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Ever Given: The most famous ship of 2021, and why we love it

The Suez Canal, roughly 120 miles long, is the shortest shipping route between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. It links the Persian Gulf with the Mediterranean and is very important, because, if the Canal were not there, ships would have to circulate around the entire landmass of the African continent before arriving in the Indian Ocean.

Ships are not usually discussed much, unless they sink. For thousands of years, ships have been the drivers of human migrations, economy, trade, and culture but we do not pay much attention to them. They just go about their business silently, running the world.

March 2021 was an exception. It was a time when almost the whole world took notice because a ship got stuck. And what a place it was to get stuck indeed.

Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, got stuck in the Suez Canal on March 23, 2021, and since the Suez Canal is so narrow, the stuck ship blocked the Canal. That was it, a ship got stuck and a significant chunk of global trade came to a halt. That was when the world took notice.

It was not exactly the poor giant’s fault. There was a sandstorm just when it was crossing the Canal and in a nasty gust of wind, the ship ran aground to a sandbank.

Suez Canal drives 12% of global trade, so that is a very, very wrong place to get stuck. Estimates said, the block was holding up goods worth 9.6 billion dollars a day, that is 400 million dollars an hour.

The ship, while stuck, became the world’s favourite news, and favourite meme material of the year. After all, it is not the well behaved, disciplined ships that make history.

Image via Twitter

It took every single tugboat around that part of the world, a lot of ocean salvage specialists, and a lot of efforts to free the 200,000-ton cargo ship. But before the ship was freed, a little excavator also became famous.

The little guy, trying its best to dig up sand to refloat the Goliath ship looming before it will be the image of hope and determination and efforts for a long time to come.

Little excavator trying to refloat Ever Given, image via Twitter

The ship inspired some of the best, most creative memes this year.

People were coming up with ideas to refloat the ship or deblock the Canal.

Image via MS Ever Given on Twitter

A Canadian woman won a Halloween costume contest by becoming ‘Ever Stuck’.

There is a website that allows you to make poor Ever Given get stuck anywhere you’d want it to get stuck. The creatively named website, ‘Ever Given Ever Ywhere’ allows you to stuck Ever Given anywhere, because, why should the Suez Canal have all the fun.

Image from the home page of Ever Given Ever Ywhere

Ever Given was finally freed after nearly a week. Egyptian authorities had declared a state of emergency while the Canal was blocked. They had even sued the ship owners for a billion dollars. While the legal battle lingered, Ever Given was stuck, not physically, but legally, in the Great Bitter Lake, for months after being refloated.

Finally freed, the ship completed its voyage in July and in August this year, it crossed the Canal again, thankfully not getting stuck. The world-famous ship has since crossed the canal a couple of times safely and is currently in the North Sea, after arriving at the UK’s Felixstowe port on December 27. It is currently en route to Germany’s Hamburg.

The Suez Canal, roughly 120 miles long, is the shortest shipping route between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. It links the Persian Gulf with the Mediterranean and is very important, because, if the Canal were not there, ships would have to circulate around the entire landmass of the African continent before arriving in the Indian Ocean, as they did till 1869.

By getting stuck, Ever Given provided us with some much-needed respite from the Ever-gloom that the Covid pandemic has been. For a change, we were not discussing death, viruses, pathogens and hospitals. In a way, the ship symbolised how the world needs to keep running, the pandemic is just a sandbank. It can halt us, but not stop us.

Let us all hope that global trade continues uninterrupted in 2022, and no ship gets stuck anywhere.

Ayodhra Ram Mandir special coverage by OpIndia

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OpIndia Staff
OpIndia Staffhttps://www.opindia.com
Staff reporter at OpIndia

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