Stuck container ship in Chesapeake Bay finally refloated

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BALTIMORE (AP) — A container ship the length of more than three football fields has finally been pried from the muddy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay more than a month after it ran aground.

After two unsuccessful attempts to dislodge it, and the subsequent removal of roughly 500 of the 5,000 containers it was carrying, the Ever Forward was refloated just before 7 a.m. Sunday by two barges and five tugboats.

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.

Once refloated, the Ever Forward was weighed down again by water tanks to ensure safe passage under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on its way to an anchorage off Annapolis, The Baltimore Sun reported.



Evergreen Marine's Ever Forward container ship is taken to an anchorage south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge after it was freed from mud outside the shipping channel off Pasadena, Md., where is had spent the past month aground. The cargo ship was traveling from Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., on March 13, when it ran aground just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-620f3e8510be27e295c0cf266b2832f5

[elleng]

1. WOW! 'weighed down again by water tanks to ensure safe passage under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge'

[Jilly_in_VA]

2. I swear

the captains and navigators on these ships are like the truck drivers who pay no attention to bridge clearance signs. Remember the "Ever Given" in the Suez last year? This whole line....

[GB_RN]

3. Same Shipping Company...

And it looks like the same kind of mega-container ship. If they can’t be trusted to stay in shipping lanes of narrow areas (even if it’s because of wind or currents), perhaps it’s time to do away with these oversized cargo ships and stick with more reasonably sized ships.

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. And just maybe

fine the hell out of that shipping company and charge them megabucks to get into the narrower areas. They'll either learn, or they won't. A lot of it is on the captains and navigators for miscalculating.

[Zeitghost]

9. They are required to use local pilots

When coming into harbors, canals and ports. It was not an Evergreen captain at the helm in either of the recent cases.

[Jilly_in_VA]

10. The captain should know

how big the damn thing is, and should be able to communicate this to the pilot, who in turn should know just exactly where to steer in order for this NOT to happen.

[Zeitghost]

11. It's the local pilot's job

To know local waters and keep the ship safe while it moves into and out of port. They have command of the ship while it's under their control.

[Jilly_in_VA]

13. What I said.

Communication. The pilot knows the waters, but the captain knows the clearance. Or should.

[Zeitghost]

14. So does the pilot

This was not an instance where the pilot or captain were unfamiliar with the ship's draft or water depth. The ship made a wrong turn. That's 100% on the local pilot.

[toesonthenose]

17. You are 100% correct. This is fully on the Maryland Pilot.

USCG still investigating what happened, it will be interesting to see what the cause was. But when navigating in the bay, a Maryland pilot is sent out to the ship to navigate when in MD waters. In Virginia, it is the Virginia Pilots that do that job. I work with a former Virginia Pilot. He explained to me the process of how they are tested to earn their pilot's license and it is unbelievably intense and detailed. With modern navigation systems, and a pilot at the helm, something went seriously wrong.

[Martin68]

4. I used to see these enormous container ships whenI was sailing on Tokyo Bay,

They don't look like ships.They don't look like they should float.

[Warpy]

7. I know, and those containers are stacked below the deck, too.

There are videos out there doing tours of those ships. While the Evergreen ships are a bit bigger, I have to say I was more impressed by the Maersk line. Ordinary crew quarters are palatial compared to most cabins on cruise ships. I might have been tempted to sign on as cook at some points in my life, but the video of them plowing through typhoons because time is money would have discouraged me.

[Jilly_in_VA]

12. You can travel as a passenger

on some of them, which I understand is a good thing to do if you're not easily bored and have work you want to get done without distraction, like writing. You eat in the officers' mess and the quarters are nice, but there isn't much to do.

[Warpy]

16. That's how I always wanted to travel

missing the crowds at the airports and tourist destinations. I wouldn't even have minded working my way across in the galley.

Alas, my health sucks and I didn't get to.

[IronLionZion]

6. See this is why we need rising sea levels

There seems to be a pattern with this particular company.

[IcyPeas]

8. I can't even grasp how huge these ships are!

[Jilly_in_VA]

20. IKR?

We were in Virginia Beach in April 2020. The real reason was to attend the funeral of husband's friend, but we stretched it into a long weekend for us. The lockdown hadn't gone into full mode yet so we could eat out, etc. We found an app called Marine Tracker (the same one you can use to track Russian oligarchs' yachts LOL) and spent a lot of time watching the ships go by and identifying them. Didn't see any "Ever" ones, but several Maersk ones and a bunch of others. They're monsters.

[ColinC]

15. Yayy people are gonna get their things!!

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. Perfect!

[Emile]

19. You would think that shipping company could afford a pilot!

I think in the long run it would have saved them a lot of headache and money!