Not again! Largest ship ever grounded in Chesapeake Bay stuck in mud

Maritime experts and dredgers are working around the clock to free the Hong Kong-flagged Ever Forward, a 1,095-foot cargo ship that’s been stuck on the edge of Baltimore Harbor since March 13, when it ran aground en route from Baltimore to Norfolk, Va.

The fully loaded ship has more than 4,000 containers onboard.  Two dredges—including one said to be the largest clam shell dredge in the Western hemisphere—have been digging up mud around the ship in an attempt to free it.

So far, those attempts have been futile. If dredging does not work, attempts may be made to unload some containers and remove fuel in an attempt to lighten the overall weight of the two-year-old ship.

Close observers of worldwide maritime incidents may note similarities between the Ever Forward and the Ever Given. That was the even-larger ship that became stuck in the Suez Canal a year ago. Unlike that incident which clogged an important Mideast shipping lane, this incident is not affecting maritime traffic.

Both ships are owned by Evergreen Maritime Corp., a Taiwan-based company. The Ever Given was freed in six days. The Ever Forward has been lodged in the Chesapeake Bay for more than two weeks.

But so far, exact cause for the grounding has yet to be determined.

This ship requires a depth of at least 42 feet to navigate safely. It is stuck in approximately 18 feet of mud—meaning the depth of the harbor where it became lodged was only 24 feet.

“She is sitting, resting on the bottom,” U.S. Coast Guard Captain David O’Connell told the Baltimore Sun. “Basically that’s where she came to rest. She tunneled into the mud and silt, so she’s about 15 feet or so into the mud.”

Experts estimate the Coast Guard and Maryland Department of the Environment engineers need to remove an area of about 350,000 square feet of mud. That amounts to about 110,000 cubic yards of muck—enough to fill 33 Olympic-sized swimming pools—in order free the ship.

More than a dozen vessels have been involved in the dredging, which began more than a week ago. The first attempt to refloat the ship will involve five tugboats, officials said. If that is unsuccessful, then around April 4 officials will try removing some containers and fuel in order to lighten the load.

Meantime, the Ever Forward has become Baltimore’s latest tourist draw. Visitors and locals have been drawn to Pasadena, Md., southeast of Baltimore to get a good view of the stuck ship with the huge letters “EVERGREEN” printed on the side. It is difficult to miss.

Fortunately, the ship is not in the actual shipping channel of the Chesapeake Bay. So shipping and other maritime activity has not been affected, unlike the incident involving the Ever Given that clogged the Suez Canal for a week.

The Coast Guard announced a safety zone of 1,000 yards has been established around the ground ship during the rescue efforts.

“It’s just a ship sitting there,” Nolley Fisher, superintendent of Downs Park, a beach in Pasadena, told the Sun. “But, hey, people want to see it. I know people want to see it move as well.”