CAIRO — When the Ever Given — one of the largest container ships ever built, more sideways skyscraper than boat — got stuck in the Suez Canal for six days in March, it dammed up worldwide shipping and froze nearly $10 billion in trade a day.
For the internet, it was a bottomlessly amusing spectacle. For global shipping, it was a worst-nightmare lesson in the perils of a new breed of mega-freighter operating in tight spaces.
It was, said Richard Meade, the editor in chief of Lloyd’s List, a maritime intelligence publication, “a wake-up call” for the shipping industry.
But four months later, neither the canal, a linchpin of the global supply chain, nor the shipping industry that depends on it, has addressed some of the most critical issues that led to the grounding.