Belgian expert: hydrodynamics explains stuck ship

An expert in maritime technology and engineering says the grounding of a large container ship in the Suez Canal is down to a a branch of physics known as hydrodynamics.

Evert Lataire, head of maritime technology division at the University of Ghent in Belgium says that the large container ship, which is now blocking one of the world's main trade arteries, was turned around by a phenomenon he's studied many times in models and simulations – the bank effect.

He said it happens when a large vessel, in a shallow body of water, gets too close to a bank.

Then displaced water can exert forces that may override a working ship's motor and rudder, sometimes flipping it 180 degrees.

Lataire heads a division that runs simulations and models for a number of different ships to test their ability to enter ports and other shipping facilities.

He says he recognized the situation almost immediately when he saw the path of the ship in vessel tracking sites.

The skyscraper-sized Ever Given, carrying cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow, man-made canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula.

Even helped by high tides, authorities have been unable to push the Panama-flagged container vessel aside, and they are looking for new ideas to free it.

Lataire says that, from his research, it seems to have run ashore on both ends – though more deeply on the front bow, making refloating even more difficult.

Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the canal, something Egyptian officials had echoed earlier.

High winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting to 50 kph (30 mph).

An initial report suggested the ship suffered a power blackout before the incident, something Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement denied.

Lataire also explained movement patterns earlier in the ship's approach to the canal, saying it looks like the normal pattern of a ship that is maneuvering around a lowered anchor that is not resting on the sea floor.

That's something a ship might do while it's waiting for permission to start its journey through the canal, with Lataire adding he did not "see anything exotic".