Hey,

On the morning of March 23, 2021, a container ship made the front page of every newspaper on the planet. Not because of a collision, not because of a fire, not because anyone died. Because it got stuck.

The Ever Given, operated by Taiwanese carrier Evergreen Marine, ran aground in the Suez Canal during a sandstorm. Winds exceeding 74 km/h caused it to lose steering and wedge itself diagonally across the waterway. For six days, it didn't move. Neither did global trade.

$9 billion worth of goods sat waiting every single day. 400 ships queued on both ends of the canal. Oil prices moved. Supply chains that were already stretched by COVID snapped a little further.

What caused it exactly? That part is still debated. The Ever Given was travelling at around 13.5 knots through a section where normal transit speed is closer to 8. Whether that contributed to the loss of control remains disputed — the official Egyptian investigation pointed to the captain's navigation decisions, while others focused on the weather conditions and the so-called bank effect, where a large vessel sailing close to a canal wall gets pulled toward it by water pressure. Nobody fully agrees on what caused it. Everyone agrees on what happened next.