You would think that a multi hundred million dollar fine/cost would trigger a company wide assessment of training and procedures.
Evidently not in the case of a Taiwanese company.
Less than a year ago, the container ship Ever Given, inexplicably got stuck in the Suez canal. International news swooped in, as did meme creators, and the week long saga fascinated people around the world.
Well now my home state of Maryland has its very own stuck cargo ship, the Ever Forward, run by the same company as the Ever Given.
Really?
Two ships from the same company get stuck in the mud merely months apart. But our stuck ship has been here for 29 days!
BTW: Anyone see the irony of the name of the latest ship, Ever Forward? The crew on the ship has begun painting the word 'almost' on the side of the boat.
This is an entrepreneurs dream, albeit short lived.
During the first stuck ship, an enterprising entrepreneur created the new website www.istheshipstillstuck.com, filled it with ads and within the week that the ship was stuck, raked in tons-o-cash.
Little did he know, his investment into that url would continue to pay off.
Now the headline on his site reads:
Is that (other) ship still stuck?
With the sub-head:
This one is a lot more chill. You can basically just drive around it.
Now some entrepreneurs here in Maryland have created a theme park of sorts. The local public park charges $6.50 to park a car, vendors have set up hotdog stands, folks have binoculars to rent... can t-shirts and keychains be far behind?
Local residents who live on the Chesapeake Bay in the vicinity of the stranded ship have set up lawn chairs in the backyard.
All this for an activity akin to watching paint dry.
It's a high-n-dry ship. It ain't goin' anywhere.
It just sits there.
Although, as the Wall Street Journal reported on its FRONT PAGE (slow news day?), action is picking up!
After two attempts to drag the ship to deeper water failed, they have begun the precarious engineering dance of off loading 500 of the 4500 containers on board.
Think Jenga.
They can't throw the ship off balance removing the containers.
This process will take at least a week.
CONTEST TIME!
If you had a stuck ship in your backyard and wanted to make some money off of it, what would you do and how would you market it?
Prize? I'll think of something appropriate.