and which is particularly crucial for the transport of oil, would reopen.

The refloating operation was temporarily suspended late Wednesday and will be resumed early Thursday, according to canal service provider Leth Agencies.

About a million barrels of oil pass through the canal on a normal day, and the backlog of delayed deliveries is already causing the price of oil to spike.

The North American oil benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate gained more than $4 US or more than six per cent to just over $61 a barrel. Brent, the type of oil used in Europe and the blend most commonly passing through the canal every day, was up by even more.

Rory Johnston, managing director at Toronto-based investment firm Price Street Inc., said in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday that as long as the ship is moved within a day or two, the impact on the oil market should be muted.

"I think this is going to be a temporary thing and no one expects us to go on for a really long time, but it's also not a simple thing to get one of the world's largest ships ... wedged between one of the tightest choke points on earth."

About 10 per cent of the world's crude passes through the Suez canal every day, so if it is closed off for any length of time, the cost and difficulty or rerouting it will be borne by customers.

"All of this hinges on this being resolved in kind of a day or two. Once you get into a couple days long or a week, it becomes a very very different ballgame and people are going to have start diverting cargo around the southern tip of Africa," Johnston said, noting that impacts on supply chains beyond oil may start "cascading" from there.

Officials on the ground stressed that everything that can be done is being done.

"The Suez Canal will not spare any efforts to ensure the restoration of navigation and to serve the movement of global trade," vowed Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority.

Singapore-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever Given, said all 20 members of the crew were safe and that there had been "no reports of injuries or pollution."

High winds a possible cause

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the Ever Given to become wedged on Tuesday morning. GAC said the ship had lost power and the ability to steer.

Bernhard Schulte, however, denied the ship ever lost power.

Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said in a statement that the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the canal from the Red Sea, but none of its containers had sunk.

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An Egyptian official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to brief journalists, similarly blamed a strong wind.

Egyptian forecasters said high winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting as much as 50 kilometres per hour.

However, it remained unclear how wind alone would have been able to push a fully laden vessel. Typically, Egyptian pilots take over ships passing through the canal, but it wasn't immediately clear if that happened with the Ever Given.

An image posted to Instagram by a user on another waiting cargo ship appeared to show the Ever Given wedged across the canal as shown in satellite images and data. A backhoe appeared to be digging into the sand bank under its bow in an effort to free it.

The ship ran aground some six kilometres north of the southerly mouth of the canal near the city of Suez, an area of the canal that's a single lane.

That could have a major knock-on effect for global shipping moving between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, warned Salvatore R. Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner and associate professor of history at North Carolina's Campbell University.

"Every day, 50 vessels on average go through that canal, so the closing of the canal means no vessels are transiting north and south," Mercogliano told the AP.

"Every day the canal is closed ... container ships and tankers are not delivering food, fuel and manufactured goods to Europe and goods are not being exported from Europe to the Far East."

Idling ships warned to be alert

Already, some 30 vessels waited at Egypt's Great Bitter Lake midway on the canal, while some 40 idled in the Mediterranean near Port Said and another 30 at Suez in the Red Sea, according to canal service provider Leth Agencies.

There were concerns that idling ships in the Red Sea could be targets after a series of attacks against shipping in the Mideast amid tensions between Iran and the U.S.

"All vessels should consider adopting a heightened posture of alertness if forced to remain static within the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden," warned private marine intelligence firm Dryad Global.

The Ever Given, built in 2018 with a length of nearly 400 metres and a width of 59 metres, is among the largest cargo ships in the world.

• Sleight of hand on the High Seas: How tankers are getting around tariffs to ship U.S. ethanol to China

It can carry some 20,000 containers at a time. It previously had been at ports in China before heading toward Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The stranding Tuesday marks just the latest to affect mariners amid the pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands have been stuck aboard vessels due to COVID-19 restrictions. Meanwhile, demands on shipping have increased, adding to the pressure on tired sailors, Mercogliano said.

"It's because of the breakneck pace of global shipping right now and shipping is on a very tight schedule," he said. "Add to it that mariners have not been able to get on and off vessels because of COVID restrictions."

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters

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Another massive cargo ship was stuck in the Suez Canal, but this time it was freed and re-floated in 15 minutes

• A cargo ship briefly ran aground in the Suez Canal on Thursday.
• The ship was refloated within 15 minutes and did not impact traffic, officials said.
• The incident comes several months after the Ever Given blocked the canal for six days.

A cargo ship was temporarily stuck in the Suez Canal on Thursday.

The bulk carrier ship, MV Coral Crystal, was "slightly grounded," but freed and refloated within 15 minutes, a Suez Canal Authority official told Bloomberg.  

The ship which was carrying 43,000 tonnes of cargo did not impact shipping traffic in the canal as ships were diverted through a parallel channel during the incident, the Suez Canal Authority told Reuters.

Related stories

The incident comes just months after the Ever Given cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days. In March, the Ever Given pinned in hundreds of cargo ships and forced even more ships to divert their paths.

The channel is a massive thoroughfare that impacts about 12% of global trade. At the time, experts said that the blockage cost the global economy about $400 million an hour.

While the incident spurred a meme-frenzy , it was just one of many mishaps to befall the global supply chain since the pandemic started, pushing delays, shortages, and the prices of goods even higher . Since the pandemic started, the average price for companies to ship their goods overseas has risen over 547%, as compared to the average price over the previous five years.

Today the supply chain continues to face major snags. In August, port delays in Southern California hit an all-time record . Experts told Insider that in light of the Delta variant the shipping crisis will likely not abate until 2023.

Watch: The rise and fall of the cruise industry

• Main content

Ship Refloated After Getting Stuck In Suez Canal—The Latest Incident Hitting World’s Trade Artery

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A ship has been refloated after running aground in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Monday, according to news reports, briefly disrupting traffic in the latest incident to hit one of the world’s busiest shipping routes since early 2021, when a colossal container ship paralyzed global supply chains after blocking the canal for days.

A ship, not pictured, has been refloated after it ran aground in the Suez Canal on Monday.

The MV Glory, a China-bound cargo ship reportedly carrying nearly 66,000 metric tons of corn from Ukraine, has been refloated after briefly running aground in the Suez Canal, according to news reports citing shipping agency Leth and Suez Canal Authority officials.

Around 20 ships stopped from traveling south through the waterway will be able to commence or resume their passage with minor delays, Leth said , adding that “ordinary convoy” will resume at 11a.m. local time.

Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie confirmed the incident and said the vessel ran aground following a “sudden technical failure,” according to AFP.

The ship is now being towed away by tugs for repairs, Rabie added.

Traffic through the canal is “normal,” Rabie said.

Satellite tracking data showed the MV Glory in a single-lane zone of the Suez Canal south of the Port of Said on the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Associated Press, and an image posted by Leth suggested it was against the canal’s bank rather than wedged across the waterway.

Key Background

The Suez Canal offers the most direct maritime link between Asia and Europe and is one of the busiest waterways in the world. It is a crucial supply chain conduit for all manner of goods and around 12% of world trade reportedly passes through the channel each year. Increasing shipping volume and the growing size of ships has strained the canal, which was first built in the 1800’s, particularly shallower choke points along the route. Global trade ground to a halt in 2021 when the Ever Given, a gigantic container ship, lodged itself in the middle of a single-lane passage for days before being freed . The blockage sparked delays in shipping, surges in shipping costs, oil price hikes and delayed traffic that snarled ports for months as ships diverted or delayed arrived off-schedule. The specter of global trade chaos reared its head again in September when a tanker ran aground close to the same place the Ever Given got stuck, though tugboats were able to swiftly free the vessel.

The Ever Forward, owned by the same company as the Ever Given, was stuck for a month in Chesapeake Bay in early 2022. It was freed after a salvage operation undertaken by a group of responders including the Coast Guard and the Maryland Department of the Environment.

18,000. That’s how many ships pass through the Suez Canal each year, according to Bloomberg.

Further Reading

Suez Canal briefly blocked again after another ship, Affinity V, becomes stuck (Guardian)

The untold story of the big boat that broke the world (Wired)

Giant Ever Given Ship That Blocked Suez Canal Is Freed After Months-Long Fight Over Compensation (Forbes)

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What to Know About the Suez Canal and the Cargo Ship That Was Stuck There

It took 10 years and 1.5 million workers to build the waterway in the 19th century, and one day and one giant ship to clog it in 2021. The vessel has been refloated, but the disruption could linger.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Sinai Peninsula

By Rick Gladstone and Megan Specia

The Ever Given , a 1,300-foot, Japanese-owned container ship en route from China to Europe that became stuck in the Suez Canal for days, was freed on Monday after a round-the-clock scramble to unblock the shipping thoroughfare.

The 120-mile artificial waterway known as the Suez Canal has been a potential flash point for geopolitical conflict since it opened in 1869. Now the canal, a vital international shipping passage , is in the news for a different reason: a blockage affecting more than 300 vessels that sent tremors through the world of maritime commerce.

The Ever Given was partially refloated in the early hours of March 29, and by around 3 p.m., the ship had successfully been freed and appeared to be on the move, according to vessel trackers and observers at the scene.

Here’s what to know about the recovery efforts, how the vessel got stuck , and some basics on the history of the canal and how it operates.

What led to the vessel’s grounding, and how was it eventually freed?

The Ever Given, operated by Evergreen Shipping , is one of the world’s largest container ships, nearly a quarter-mile long. Buffeted by high winds and with poor visibility, it ran aground on March 23, and the authorities scrambled to free it for days.

The refloating of the ship on Monday raised hopes that traffic could soon resume in the canal. Salvage teams had been working on both land and water for six days, dredging sand and removing rock from both ends of the ship, which had blocked passage by any ship. Tugboats aided by a high spring tide eventually managed to move the vessel.

Salvagers had tried several remedies: pulling the ship with tugboats, dredging underneath the hull and using a front-end loader to excavate the eastern embankment, where the bow was stuck. But the vessel’s enormous size and weight — 200,000 metric tons — had made those salvage efforts difficult.

On Monday afternoon, tugboat horns blared as the ship again began moving on its own, finally shifting from its diagonal position across the canal.

What has the impact been?

The ramifications of the blockage in the canal, which is believed to handle about 10 percent of global maritime commercial traffic, have been huge. By the morning of March 29, hours before the Ever Given was freed, 367 vessels were waiting to pass through the canal, according to Leth Agencies , a canal services provider. Maritime industry experts have said that such a large backlog could take weeks to clear.

Shipping analysts estimated that the traffic jam had held up nearly $10 billion in trade every day.

The delays could prove very expensive for the owners of ships waiting to transit the canal. Some shipowners had already decided to cut their losses and reroute vessels around the Cape of Good Hope , at the southern tip of Africa, adding weeks to shipping journeys.

The owner of the Ever Given was already facing millions of dollars in insurance claims and the cost of emergency salvage services. The Egyptian government, which received $5.61 billion in revenue from canal tolls in 2020 , also had a vital interest in refloating the Ever Given and reopening the waterway.

Where is the Suez Canal?

The canal connects Port Said, Egypt, on the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Egyptian city of Suez on the Red Sea. The passage enables more direct shipping between Europe and Asia, eliminating the need to circumnavigate Africa and cutting voyage times by days or weeks.

It is the world’s longest canal without locks, which connect bodies of water at differing altitudes. With no locks to interrupt traffic, the transit time from end to end averages about 13 to 15 hours, according to a description of the canal by GlobalSecurity.org .

Who built the Suez Canal and when?

The canal, originally owned by French investors, was conceived when Egypt was under the control of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century. Construction began at the Port Said end in early 1859, took 10 years to complete and required an estimated 1.5 million workers .

According to the Suez Canal Authority, the Egyptian government agency that operates the waterway, 20,000 workers were drafted every 10 months to help construct the project with “excruciating and poorly compensated labor.” Many died of cholera and other diseases.

Political tumult in Egypt against the colonial powers of Britain and France slowed progress on the canal, and the final cost was roughly double the initial $50 million projected.

Although the canal was originally engineered to handle much smaller vessels, its channels have been widened and deepened several times, most recently six years ago , at a cost of more than $8 billion.

Which country controls the canal now?

The British powers that controlled the canal through the first two world wars withdrew forces in 1956 after years of negotiations with Egypt, effectively relinquishing authority to the Egyptian government led by President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

What was the ‘Suez Crisis’ that nearly led to war?

The crisis began in 1956 when Egypt’s president nationalized the canal and Britain, along with France and Israel, invaded to reclaim control. But the assault failed when President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to back the military intervention, a decision that underscored Britain’s decline to a second-tier power.

The crisis briefly closed the canal and raised the risk of entangling the Soviet Union and the United States. It ended in early 1957 under an agreement supervised by the United Nations, which sent its first peacekeeping force to the area . The outcome was seen as a triumph for Egyptian nationalism, but its legacy was an undercurrent in the Cold War.

The Suez crisis was also a theme in Season 2, Episode 1, of “The Crown,” the Netflix series about Britain’s royals, as the British prime minister at the time, Anthony Eden, struggled over how to respond.

Has the canal ever been closed since then?

Egypt closed the canal for nearly a decade after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when the waterway was basically a front line between Israeli and Egyptian military forces. Fourteen cargo ships, which became known as the Yellow Fleet, were trapped in the canal until it was reopened in 1975 by Mr. Nasser’s successor, Anwar el-Sadat.

A few accidental groundings of vessels have closed the canal since then. The most notable, until this week, was a three-day shutdown in 2004 when a Russian oil tanker ran aground.

Rick Gladstone is an editor and writer on the International Desk, based in New York. He has worked at The Times since 1997, starting as an editor in the Business section. More about Rick Gladstone

Megan Specia is a correspondent on the International Desk in London, covering the United Kingdom and Ireland. She has been with The Times since 2016. More about Megan Specia