What the fuck is going on this week? First, former rapper Hot Karl who is also dating Boy Meets World’s Topanga found some shrimp tails and other disgusting shit in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch then started a flame war with General Mills. Then, cargo ship Ever Given pulled an Austin Powers and got stuck in the Suez canal, bringing 10% of the World’s global supply chain to a complete halt and drawing a dick pic in the process.
80% of the world’s trade travels by sea with 10% going through the Suez Canal. To say this fucked up a lot of peoples’ days would be an understatement. I can’t imagine the stress the captain must have felt when his ship first got lodged in the mud. I get flustered when I’m at the front of a drive-thru line and my meal is taking too long. He just disrupted the global economy. I’m having a panic attack putting myself in his shoes.
How did Ever Given get stuck?
Ever Given is a 1,312-foot-long container ship carrying over 220,000 tons and was traveling from China to the Netherlands through the canal when Egyptian authorities say a dust storm came along and fucked everything up, causing low visibility and heavy winds which eventually caused the ship to run aground.
The container ship, which is registered in Panama and operated by Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Marine, became stuck on the morning of 3/24. What followed were a few well-intentioned but hilariously inadequate attempts to free it. Including a bunch of tug boats and even a tiny excavator coming to the rescue which is like a bunch of people showing up with shovels to try and move a skyscraper.
The story gets meme-ier and meme-ier with every detail released. But the best revelation came when somebody discovered the long, hard, veiny route the ship had taken before getting stuck in the mud.
That’s a lot of Seamen
Before you start thinking this is a hoax for the memes, a spokesperson for vesselfinder.com confirmed to Vice that the ship tracking data was accurate. “There is no room for some kind of conspiracies or false data.” Especially when it’s this funny.
It’s hard to think this was an accident because the artistry on that hog is fantastic. Dick, balls, even a few hairlines on the testes for good measure. It’s missing some of the more fancy flourishes like the line to define the helmet, pee hole, and veins but still very good work considering the medium. It looks like they attempted to draw some ass cheeks around it as well but couldn’t get the placement right between the cracks.
I imagine the canal tried to warn Ever Given beforehand by saying “It’s too big I don’t think it can fit.” And the Ever Given responding “I’ll go slow baby” before causing a global trade disaster. It might be the only dick pic in history that people actually want to see.
You can go to vesselfinder.com and see just how much Ever Given has fucked up shipping schedules over the past 2 days if you’re bored at work or a big fan of Schadenfreude.
The Biggest Dick?
After digging a little deeper, this probably isn’t the work of the world’s most ambitious troll or people being incompetent. This piece by The Guardian from a former cargo ship worker who’s been through the Suez Canal explains just how difficult it is to get through it, and how undermanned and overworked most of the crews are on these ships.
Although the official reason given so far for the Ever Given’s plight is that it was blown sideways by wind, I do wonder. In the vast majority of maritime accidents, human error is at fault. And no wonder: seafarers, working in ever smaller crews on ever larger ships, are knackered. Most on my journey were old enough to remember when they could stop for lunch in port. Now, ships are rarely in port for more than several hours, and those are busy. As we entered the canal, transiting south with our mostly empty boxes to collect made-in-China consumables and essentials such as medicine, the second officer was operating on three nights of three hours’ sleep, and would have no sleep during the transit. There is, as the Ever Given demonstrates, much to look out for during the passage.
via The Guardian
Like most disasters, there are a lot of factors involved. Bad weather, overworked crew, and a host of other issues we’ll probably learn about later. In the meantime, we can all enjoy the fact that a shipping container drew a big dick in the Red Sea and then blocked a substantial portion of global trade. Memelords rejoice, you now have content for the next 2 months.