“Supermoon”, the silent key to unlock the ship blocking the Suez Canal

The ship Ever Given kept the world in suspense since on Tuesday March 23, it ran aground in the Suez Canal on its way to the Mediterranean Sea, after a maneuver under investigation which led it to collide with the right bank. of the seaway. through this passes 10% of world trade. In the beginning Canal authorities believed they could pull the ship out in 48 hours, but soon realized the business was much more complicated.

Achieving the unlock, which only took place the following Monday, didn’t just require engineers to line up their plans, using tugs and excavators. But we also needed another range, very little expected: the Moon, the Sun and the Earth.

After several days of maneuvering and failed plans, experts expected the “supermoon” earlier in the week to help maneuver to move the 200,000-ton, 400-meter-long ship that was slowing international trade.

The key

A lot of people don’t know the tides are high when there is a full moon or a new moon, which occurs when the moon is in direct alignment with the sun and the earth. This causes greater gravitational pull on Earth. As a result, high tides are even higher and low tides lower. They are known to many as spring tides and occur twice a month.

This time, the effect was amplified by the first super moon of the year, thanks to it coinciding with the closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit. Supermoons happen several times a year and this one in particular is known as the “worm moon”.

Several international media have highlighted the help of the moon and high tide as the keys to the success of the operation. “The full moon caused the tide to rise, which helped the vessel to be dragged, first from the stern, then from the bow,” EFE explained. According to the Washington Post, the full moon led to the highest tide of the month.

Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, announced on Monday “the success of the maneuver” to unlock the ship, which had run aground last Tuesday. “We got it!” Dutch company Boskalis, hired to help with the operation, said in a statement. “The Egyptians have succeeded today in ending the crisis,” the country’s president, Abdel Fattah al Sisi, said in a statement on Monday. Without the glitz of those opening statements, three of the main achievement players have continued their routine rotations through the solar system.

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