THE 12,000-TEU Ever Forward ship, which went aground March 13 in the Chesapeake Bay, has been freed, reports the Washington Post.
Two anchor barges and five large tugboats pulled the ship astern and sideways until she was dislodged. The salvage crews received help from a full moon and a spring tide to release the ship, reported Ventura, California's gCaptain.
Having exhausted all salvage options, authorities took a costly last resort on April 9 and began removing containers from the ship.
Salvage men rappelled up and down towering stacks of containers for 12 hours a day for the last week uncoupling containers from the ship and hooking them to cranes. This operation removed weight from the ship allowing it to lift free during the spring tide.
The 1,100-foot vessel, owned by the Taiwan's company Evergreen Marine, was en route from Baltimore to Norfolk when it turned out of a shipping channel and got stuck in the Chesapeake Bay near the Bay Bridge.
It was carrying about 5,000 containers, and crews had to remove exactly 500 of them to lighten the load, plus dredge about 20 feet on both of its sides to pull it back into the shipping channel.
'If you have ever been in a marsh, and you've stepped in with your boot, and your boot comes off. Kind of the same thing on a grander scale here,' said US Coast Guard Captain David O'Connell.
The coast guard is investigating how the ship went off course, but first it must figure out how to get it free. The grounding did not impede shipping.
Ever Forward's owner, Evergreen Marine Corporation, removed 500 of 4,900 containers.
Said Evergreen: 'To speed the offloading process, four barges were engaged. These receiving barges offloaded containers back to Port of Baltimore.'
SeaNews Turkey
Two anchor barges and five large tugboats pulled the ship astern and sideways until she was dislodged. The salvage crews received help from a full moon and a spring tide to release the ship, reported Ventura, California's gCaptain.
Having exhausted all salvage options, authorities took a costly last resort on April 9 and began removing containers from the ship.
Salvage men rappelled up and down towering stacks of containers for 12 hours a day for the last week uncoupling containers from the ship and hooking them to cranes. This operation removed weight from the ship allowing it to lift free during the spring tide.
The 1,100-foot vessel, owned by the Taiwan's company Evergreen Marine, was en route from Baltimore to Norfolk when it turned out of a shipping channel and got stuck in the Chesapeake Bay near the Bay Bridge.
It was carrying about 5,000 containers, and crews had to remove exactly 500 of them to lighten the load, plus dredge about 20 feet on both of its sides to pull it back into the shipping channel.
'If you have ever been in a marsh, and you've stepped in with your boot, and your boot comes off. Kind of the same thing on a grander scale here,' said US Coast Guard Captain David O'Connell.
The coast guard is investigating how the ship went off course, but first it must figure out how to get it free. The grounding did not impede shipping.
Ever Forward's owner, Evergreen Marine Corporation, removed 500 of 4,900 containers.
Said Evergreen: 'To speed the offloading process, four barges were engaged. These receiving barges offloaded containers back to Port of Baltimore.'
SeaNews Turkey