A recent news article published in the USA Today reveals about cargo ship that spent over a month stuck in the Chesapeake Bay is afloat again.
Cargo stuck Chesapeake Bay freed
A cargo ship that was stuck in the Chesapeake Bay for over a month has finally been freed, Coast Guard officials confirmed Sunday.
On March 13, the 1,095-foot Ever Forward went aground in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
The ship, owned by the Taiwanese company Evergreen Marine Corp., was headed from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, when it ran aground just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Officials have said there were no reports of injuries, damage or pollution.
Two unsuccessful attempts
After two unsuccessful attempts, on April 4 the Coast Guard decided to unload 500 of the nearly 4,900 containers from the ship in an effort to get it floating once again.
The Coast Guard, Maryland Department of the Environment and Evergreen Marine Corporation worked together for the operation.
After removing the containers, a full moon and high spring tide helped provide a lift to the salvage vessels as they pulled and pushed the massive ship from the mud, across a dredged hole and back into the shipping channel.
“If you ever been in a marsh, and you’ve stepped in the marsh with your boot, and then you try to pull it out and your foot comes out, but not the boot. Kind of the same thing on a grander scale here,” Coast Guard Captain David O’Connell said.
Ship outside the shipping channel
The Coast Guard has said it hasn’t determined what caused the Ever Forward to run aground.
The ship was outside the shipping channel and has not been blocking navigation, unlike last year’s high-profile grounding in the Suez Canal of its sister vessel, the Ever Given, which disrupted the global supply chain for days.
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Source: USA Today
