Big Boat Stuck

June 25, 2024 7:22 PM

A cargo ship travelling through Cambridgeshire has become stuck in a river.
posted by Fiasco da Gama (36 comments total)

That seems like a very narrow river for a ship that size. I mean I know it says the tide is out, but given the grass right there presumably the river doesn't get much wider than it is in the picture. Weird.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:27 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

So that was 12 hours ago. Is it out?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:28 PM on June 25

We have the Suez Canal at home.
posted by dumbland at 7:31 PM on June 25 [44 favorites]

BIG BOAT STUCK
posted by cortex at 7:33 PM on June 25 [6 favorites]

Time for the locals to drag out their garden hoses and get the thing going again.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:36 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Is it out?
"work to refloat her due to take place at the next high tide." [cambridge-news]

next high tide in ~6 hours [tidetimes.org.uk]
posted by HearHere at 7:42 PM on June 25

Boat is temporarily bridge.
posted by biogeo at 7:49 PM on June 25 [16 favorites]

Those rotten Hullabaloos
posted by McBearclaw at 7:52 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Somewhere, an Egyptian backhoe driver hears his name whispered on the wind and thinks "Well, s***. Here we f***ing go again."
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:00 PM on June 25 [26 favorites]

This is becoming the nautical version of trucks that get caught under bridges they are too tall for.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:14 PM on June 25 [7 favorites]

I like big boats and I cannot lie.
posted by SPrintF at 8:35 PM on June 25 [11 favorites]

The only quote that rings in my head right now
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:48 PM on June 25

JustSayNoDawg, IMHO you have won the internet.

I keep scrolling up, and then laughing so much it hurts!
posted by BlueHorse at 9:41 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Classic. Thought it was the Cam but its the Nene. Seems very narrow/shallow for a boat that size.
posted by phigmov at 10:30 PM on June 25

Fun Fact:

Almost at the same exact hour, the same thing happened on the other side of the channel. (link in German, but there's a pic).
posted by uncle harold at 10:57 PM on June 25 [6 favorites]

Seven sons of suffering pharaohs! What is up with you white people and your sticking ships in things? Didn't your mothers teach you not to stick boats in those things? You're going to have to wait - Ahmed, my cousin, no, the other cousin, the one who's a qualified mechanic, has my backhoe, so suck it up, colonizers.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:26 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

That cargo ship is owned by the Port of Wisbech, where the boat was headed, and they own a sister ship of the size that's been making the same journey for years, albeit not without incident.
posted by grahamparks at 11:32 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

You wil be relieved to learn that, according to my marine tracker app, the ship is safely tied up in Wisbech in easy walking distance to the Oasis Grill Bar, One Step Beyond Disco and Smokey Pizza. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a bridge to take them across the canal to the intriguingly named Mystic Realm.
posted by skyscraper at 1:00 AM on June 26 [3 favorites]

So wait.. on that side of the Atlantic the crossword clue for "NENE" is some variant of "tenth-longest UK river" rather than some variant of "Hawaiian honker"?
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:05 AM on June 26 [4 favorites]

the following, from tfa, is hilarious in a "because of these slots" sort of way:

Grounding can be described as the vessel no longer being afloat and the hull of the ship touching the river bed.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:40 AM on June 26 [4 favorites]

posted by Fiasco da Gama
eponysterical
posted by Captaintripps at 3:58 AM on June 26 [8 favorites]

So wait.. on that side of the Atlantic the crossword clue for "NENE" i

Well, if it’s a British crossword clue, it would probably be something like “Music rag cannot hum repeatedly.”
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:15 AM on June 26 [4 favorites]

Catastrophe for world shipping routes has been averted: The boat, was freed late on Tuesday evening with the help of the Fenlander and another tug boat’ enabling the ship to break free and continue its journey to the dock.
posted by Lanark at 5:13 AM on June 26 [2 favorites]

I am very happy to learn of the existence of a category NAABSA "not always afloat but safely aground" (for tidal moorings/docks that let ships ground in soft sediment). That feels like an achievable life goal.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:54 AM on June 26 [15 favorites]

I think that they wrote the definition of grounding because the next few paragraphs are kind of confusing, because they're basically saying all the boats get grounded at that port every time the tide goes out and that's perfectly fine and to be expected, this one's unusual only because it didn't get grounded in the right place.

But, I, too, when reading, immediately thought "that writer was a couple words short and needed a little padding".
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:13 AM on June 26 [1 favorite]

Nerd of the North: So wait.. on that side of the Atlantic the crossword clue for "NENE" is some variant of "tenth-longest UK river" rather than some variant of "Hawaiian honker"?

Or you could go with “Action that immediately follows watching one ‘whip’”
posted by dr_dank at 6:19 AM on June 26 [1 favorite]

I do believe I can see the dog Montmorency standing on the bow (and barking at something onshore), and three young men bickering in the stern about whose turn it was to watch where the boat was going.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:57 AM on June 26 [5 favorites]

Grounding at the actual port is expected - there's even an acronym for it:

"All berths at Wisbech port are NAABSA berths which stands for 'not always afloat but safely aground' so technically all vessels ground whilst moored here during low water.

posted by achrise at 7:40 AM on June 26 [3 favorites]

Interesting that the Port of Wisbech owns an "80m-long ship .. sailing under the flag of St Kitts and Nevis"! I say, not very patriotic.
posted by anadem at 11:05 AM on June 26

Flags of convenience are very common practice, so that's not particularly remarkable. St Kitts and Nevis is not one of the most common ones, but it's not that unusual either.

If the ship were already flagged there when Wisbech bought her, then there wouldn't have been much motivation to change it. Bringing a foreign ship under the MCA's umbrella means a lot of costly formalities and paperwork, even if everything is functionally up to scratch.

Digging up the IMO number, that ship was built in 2002 and was originally Dutch built and flagged. The Dutch regulations are pretty stringent, more so than the UK ones in my experience. So all her machinery and equipment would have been to a high standard originally, albeit perhaps a bit dated now.

Looks like she indeed unstuck last night.
posted by automatronic at 12:54 PM on June 26

"The pronunciation of the river's name varies by locality. In Northampton it is usually pronounced (NEN), and around Peterborough it is usually pronounced (NEEN). The point at which the pronunciation of the Nene changes has been moving further inland for many years; the current edition of the nautical publisher Imray's "Map Of The River Nene" suggests that it now begins at Thrapston."
posted by oneirodynia at 6:20 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

Two local pilots were onboard. The crew must be incredibly pissed at them.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:19 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's the pilots who were pissed.
posted by biogeo at 8:50 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]

You wil be relieved to learn that, according to my marine tracker app, the ship is safely tied up in Wisbech in easy walking distance to the Oasis Grill Bar, One Step Beyond Disco and Smokey Pizza. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a bridge to take them across the canal to the intriguingly named Mystic Realm.
posted by skyscraper at 10:00 on June 26 [1 favorite +] [⚑]

Disco Elysium 2?
posted by fridgebuzz at 12:46 AM on June 27

Horace, did you miss the definition part of the clue or am I not seeing it?
posted by lokta at 4:36 AM on June 28

No, you’re right, I was preoccupied with the wordplay.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:46 AM on June 28