The sun rose when one of the largest container ships in the world entered the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea. But aboard the Ever Done, a desert night storm darkened Tuesday morning and attacked a boat from four football fields.
Looking out the bridge windows, the captain explored the critical suffocation point of global transportation. Beside him were two Egyptian pilots obliged to accompany all the great ships during the half-day voyage. Then a gust of wind turned the pile of 17,000 containers into an unwanted sail.
“Keep it stable!” called the captain, according to the people who overheard the conversation on the bridge.
Minutes later, the bow crashed into the east wall of the canal, shaking the ship and blocking traffic on the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most critical links to the global supply chain.
“We got stuck,” an officer on the bridge said, according to people who overheard the conversation there.