Sailing through the Suez Canal
Thursday 18 May - as many of you are aware, when Geoff completed his circumnavigation of the world, the only regret he had was not being able to sail through the Suez Canal. This was due to the risk of Somalian pirates, much more prevalent back in 2012 than it is today. So here we are today fulfilling one of the items on his bucket list.
The 193.30 km Suez canal is an artificial sea-level waterway which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia and is a popular trade route between Europe and Asia. In 1858 Ferdinand de Lesseps formed the Suez Canal Company for the purpose of building the canal. Construction lasted from 1859 to 1869 and it was officially opened on 17 November 1869. It offers ships a direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reduces the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by about 8,900 kms. An average of 56 ships traverse the canal per day.
The original canal featured a single-lane waterway with passing locations in the Ballah Bypass and the Great Bitter Lake. It contained no locks as the sea levels on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean are pretty much the same. It was the property of the Egyptian government but European shareholders who were mostly French and British, owned the concessionary company with operated it until July 1956, when President Abdel Nasser nationalised it, an event which led to the Suez crisis of October-November 1956. The canal is operated and maintained by the State-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
The excavation took 10 years with forced labour being employed until 1884 to manually dig out the canal. It is estimated that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period and more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed, and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many from cholera and similar epidemics.
The Suez Canal Company also built a series of company towns along the canal to serve its operation and ports and facilities as well as housing for employees, segregated by race or nationality. These were Port Said and Port Fuad at the canal’s northern entrance by the Mediterranean, Ismailia, known as the “City of Beauty and Enchantment” near the middle and north of Lake Timsah, and Port Twefik at the southern entrance on the Red Sea.
Under the Convention of Constantinople it may be used “in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or war, without distinction of flag”. It has played an important military strategic role as a naval short-cut and navies with coastlines and bases on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, ie Israel and Egypt, have a particular interest in it. After Egypt closed the canal at the beginning of the Six-Day war on 5 June 1967, it remained closed for exactly 8 years, re-opening on 5 June 1975.
In 2014 The Egyptian government launched construction to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass for 35kms to speed up the canal’s transit time and allow from 49 to 97 ships to sail through per day, allowing two-way transit. Upon entering the canal, ships are assessed for tonnage and cargo and are handled by one or two pilots for canal transit which is increasingly controlled by radar. Southbound convoys moor at Port Said, Al-Ballah, Lake Timsah and Al-Kabrit where there are bypasses that allow northbound convoys to proceed without stopping.
The Suez Canal headlined the news on 23 March 2021 when it was blocked in both directions by the huge 220,000 ton Evergreen G-class container ship Ever Given. Operated by Evergreen Marine, it was en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands when it ran aground after strong winds allegedly blew it off course. Upon running aground, Ever Given turned sideways completely blocking the canal. Although part of the length of the canal is paralleled by an older narrow channel which can be used to bypass obstructions, this incident occurred south of that area in a section where there is only one channel. It caused chaos and showed how important the canal is to global trade. Oil shipments were the most affected and the blockage had a huge impact on cargo schedules around the world as it is estimated that up to US$ 3 billion worth of cargo passes through the Suez Canal every day. The ship was re-floated on 29 March and cargo traffic resumed, slowly resolving the backlog of around 450 ships. Usama Rabie, the Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority said the damage caused by the blockage reached US$ 1 billion and they originally demanded US$ 916 million in compensation including a “salvage bonus” and US$ 300 million for “loss of reputation”. Neither the SCA nor Evergreen has disclosed details of the compensation agreement, other than the inclusion of a new tugboat for the SCA – maybe the one that has been following behind us all day – but the Wall Street Journal has reported that the deal totalled US$ 200 million whilst the Egyptian media has speculated that the amount was US$ 550 million.
We entered the Suez Canal at 0600 hours this morning and it has taken exactly 12 hours for us to sail through. The cost for our ship to transit is US$ 300,000 and it requires master piloting skills to get through safely. We all go in a convoy and certain routes have restrictions on engine use and speed. It has been a very interesting day, we were one of many ships waiting to transit, but the only cruise ship, all the others were oil tankers or container ships. We have passed kilometres of arid, dry, dusty, sandy land, various “artworks” dedicated to Ever Green (maybe donated by them?), the Suez Canal Bridge, also known as the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, the Al Salam Peace Bridge and the Mubarak Peace Bridge. Kilometres and kilometres of boring sandy-coloured housing complexes with not a soul or car in sight and every so many kilometres there are ferries that can take passengers, cars and trucks across to the other side of the canal.
It’s 6pm and we have just arrived in Port Said – a very busy, very bustling, noisy city – what an atmosphere – I am writing this sitting on our balcony as we sailed in. It’s full on in every sense – and everything you would expect of a harbour that is smack bang in the middle of town! Slightly worrying though that they are playing the theme song from “Titanic” in the Square next to our dock!!!
