> Unavoidable

Not really, weather forecasts are readily available and windage calculations are a thing.

Oh gosh why didn't the expert sailors whom all have many years of experience think about this trivial matter?

Or could it be that navigating a 400mx60m, 220,000 tonne, 60m tall ship through a canal that is barely double the width with only 4m clearance is just a tad more difficult than that?

Well quite, that's why they might have waited for more favourable conditions instead of trying to take such a big ship through in force 7 'near gale' with poor visibility due to a sandstorm. Seems like a risky thing to do, no? Here's the risk assessment: Can you see where you are going? No. Is it harder to go in a straight line than normal? Yes. Is there anything nearby to hit? Yes.

But the crew of the ship never do close quarters manoeuvring anyway it is the job of the local pilot to get the ship to near to the dock and tug crews who berth it. Maybe in the future the canal will change their risk assessment to hold ships this large when the weather conditions are unfavourable. Or maybe this is at the pilot's discretion already, but there was a 'human factors' issue as there is a post elsewhere suggesting that there might have been some friction with the pilot who was meant to be giving helm orders but was refusing to do so? Who knows?

I don't know if you read this account that was posted here last week [0], but you'll note that there is quite a lot of "pilot's discretion" going on, mostly their discretion to say "that's enough cartons of cigarettes". They do mention wind conditions delaying them, but it's not clear what the threshold might be (or whether a sandstorm might kick up suddenly).

[0] http://www.sailsafely.com/suez_canal.htm

As long as we're idly speculating...

Vessel has a schedule. Has to arrive at a certain berth at a certain time and is expected to only stay there for a certain maximum number of hours because another vessel will be arriving to take its place. Especially if they're already running late, there will be a lot of pressure to keep that schedule and that can lead to doing things that are usually safe, right up until they aren't.

The history of transportation, hell, the history of Mankind, is full of examples.

I believe the ft article says that they had 30 kts wind, and steered 'into the wind' to compensate. And since they were in a narrow canal, a sudden lull in the wind was enough.

That doesn't contradict the 'going too fast' though. Just like we don't drive 55 mph in a residential neighborhood, thinking 'if a kid runs into the street that is not my fault, it was unforeseeable'.

With a ship of this size couldn't they have the same problem if they go too slow?

Yes. The ship needs to have a certain amount of water going over the rudder to effect steering.