I watch Gold Rush and one of the prospectors use a massive Volvo excavator that makes those two tiny ones they use in Suez look like tinker toys.

I think they have no idea at this moment as the tugs can't get it done.

The (wo)man hour myth.

In all fairness, all the excavator in the world probably won't solve the problem, because they have to sit on land, but the ship cuts deep.

I don't think the "2 bulldozers" was a serious plan. Just what they happened to have nearby where someone thought to give it a go.

It's probably not easy to dig with excavators into the canal: they likely won't reach far enough

> Like why not call in the army, rent every bulldozer in the district, and within 12 hours you'll have 30 on site and be able to move a lot of sand quickly to free it?

Because that would all be a tremendous waste of money, and would not get the ship any closer to being free.

Is it possible someone is blocking the canal on purpose? For some geopolitical reason maybe.

Hanlons Razor I reckon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Yeah but still doesn’t change the probability of it being on purpose or not.

Maybe someone on WSB who's built up a massive short-sell position.

Didn't most of them get in at 200-300? It's below that now.

That’s not fairness. Chinese expatriates bought up a lot of the world’s stock of masks early on when the pandemic was limited to China. Also, ventilator shortages ended up not being a thing. Keep up. The world is not as simple as “America bad.”

Why? Out of malice and ignorance? No other country in the world ramped up masks immediately. People put too much stock in the presidency, a position held for 8 years max, and too little stock in the massive systems decades, or hundreds+ years old with incredible inertia that are really responsible for 90% of what happens in the world.

Taiwan, for example, definitely DID ramp up mask production immediately after understanding COVID-19's threat.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3924318

The government there commissioned a "national mask team" task force... so there is some credence to the "poor governance" argument in the US.

Surgical masks as noted in the article, not N-95 masks which require the specialized equipment and materials.

Correct.

Turns out blanketing the population with surgical masks, which are designed to block the sputum coughed into the air by a sick person, is an effective tactic against a respiratory disease!

Just look at those idiot nerds, making surgical masks HAHA. They didnt get the Fauci memo about masks being useless

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/

Deaths: 10

Sure, and at this same time Europe still hadn’t, Nancy Pelosi was telling everyone to come party with her in SF Chinatown, Biden was still running campaign events, and the CDC was saying masks are ineffective.

Most people didn’t realize how bad covid was going to get, even the experts.

Nope, only Germany had the fiber machines, the reason they take a year to build is the global supply chain is so distributed, and you have to build many parts in series.

It's almost been a year and I don't see an end for masks in sight (even with vaccines). Anyone who didn't put money into more production of masks is just greedy. It certainly wasn't a matter of time.

They are, it just takes a year or so to build these mech/chem tech ology machines when the specialized work force is so small and the training takes so long for knowledge transfer... this flows all the way down to high purity polypropylene sourcing itself.

They know they have a monopoly. There are no viable alternative routes, so they just don't care enough.

Sure there is. It's about to be busier than usual.

https://imgur.com/a/nu0CNPi

Historically, isn't that a "stormier" route? As the euphemism "Cape of Good Hope" replaced the "Cape of Storms".

Also, I think shipping is about to get more expensive, I guess.

> Historically, isn't that a "stormier" route?

I'm no expert, but I think it makes a huge difference whether you're in a flimsy, wooden ship with even flimsier sails made of cloth, or in a 400m long, extremely massive steel vessel with a reliable internal combustion engine.

Vs. storms at sea it's not a major difference, and if anything the sail boat is in better shape. The real advantage is accurate weather reports to avoid the worst of it.

> if anything the sail boat is in better shape

Why? That sounds implausible. Firstly, the larger a ship, the less affected it is by waves. Secondly, high winds will shred your sails, but without sails it's hard to maneuver .

The problem with Ever Given was exactly the "sail area", since it was a big boat [1]. You can check videos of container ships in storms on Youtube.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/sail-area

I did. They seem to be doing fine, even in waves which could have swallowed an entire sailing ship.

If I were South Africa, I would announce a tax on passing within 100 miles of their shore for commercial shipping...

Territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles (22 km) from a coastline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_t...

Also this would be innocent passage anyways.

And that's how you'd get a nice, friendly visit from the Sixth Fleet.

"Knock knock. It's the United States. With huge boats. With guns. Gunboats."

The US navy has a proud tradition of gunboat diplomacy going back at least as far as commodore Perry and the opening of japan.

That's indeed the reference, yep: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o

Well, that would trigger some Freedom of Navigation Operations.

If I were South Africa I would make sure that this route is as attractive as possible.

That would be illegal and if they attempted to enforce it they would be engaging in piracy.