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Comment by leoh | Hacker News Reader

There appears to be little "high-end engineering." Just a high tide and a bunch of tug boats.

High end engineering uses the simplest and most cost effective solution to get the job done right.

It would have been a mistake to throw expensive, complicated solutions at a problem that had a relatively simple solution.

simple is better than complex!

So just "engineering" then

They built a computer model to try and manage the stress on the ship as they worked to free it. It was not straightforward as the ship could have broken if they weren't extremely careful. They also had divers inspecting the hull for signs of stress. This was a massive, complex operation.

That sounds terrifying for the divers

Boskalis Peter Berdowski said it wans't a very hard job technically on Dutch television. Just the scale and impact were huge.

It's like the guy at a bar who tells you he knows how to swordfight after doing fencing. I'm sure he's right but it just funny from an official with experience basically saying "it wasn't that hard."

Boskalis is the company who brought the tugboats, engineers, diggers and whatnot over there in days. This is not a random guy commenting. This is an end-boss in charge of the entire operation.

They brought over a few tugs, but the large majority were Egyptian. Not belittling Boskalis' work in the operation, but don't think that the Egyptians don't understand maritime operations in the canal.

And I'm guessing that the operation was overseen by the Suez Canal administration, not Boskalis. Not saying that there wasn't delegation, but I'm guessing a joint management operation between the canal, the ship's management, the salvage operator and the local ship captains.

I'm sorry if it sounded like Boskalis "saved the day". I was trying to make the point that his is not a random internet person commenting on stuff. Not trying to imply that he's the one running the entire operation.

Can you image if the hull did weaken to the point of near failure? They might have needed to offload everything right there where it ran aground, lest it completely fail uncontrolled. The canal would be closed for a very long time. Luckily they didn't have to make that call.

Luckily, indeed — but they were already planning for this contingency. Apparently (and unsurprisingly) it was going to be hard to find a large enough crane to move the containers.

The beauty of steel is that it will yield plastically beyond its normal design stress. It would have been possible for them to damage the ship to the point where it required significant repairs but still be capable of exiting the canal.

Pretty sure I've seen a definition of engineering that was "Solve the problem by doing as little new as possible".

Sometimes the safest way to deal with the so-called legacy systems we all know and love

Or "by doing as little as possible".

It's easy for me to throw together a small house, shed or bridge, but chances are whatever I build -- if it doesn't immediately collapse -- is horribly overbuilt for its purpose, because I don't know how to calculate and analyze the various stresses and material capacities well enough to size everything to a proper margin. So when I build a bridge I use lumber that is bigger than I think I need and use more of it than I think I need until it feels quite solid, but if I were a proper engineer I could figure out the exact right amount to use.

An engineer designs right to failure, and then multiplies the numbers required till he feels safe.

You forgot dredging tons of material. And dredgers have some of the more complex naval engineering out there with all its moving parts.

All jobs are easy to the person who doesn't have to do them. ~Hold's Law

;-)

This reminds me of a former boss who told me to "just add some if statements, how long can it take?"

A high tide and some tug boats becomes 'high-end engineering' if it works

I'd guess figuring out where you can safely attach the tug boats, monitoring stability and stresses on the container ship and so on is non-trivial, too.

If you fuck up bad enough those containers end up landing on the tugs, killing the crews. Not to mention increasing the quantity of stuff blocking the canal.

Have you looked at tug boat propulsion units lately? Those things look like black magic.

You are right, these things are nuts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller

Wow this is the coolest thing I've learned this week.

Wow. People here still criticising the solutions the engineers on the scene used?

anyone can build a bridge that stands. only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands.

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