The container ship ‘Ever Given’ has finally been freed today, after the Captain of the vessel realised it had a reverse gear.
The 200,000-tonne ship, which has been wedged across the Suez canal like a particularly unflushable turd since last Tuesday, was freed today after the Captain noticed a sign on the lever marked ‘R’.
“Well, this is a tad awkward,” Captain Simon Williams told us over the phone, from his hiding place in the ship’s loo.
“We ran aground when I drove – or ‘sailed’, is that the right terminology? – the boat into the shallow bank last week and the front bit, I think it’s called the ‘stern’, got wedged in.
“They tried everything; digging us out, tugging us out, refloating us, the lot, but nothing seemed to work.
“But then I had a quick glance at the driving lever thingy and I realised it had an ‘R’ option, which I guessed could either mean ‘right’ or ‘reverse’ so I went for it to see what happened and luckily there was a beeping sound, it backed the ship back and out of the shallows and now we’re on our way again.”
He added, “Motorbikes don’t have a reverse gear, and I assumed it was the same with boats.
“I’m just relieved – there was a real risk that we could have caused a blockage to some of the other ships on this normally busy route, but I haven’t seen another container ship for days on end.
“So I think I got away with it.”
