Abstract
The latest container vessel grounding in the Suez Canal, which occurred on 23 March 2021 (the Ever Given), raised many questions regarding the safety of navigation. The sudden concern about safety is due to fears that traffic flow through the Suez Canal could be blocked for longer periods of time. Besides external forces imposed by wind, in this case bank effect had a significant influence on the ship’s grounding. Bank effect occurs due to restricted water flow caused by narrow waterways. Many fairway design standards consider sloped banks such as those of the Suez Canal as unsubstantial in bank-effect forces. This paper analyses the impact of sloped banks on container ship trajectory and proposes minimal distances that may decrease bank-effect forces in order to reduce the risk of vessel grounding and increase the safety of navigation. However, this type of accident has happened before and may occur again due to a small sailing distance from the bank in cases where vessel speed is increased.
Highlights
According to Suez Canal Authorities [1], 18,880 vessels transited the Suez Canal carrying over 1,207,087,000 tons of cargo in 2019
The results suggest the same pattern of sway force and proposed minimum distances from the bank to avoid vessel grounding
Bank effect is generally considered to be a force that significantly occurs when sailing near vertical banks, and sloped banks were previously considered non-influential in terms of bank effect
Summary
According to reports [2], the Suez Canal has a good safety record and in 2020 had 75 incidents reported, with grounding being the most common type of accident. One accident that was investigated was the grounding of container vessel APL Danube [3]. 299.95 m) grounded on 19 April 2019 at southbound transit due to bank effect according to an investigation. In combination with the proximity to the bank, caused bank effect, and the vessel grounded. This is yet to be confirmed by official accident investigation, which will provide more detailed information. While previous groundings were caused by the same effect, this accident showed that vessel navigational safety may be in danger in some cases. Sloped banks are considered less influential than vertical embankments, these real situations and research data show that sloped bank effect may have a significant external influence on vessel trajectory
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