Tuesday 27 April 2021 · below the Index · spike
Ever Given detained in Egypt after Suez grounding
The Ever Given container ship, which blocked the Suez Canal in March 2021, remained detained by Egyptian authorities in late April 2021. The ship's insurer appealed the detention while the incident generated ongoing media coverage about shipping delays, container shortages, and cargo owner disputes over damage costs.
Peak 65.2 on Tuesday 27 April 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Mixed, both over the window and on the peak day. Mixed means no single signal dominated — the attention was spread across search, research, news and social. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 62% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Friday 16 April 2021.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: pollution event. Trade press was 1% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 61% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 87% negative overall; 4% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Suez Canal hopes for deal on cargo ship, still detained since blocking waterwayreuters.com · 2021-04-26
- Insurer for Ever Given Container Ship Appeals Detention by Egypt After Suez Groundinginsurancejournal.com · 2021-04-23
- Giant Container Ship Bogged Down Again. This Time By Egyptian Authoritieswqcs.org · 2021-04-23
- After nearly 4 years stranded on cargo ship in Egypt, a Syrian crew member finally goes homecbc.ca · 2021-04-26
- Sailor spent nightmarish 4 years trapped aboard Egyptian cargo shipfoxnews.com · 2021-05-01
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Ever Given detained in Egypt after Suez grounding, peak 65.2 on 27 April 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-ever-given-detained-in-egypt-after-suez-grounding/