It's exceedingly obvious given the scale, importance and national coverage of this that the issue isn't that they can't find a second backhoe. Your condescension isn't warranted at all.
What I'm finding interesting about this story is the juxtaposition of how easy it is to understand the problem, but how far from the apparent response the "why don't they just...?" questions are. It seems to be a good recipe for becoming a viral news story ripe for repeated updates.
You literally called their efforts 'laughable' and asked why aren't they trying obvious things.
You're an example of what you're now claiming to have been calling out.
I read the parent comment as that sort of laughable, not in the derisive sense.
the tumblehome hull's top is largely visible dug out, from the one hoe. there have been enormous amounts of fuel/energy burned trying to haul this ship out. but it still hasn't budged. about 1/3rd of the canal, on the east side, is simply not deep at all, and that, likely is the root cause problem here: the ship didn't just hit the wall, it's whole front quarter has run aground.
the new discussion is about unloading & lightening the ship, trying to let it rise up, & free itself. that seems like a solid-ish plan. but it also seems kind of weird & slow, a lot of unloading & re loading. maybe it'd shake out better in the end. but what seems like the capability that i want to have is the ability to dig this ship out effectually. not with a bullshit loader we'd use for any other (land based) earth moving task. which is obviously not working here. which will never ever help with all the massive amount of earth underneath the EVER GIVEN. there's a clear, resonant answer here, one that makes sense, and it's weird, but the answer is drone swarms. a modest number of underwater earth movers, that can effectively target moving the earth that is needed to be moved. a back hoe on land has a modest reach, little ability to help work a way underneath EVER GIVEN. the ability to get something, anything, into the actual situation, to start digging underneath this problem of being run-aground, seems like the most direct & sensible approach, yet we seem simply to be lacking in means & methodology to do so.
that's not really "incompetence", although certainly such sharp criticism makes sense. we haven't really seen a lot of situations like this before. the world's kept it's shit together. so it makes sense that we don't have a bunch of well prepared, coherent, sensible responses lined up, that can directly address issues. to me, that makes this not a problem of incompetence. but, i hope in the future, a better response can be mustered.