More than three months after one of the world’s largest container ships blocked the Suez Canal, the vessel, the Ever Given, finally began its journey out on Wednesday, after Egyptian authorities reached a compensation agreement with the ship’s owners. The ship had been impounded and was sitting, with many of its crew onboard, in part of the Suez Canal known as Great Bitter Lakes as the Suez Canal Authority and the ship’s Japanese owner were embroiled in a protracted argument over losses. Its departure ends a saga that began March 23, with the grounded ship disrupting the global supply chain and drawing in insurers, lawyers, shipping bodies and much of the internet. People around the world closely watched for updates after the quarter-mile long vessel got mired in the canal, and memes followed, including some that saw the stuck ship as a metaphor for the state of the pandemic world. The ship was refloated after six days of nonstop efforts, but reaching a deal to let the ship leave was an “operation of a different kind,” said Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority at a ceremony on the eastern bank of the canal on Wednesday that was attended by Masaki Noke, Japan’s ambassador to Egypt.

Source: International New York Times July 07, 2021 19:30 UTC