Yet Another Ship Gets Stuck In The Suez Canal

Crews managed to refloat a cargo ship that ran aground the Suez Canal Thursday morning, in what is becoming a bit of a trend in the all-important international shipping lane.

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It’s unclear how the Xin Hai Tong 23 became stuck in the canal a little before dawn on Thursday. An agency that manages the canal told the Hill that the 625- foot ship ran aground near the southern entrance, blocking traffic for a few hours before it could be refloated. The state-run Suez Canal Authority, however, said the ship lost power and needed to be towed by three tugboats out of the entrance to the canal.

This is the third such grounding this year alone. In January, a huge ship carrying corn from Ukraine to China lost power while in the canal. And in March, a ship ran aground in the two-way stretch of the canal. Both ships were underway after only a few hours.

It seems only a matter of time before the canal experiences another serious blockage. And I’ll admit, much like the rest of the transportation news media, I was kind of hoping for another Ever Given scenario. Remember what a great distraction that was from the grind of a whole year of daily trauma under COVID-19? It was a crisis that brought the whole world together without killing people. We all watched with baited breath every rescue mission, press conference and interview. It was a better will-they-won’t-they than Jim and Pam and united all of us in the way a deadly pandemic apparently couldn’t.

Sure it messed up an already deeply screwed global supply chain, which made the drama of what happened after the Ever Given was freed entirely guilt-free; the Egyptian government held the ship as collateral for various fines and legal fees spurred by the grounding of the ship and blocking of the waterway for 106 days. All Ever Given wanted to do was sail! When she was finally able to sail free it felt like both a weight being lifted and a friend saying goodbye.