On Monday (March 29), the Chang Chi finally fully floated and was pulled by a tugboat to drift on the surface, and the Suez Canal, which had been blocked for nearly a week, resumed navigation.
In order to de-shallow the Evergreen giant container ship Chang Chi and resume shipping in the Suez Canal, the help of the super moon was needed – the sun, the earth and the moon, to be precise.
On Monday (March 29), the Chang Chi was finally fully floated and could drift on the water, and the Suez Canal, which had been blocked for nearly a week, was reopened to navigation. Leth Agencies, a leading shipping agent, said 43 ships crossed the Great Bitter Lake, which separates the two parts of the canal, on Monday.
Nile TV reported that at least 400 ships were waiting to cross the Suez Canal as of Monday, including dozens of container ships, bulk carriers, tankers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vessels.
The Wall Street Journal reports that rescue teams have been trying for days to get the Chang Chi out of the shallow; when it became clear that tugboats alone could not pull the Chang Chi out of its predicament, rescuers began to pin their hopes on the high tide at the Time of the first supermoon of the year and how it would help free the stranded ships.
Since this past Sunday, the water level rose to 1.5 feet above normal high tide. This made it easier to pull the 1,300-foot-long Chang Chi out of the side of the canal without having to unload the 18,000 or so containers it was carrying.
Engineers had to work quickly to make the most of this short period of high tide, the effect of which would last only a few days. Engineers analyzed that the best time to rescue is March 28 or 29, because it coincides with the full moon.
Full moon and new moon, the sun, the Earth, the moon in the same line, when the ocean high tide reached the highest tide. Therefore, the engineers judged that when there is a full moon, they can use the maximum force of rising sea water to push the cargo ship upward to float and help the cargo ship out of trouble.
Lars Mikael Jensen, head of the A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S Global Marine Network, said Monday was a particularly important day, when water levels began to peak.
“All available tug power has been allocated over the past few days,” he said. The high tide may give rescue teams the power they need to readjust to towing the Chang Chi.
Last Saturday, the rescue team used 12 tugs, with two in front, six pushing backward and four pulling aft, in an attempt to move the Chang Chi. By then, the dredgers had removed 950,000 cubic feet of sand and dug around the ship to a depth of 60 feet.
By Sunday night, the supermoon had brought the tide height to more than 6½ feet, some nineteen inches higher than the high tide at the time of the March 23 grounding. The best chance for a successful rescue was closing in.
At 2 a.m. local time, the Dutch-flagged tug Alp Guard, which has a towing capacity of 285 metric tons, came to assist.
Another crew member on the tug said the dredging and dredging efforts then began to pay off as the tug accelerated engine starts and began to control the Long Chi at high tide.
Authorities said the rescue team began pulling the Chang Chi with the tug early Monday morning around 5 a.m. local time. The ship slowly began to move as the tide dropped and flowed southward toward the Red Sea. When the water level rose again at noon Monday, the de-shallowing was almost complete. Under the bright afternoon sun, the ship was slowly drifting toward the center of the canal, pushed by a series of tugs.
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