Accident between two tankers in the Suez Canal

It is a coveted job by those lucky enough to be involved, for the uninitiated user it is a very full on nerve wracking time indeed - just approaching the canal and trying to determine which of the many screaming wailing locals is the agent you have actually engaged to deal with your transit.

Johnny Walker Black and Marlboro Reds are the best lube to get you through, don't skimp on each.

We had one asking for a carton of smokes, not 10 packs of 20 like you find in duty free but the carton that holds 50 of those and he was not happy when he didn't get it.

Suez Canal Authority

Look up the word "jingoism" and try to keep such things out of a thread about ship collisions.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Something came up on another thread I thought was interesting.
I hope Marmot does not mind my copy of his comment.

So if the canal had some irregularities on the bottom, say from a side channel joining, sudden direction may change? I need to copy this to that thread.
,rc

No, not from that. If you are in the channel and it is shallow.....say you draw 8' and it is 10' deep and to your starboard side it is really shallow. The propellors sucking water will have a tendancy sometimes to make the boat make a quick turn towards the side of the boat that the shallow water is on. Like, you might be going along and it's shallow on the starboard side, the boat will instantly make a 45-60 degree turn towards that shallow spot. Best way to deal with it is bring engines to idle speed and counter steer a lot.

But a deep draft, can not answer the throttles that quick, the pilot may be turning the the wheel to counter but would respond slowly also.
Oh well, It was an exciting thought from last night (& another thread) that I thought could be of interest.

Well, in reading from the page Marmot linked to the one huge thing I got out of that is that the ships better go very slow in those conditions plus be prepared. But speed is what increases the risk to them. The Suez Canal is specifically mentioned too as well as it's speed limits for just this reason.

It's not a matter of that. When you back the throttles down, it stops sucking a lot of water and sucking the boat towards the shallow area and the boat pops right back and then with the rudder turned it steers right back.....if you don't, it will just try to drag you further towards the shallow area......I'm sure you've experienced it, just didn't correspond to what it was in your boat.....like have you ever been going down the ICW in a narrow part and all of a sudden out of the blue the boat just turns off course.....most people attribute it to a lot of curent without realizing it's really the bottom effect. Smaller boats you can just steer your way out of it. On yachts >75' it's harder to steer out of it and best to quickly reduce speed.