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Ever Given is a 20,124 TEU Golden-class ULCV built by Imabari Shipbuilding in 2018 for Shoei Kisen Kaisha, chartered to Evergreen Marine. The vessel became the world's most-recognised ship in March 2021 when it grounded across the Suez Canal for six days, blocking the world's most important shipping artery and disrupting roughly 12 per cent of global trade for the duration. The grounding was attributed to a combination of high winds, navigational decisions, and the vessel's bridge geometry; the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority detained the ship for several months pending salvage cost negotiations. The ship returned to service in mid-2021 and remains in the Asia-Europe trade today.
Crews on ULCV tonnage of this generation handle ship-specific operational quirks: very limited bridge-windage modelling pre-2021, complex ballast management, and the dimensional tightness of Suez Canal transit. The Ever Given incident triggered industry-wide review of ULCV pilotage training and bridge resource management. Working on an Imabari Golden-class today means inheriting the post-incident bridge-team-management protocols.