Sideways

Back in my days of working construction, I learned something about making mistakes.  I often made mention of this when my boss handed me a new set of blueprints for a job he wanted me to do.  “Well, Joe,” I would say to him, “you can expect two mistakes from me on this.  One won’t cost you money, but one will.”

That mostly held true on every large job I supervised.  Sometimes, my mistakes cost several thousand dollars.

I thought about that as I watched the drama of the 200,000-ton cargo vessel Ever Given in the Suez Canal last month.  Stuck sideways in the channel for six days, the ship blocked all traffic for the entire time.

That’s a big deal.

Last year, an average of 51.5 ships a day navigated through the canal.  Hundreds of ships stacked up outside the canal waiting for the waterway to be cleared as the Ever Given remained stuck in the sand.  According to the Suez Canal Authority, “human errors” likely played a role in the ship’s grounding.

The blockage resulted in a loss of $400 million per hour.  An estimated 15% of world trade paused as the Ever Given remained sideways in the Suez Canal.

I am glad I was not holding the blueprints this time.

— Mitchell Hegman

(PHOTO:  Marcel Dirsus)