The container ship Ever Forward of the Evergreen shipping company left Baltimore on Sunday, 13 March. En route to Norfolk, Virginia, it ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Ever Forward was built in 2020, is 334 metres long and 48 metres wide. The ship does not obstruct shipping traffic. The first two attempts to tow the ship free were unsuccessful. Despite the deployment of a total of seven tugs, it was not possible to refloat the 11,850-TEU container ship giant. Once again, the ship did not move and remained aground in the Chesapeake Bay.
A third attempt was made on Sunday, 03 April. If this attempt also fails, the US Coast Guard could switch to unloading containers to lighten the ship.
It's almost dug into the seawall, so it's not an easy operation," Captain David O'Connell of the US Coast Guard told the American news channel CBS Baltimore. During the first attempt, the wind had pushed the water out of the area, resulting in a lower tide. Conditions were supposed to be better on Wednesday (30 March), but that did not change.
The operator of the ship, Evergreen Line, had already announced that the dredging work around the ship would continue if the towing operation failed. So far, 64,000 cubic metres of sludge have already been removed. Evergreen has commissioned the company Smit-Donjon to refloat the grounded container ship. This is the same company that was responsible for freeing the Ever Given, which ran aground in the Suez Canal in March 2021.
Q.: swzmaritime.nl / WFDD
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