Ever Given

Ever Given () is one of the largest container ships in the world. The ship is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha (a shipowning and leasing subsidiary of the large Japanese shipbuilding company Imabari Shipbuilding), and is time chartered and operated by container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine, headquartered in Luzhu District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan. "Ever Given" is registered in Panama and its technical management is the responsibility of the German ship management company Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM).
On 23 March 2021, while traveling from Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the ship ran aground in the Suez Canal. The ship remained in place for six days before salvage crews freed it on 29 March 2021. The vessel was impounded by the Egyptian government on 13 April 2021 for refusing to pay a reported $916 million in fees demanded by the government, including $300 million in "loss of reputation." The compensation claim was later cut down to $600 million.
Description.
"Ever Given" () is one of 13 container ships built to the "Imabari 20000" design developed by Imabari Shipbuilding, 11 of which have been chartered by Evergreen Marine with names starting with "Ever G—". The ship was laid down on 25 December 2015, launched on 9 May 2018 and completed on 25 September 2018. It is Evergreen's second ship to be named "Ever Given"; the first one () was built in 1986 and has since been broken up.
With a length overall of , "Ever Given" is one of the longest ships in service. The hull has a beam of and its height from keel to main deck (hull depth) is . Fully laden at design draught, "Ever Given" draws of water while the scantling draught, which is used as the basis of hull strength and structural design, is . "Ever Given" has a gross tonnage of 220,940; net tonnage of 99,155; and deadweight tonnage of 199,629 tons at design draught. The ship's container capacity is .
As with most large container ships, "Ever Given"s propulsion system consists of a single low-speed two-stroke diesel engine coupled to a large fixed-pitch propeller. The 11-cylinder straight engine, license-manufactured MitsuiMAN B&W 11G95ME-C9, produces at 79 rpm and gives the vessel a service speed of . In addition, "Ever Given" has four straight-8 Yanmar 8EY33LW auxiliary diesel generators that produce electricity. For maneuvering in ports, the vessel has two bow thrusters.
Operational history.
2019 Hamburg collision.
On 9 February 2019, the ship collided with and heavily damaged the "Finkenwerder", a HADAG ferry boat which was berthed at Blankenese, near the harbour of Hamburg. Two minutes after the collision, a traffic ban on the Elbe river was mandated due to high winds.
2021 Suez Canal grounding.
At 07:40 Eastern European Time () on 23 March 2021, the ship was passing through the Suez Canal on its way to Rotterdam from Tanjung Pelepas when it became stuck (coordinates ) near the village of Manshiyet Rugola and blocked the canal. According to a statement by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), the ship ran aground diagonally after losing the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm. In a separate statement, Evergreen Marine said that it had been told the ship "was suspected of being hit by a sudden strong wind, causing the hull to deviate from [the] waterway and accidentally hit the bottom". The ship ended up with its bow wedged in one bank of the canal and stern nearly touching the other.
The ship had been running fifth in a northbound convoy, with fifteen vessels behind it when it ran aground. Traffic in both directions was blocked for just over six days, leading to a traffic jam of over two hundred vessels. On 24 March, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), the technical manager of the ship, denied earlier reports that it had been partially refloated. In addition, trade experts were worried about a supply chain delay, and tension due to the delay for the ships trapped as well as other vessels that planned to cross the Suez.
Eight tugboats worked to re-float the vessel in collaboration with a Komatsu excavator removing sand from the side of the canal where the bow of the vessel was wedged. After an overnight break, the salvage work resumed in the morning of 25 March.
On 25 March, an unnamed Egyptian official was reported as saying that refloating the ship would take days, if not weeks. Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the SCA, announced, "The Suez Canal will not spare any efforts to ensure the restoration of navigation and to serve the movement of global trade." BSM and SKK said that all 25 crew are safe and accounted for. All crew remains on board, and there had been "no reports of injuries or pollution". Egyptian meteorologists reported that high winds and a sandstorm had affected the area on the day of the grounding, with winds gusting as much as .
Addressing a press conference on 27 March, Admiral Osama Rabie, chairman of the SCA, said that weather conditions were "not the main reasons" for the ship's grounding, adding, "There may have been technical or human errors ... All of these factors will become apparent in the investigation."
Aided by high , the ship was partially freed from sediment and re-floated on 29 March 2021 at 05:42 EGY (03:42 UTC), apart from the bow, which was still caught.
The ship was finally freed in the afternoon at 15:05 EGY (13:05 UTC), and the ship started moving under tow towards the Great Bitter Lake for technical inspection, the first step towards reopening the canal, planned for later that day. After the canal had been checked for damage, the Suez Canal Authority informed shipping agencies that shipping was to resume from 19:00 local time (17:00 UTC).
On 13 April canal authorities announced that the ship had been seized on court orders until the owners paid $900 million in damages.