That ship was freed in six days, but the Ever Forward has been stuck for two weeks and counting for a few reasons: The Ever Forward is more completely lodged into mud, there is less urgency since it isn’t blocking the channel, and there are fewer salvage resources available than in the Suez.Ī dredge barge is moved into place to take on more sediment as dredges work to free the grounded Ever Forward containership. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun via Tribune News Agency)ĭonjon Smit, the ship’s salvor, has developed a plan that was approved by Maryland’s Board of Public Works as an emergency license, and it is working alongside the Coast Guard and the Maryland Department of the Environment on rescue efforts. Throw in supply chain problems that have backed up West Coast ports, and massive ships have begun calling more often at ports like Baltimore.Įver Forward is owned by the same Taiwanese company, Evergreen Marine Corp., as the Ever Given - the even-larger ship that became wedged in the Suez Canal a year ago, choking off a busy, vital passage for global trade, disrupting the international supply chain and grabbing headlines. “We are seeing a trend towards these larger and larger ships,” said Pete Lesher, curator at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. East Coast after the Panama Canal was expanded in 2016. Long common in the Pacific trade, such ships started making their way from Asia to the U.S. The reason for the grounding is unknown - and it likely will be for a long while - but O’Connell named four categories of potential causes: mechanical failure, operational failure, environmental factors (like weather) or human error.Ĭontainerships as massive as the Ever Forward are relatively new to Baltimore and the upper reaches on the bay. Coast Guard Captain David O’Connell, the sector commander, said last week, “and basically when she came to rest, she tunneled into the mud and silt, so she’s about 15 feet or so into the mud.” “She is sitting, resting on the bottom,” U.S. The ship, which requires a depth of at least 42 feet to safely navigate, entered water that is only 24 feet deep, submerging itself in up to 18 feet of mud. Refloating grounded ships is typically a difficult process, and in the case of the Ever Forward it is especially challenging.īuilt in 2020 and sailing under the Hong Kong flag, the Ever Forward was traveling from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk on the evening of March 13, when, at a speed of 13 knots, it did not turn south with the Craighill Channel and instead plowed into a shallow area outside the channel. I know people wanna see it move, as well.” “It’s just a ship sitting there,” Fisher said, “but, hey, people wanna see it. In the meantime, droves of interested onlookers have paid the daily fee of $6 to enter Downs Park, the best place to get a glimpse of the immobile ship.Ĭompared to last March - a busy one in its own right - there has been an 8% increase in park visitors this month, and park superintendent Nolley Fisher said it could wind up being their busiest March on record as people continue to flock, bemused by the colossal curiosity. The first attempt to refloat the ship will begin at noon March 29, but it could be a week or more before refloating efforts are successful. The crew’s 27 members remain on board as two dredges - including the largest clamshell dredge in the Western Hemisphere - work to dig up mud around the hull before authorities lighten the vessel and then, hopefully, pull it out with a fleet of tugboats. It is the largest ship to have ever run aground in the Chesapeake Bay, and freeing it is an arduous and cumbersome process. The ship, a 1,095-foot cargo carrier called the Ever Forward with more than 4,000 full shipping containers aboard, is still there - just as it has been since March 13, when it missed a turn on its way from Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., exited the 50-foot deep Craighill Channel and barged into shallower waters, lodging itself in more than a dozen feet of mud. The phone at Downs Park, a beach in Pasadena, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay, has rung several times a day for the past two weeks with people asking the same question: “Is the ship still there? Can we come see it?” (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun via Tribune News Agency) Dredges work to free the grounded Ever Forward containership.
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