Fighting The Armchair Army
The saddest thing about the Ever Given now sat detained in Suez, isn’t so much the drama of the vessel itself having blocked the canal and strangled world trade for a week. It is the rumour, nonsense, second-guessing, blather and criticism which swirls around any incident such as this. Shipping’s big problem is its invisibility when doing things well, and its high viz emergence when things go wrong.
There are only two outcomes whenever a marine adventure is begun, it will go smoothly or it will not. Thankfully the vast majority of voyages pass off without too many problems, but as we know things can and do go wrong.
Taking things across oceans is a fraught and inherently risky business. That’s how money is made. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. A voyage is complex in the extreme, even well-versed people get caught out. We in the industry know that we understand the risks, the rewards and all points in between.
Usually, all is well, maybe a bit of dent here, some rusted cargo or mouldy grain. Even when things go very bad these days, we have become better. Yes, perhaps the odd container or thousand ending up the drink.
Thankfully, the massive spills and huge death tolls are less evident than perhaps ever they were. Still, though, the keyboard warriors will have their say. Which is a problem which needs to be understood. The phenomena of the loud idiot, and the damage they can do.
THE FIRE OF RUMOUR
When something bad does happen, we see a firestorm of rumour, conspiracy and downright lies begin to swirl. Like Billy Joel saying we didn’t start the fire, it really doesn’t matter who lit it, but how can we put it out?
First though, some sense, scale and perspective. There are very few things which have never been seen before. Indeed back in 2004, the oil tanker Tropical Brilliance caused a similar traffic jam at the Suez Canal.
That time around, the ship experienced steering gear failure and grounding itself across the canal. Days of pulling and pushing didn’t’ work, and she had to have 25,000 tons of oil pumped off. Something far easier to do than take thousands of boxes off.
So, as we can see, bad things happen at sea. These days though it isn’t the cost or impact of the act itself. The real damage is done in the kangaroo court of social media. This is what has changed.
DIFFERENT SIDES TO DIGITALISATION
Digitalisation carries implicit positives, and the shipping industry is busily beginning to understand and harvest those. When done right, the digital promises of maritime informatics mean that ships are more efficient, using less fuel with enhanced performance.
In this brave new perfect world, we see that accidents are reduced granted (not to zero, as we can see in this case), but there becomes a real sense of connection to the ships and what is going on onboard?
Good digitalisation delivers a warm glow, one which improves the business of shipping. Sadly, there is a bad digital world too, and when the people within it begin to look at ships, then things can escalate quickly.
This ugly side of the coin can see reputations tattered, businesses ruined, industries ripped new ones and a tidal wave of accusation, questions and a barrage of ill-informed nonsense to deal with.
SOCIAL STORM BREWING
Footage taken from the ships astern of the Ever Given was uploaded to Facebook almost as soon as quickly as the gust of wind which caused the problem in the first place.
The hyper-connected citizens of this digital world of instant news spotted Facebook blowing up, they jumped on Twitter and Insta and then suddenly with some screen grabs from Marinetraffic thousands, millions even, were sat at home gleefully generating breaking news from the comfort of home. All this without the checks, balances and realism of knowing what they were talking about.
The digital age has a habit of biting back and here we are listening to radio call-ins talking about sabotage, conspiracy and any other old garbage.
The battle to win eyes, ears, likes and retweets forcing ever more outlandish claims, ever funnier memes, and snide finger-pointing. All often without any recourse to thought, to recognition of the pressures and problems of those onboard.
One of the peculiarities of modern culture is a reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. Then just as a story seeps into the psyche and genuine analysis and considered thinking emerges. Suddenly there will be new and different bad news. So, everyone rushes from gawking, commenting and speculating about one thing over to the next.
THE FUTURE OF BAD NEWS
The news cycle demands it, the addled, sharpened Twitterati need a new foil for their barbs, and so a new sacrifice is rolled out. The Ever Given will float again, it may be a day, a week, it may need boxes taken off. The ship will move and be a quiz question in years to come.
By then, the affronted, the angry, the name-callers and naysayers will have many, many new and different targets. They will not remember the importance of seafarers, or the necessity of ships, merely that their Air Max were late, or their PS5 never showed up.
That is the tragedy of time, the curse of invisibility and the burden carried by an industry that does things so well each singular failure can become global news. We should be proud of all that shipping has done, that it does and will do.
Never though, should we be naïve enough to ignore the pressures placed by connected and excitable idiocy. The log jam of ships gets more and more attention as influencers await their drop shipper bought special edition Nikes to unbox online. When they are struggling to make their next 100k a week showing their wares on TikTok to gain more followers, that is when the real kerfuffle will begin. Oh, and when the lights go out because of all the tankers stuck.
LESSONS LEARNED
We should never speculate on accidents, but it does seem that there are some definitive lessons we can all learn from this debacle:
- There is a rude track rule. Which states it is ok to draw rude tracks with your AIS data but be prepared for it to bite you if things go wrong.
- The rude track rule is doubled if you then go and shove your huge appendage into a narrow gap and get it stuck.
- You cannot cross the Severn bridge in a high sided vehicle when the wind is strong…surely an Ultra Large fully laden container ship should be considered in a similar vein?
- The global meme and gif game is strong when it comes to shipping accidents. Be prepared for the tidal wave of mocking.
- Public interest in maritime accidents rises inversely and at the same rate as an owner wishes that they would stop.
- Painting company names on ship sides is a vanity project which brings little upside.
- Most Suez pilots are a fascinating breed of sleepy insouciance 99.9% of the time.
- Suez Canal transits are boring until they dramatically aren’t.
