EVER GIVEN AND THE DRAMA IN THE SUEZ CANAL

Captain Krishnan Kanthavel, master of the containership Ever Given, watched the sun rise over the Red Sea on 23 March 2021 through a dusty haze. Winds of more than 40mph, whipping off the Egyptian desert, had turned the sky an anaemic yellow. From his viewpoint on the ship’s bridge, it was just possible to see the dark outlines of the 19 other vessels anchored in Suez Bay, waiting their turn to enter the narrow channel snaking inland.

At least four nearby ports had already closed because of the storm and on the previous day the captain of a natural gas carrier arriving from Qatar had decided that it was too gusty to traverse the Suez Canal safely. However, the commercial pressures on Captain Kanthavel would have been enormous, with any delay to Ever Given’s passage adding tens of thousands of dollars per day in costs.

was scheduled to be the 13th ship in the northbound convoy. Transiting the Suez Canal saves ships a three-week detour around Africa, but the canal is only about 200m wide in parts and just 24m deep. ’s keel