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Comment by Zhenya | Hacker News Reader

Can't wait for elon to offer a solution...

Which citizen and insult will he come up with next

This time perhaps he’ll hire a private investigator who isn’t a total huckster.

Better yet just hire dozens and wait until one shakes something loose that way he can substantiate his bullshit before he spews it.

Tell him Egypt is planning to use a hundred Ford F150s to drag the boat, and see how quick he can get a comparable number of Cybertrucks and/or model Ss and 3s to show up.

(Realistically, Egypt would probably use bulldozers if they actually wanted to go that route.)

I mean, a single Volvo semi was able to move 750 tons, and it's in production, unlike the Tesla Semi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4

If we're going to pick vaporware for the job why not use the Tesla semi?

Check this out, its real and not vaporware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yw4Qp8bX4

Yeah, having a granny gear would help out a lot. I assume the Tesla is most likely to be direct-drive.

That demo with the Volvo was 750 tons. According to Wikipedia, the Ever Given has a deadweight tonage of just under 200,000 tons. That's the cargo capacity, not including the ship itself. Let's say the ship and cargo is around 250,000 tons, that means you'd need about 333 of those Volvo trucks to drag it, assuming about the same amount of friction pulling the ship as a truck pulling a trailer. That's probably optimistic, so you might need more like 500 to 1,000 trucks to get it unstuck.

In terms of realistic options, at this point I'm thinking they're most likely to get it out by pulling it with a lot of heavy earthmoving equipment and/or tugboats while they bring in some dredging equipment to shift the sand or whatever it's stuck on out of the way. If it's run aground on something solid they can't vaccum up with dredging equipment, I don't know what they'll do. It'll probably just be stuck for a long time until they can unload it or something.

On the other hand, maybe it'll just come loose at some high tide. I mean, however it got stuck it seems like it should be at least theoretically possible to get unstuck.

> you'd need about 333 of those Volvo trucks to drag it

You can re-use the trucks tho, the operation doesn't have to be in parallel (and it can't anyway, because the containers are stacked).

I guess it depends how many prototypes of either vehicle exist, and how long it would take to get them to Egypt. Rounding up a hundred of something that's already in production like the S or the 3 would be easier. (They'd have to add trailer hitches or something, though.)

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26586145.

It would be some decent PR to send over some Boring Company equipment

Wherever the anchor attaches is likely to be designed for quite a bit of force.

I just meant for digging the ground

I know that is a joke but if you wanted to generate enough force to push the ship off the bank, a rocket is one of the few technologies that would do the trick. I wouldn't want to stand downwind, though.

you are thinking 1.0 scale. you need to start thinking starlink scale enterprising. quantity not quality. one rocket would rip the ship into pieces. what's actually needed is a long 2d matrix of rockets, distributed broadly the across EVER GIVEN, pushing the bow in, the stern out & back. out like she came.

Except that the side of the ship isn't load bearing. Not sure how'd that work out.

This is starting to really resemble how people build ships in Space Engineers. :)

The number of thruster used there is more of a limitation in thrust power than in rigidity, grids don't flex and thruster off center placement don't generate momentum

Might as well make them fireworks while you’re at it so there can either be a celebration at the end or, even better, a celebration of failure.

Strap it to a Falcon Heavy.

How many falcon heavies would we need to lift 200,000 metric tons?

Apparently Falcon Heavy has 5 million lbs of thrust, so about 88 Falcon Heavies?

SuperHeavy will have 17 million lbs of thrust so if Elon could deliver 25 SuperHeavy boosters with a total of 700 Raptor engines it could lift the Ever Given? Someone should simulate this in Kerbal.

If we're going unrealistic, there are even better plans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag&t=123s

I'm no naval architect, but wouldn't the ship break in two once the robot tries to pick it up? It would for sure break apart due to centrifugal force while being swung.

I like movies where I can suspend belief (monsters and giant robots), but I hate it when they get the regular real stuff wrong.

You mean those tiny helicopters that can each lift thousands of tons of super robot mass, right ? And they can do that while flying in perfect formation! ;-)

To be clear, 200,000 tons is the weight of the cargo+fuel this ship carries, not counting the structure of the ship itself. I haven't found a good number for the displacement (the total weight, including the ship), and would be curious to know what it is.

Wikipedia says the Triple-E class container ships have an empty displacement of 55Kt. Assuming the Golden class is similar, with a summer deadweight of 200Kt, it seems a loaded displacement of 250Kt is possible.

I read in a random news story that the Ever Given's displacement on this voyage is about 220Kt.

Note that the units are long tons, which means that ship weighs close to 250,000 american tons, or five hundred million pounds.

I feel like it’s generally more helpful to stick with SI units if you’re already there :)

I agree, and I think these weights are in fact now reported as metric tons, not imperial long tons. The difference is insignificant for purposes of casual conversation.

Thank you, that is exactly the sort of info I was looking for!

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