I was a US Civilian Mariner (aka merchant marine) for 16 years or so and a licensed officer for the last 4 years. I recently changed professions due to a welcome addition to my family that I can't bear to leave for months at a time! I'm not here to tell you the Ever Given situation isn't meaningful, I think it is. What I can do is tell you what it's like to live and work in the industry, share my training and experience with large ocean going vessels. Basically I'd like to help dispel nonsense so we can all get to the truth and look good doing it!
I just got off work and I'm starting my weekend, so I'll be back to answer any questions after a good sleep.
Do you happen to know anything about the the systems used to pilot such large vessels. How much of the course is pre-set? what the collision avoidance systems and alarms are and does anything needed to be overridden to assume a collision course like that?
To what extent are the ships fly-by-wire? Who makes the navigation controls in general, are the ships ever piloted remotely, can they be.
Why did the ship seem to be going so fast?
Any observations of a similar nature around technology of piloting a ship you could give us that which indicate to you that this was not an ordinary occurrence.
Yes, I was trained and used knowledge of navigation and piloting such vessels. Did it for years.
Course pre set inn the suez? None. Zero. Don't hit the dirt. Some greasy Egyptian asshole comes on your bridge and pretends to tell you how to navigate the canal.
Fly by wire, sure. We don't crank the rudder around by hand! Electronic control of hydraulics.
I'm sorry, I'll tired and it's late. If you're thinking someone took over theship remotely... Not a chance I any ship I've everworked on. Maybe They're more advanced than US flagged vessels?
Who knows... I'll think about it some more when I'm awake!
That sounds about right. We used to carry cases of booze and pallets of cigarette to bribe our way through.
Yes we had to bring in a canal pilot and my skipper over ruled his orders all the time. When I went through I was relatively new to the navy and my position was a bridge talker. Wrote backwards with a grease pencil on a board.
Thank you very much.
Very useful input.
What about someone “shutting down power” from a distance. Like an EMP. Could that knock out the control on a ship like this? Maybe leaving the engine running?
Well... I'd imagine an emp would be difficult to impossible to target that specifically. It would take out all kinds off ship electronics and probably not be great for anything else in the vicinity!
Yes. But what if such technology did exist?