![]() ![]() Those were suction dredges, which can break up rock and act almost like underwater vacuums, sucking up muck much quicker than a clamshell dredge, which acts more like a shovel. One of two dredges on scene, the Dale Pyatt, is the largest clamshell dredge in the western hemisphere and can scoop 60 cubic yards in its bucket.ĭespite its superlative size, though, the Dale Pyatt isn’t as efficient as the dredges that helped free the Ever Given in the Suez Canal. More than a dozen vessels have assisted in the dredging process, which involves scooping out mud from the bay bottom around the Ever Forward. The plan, obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act request, permits the salvor to mechanically dredge an area of 349,427 square feet “to a depth of 40 feet at mean low water.” The muck - more than 110,000 cubic yards of it, which can fill about 33 Olympic-sized swimming pools - will then be deposited at Poplar Island, a restored wildlife habitat built with dredged material about 20 miles south of the ship. That ship was freed in six days, but the Ever Forward has been stuck for two weeks and counting for a few reasons: The Ever Forward is more completely lodged into mud, there is less urgency since it isn’t blocking the channel, and there are fewer salvage resources available than in the Suez.ĭonjon Smit, the ship’s salvor, has developed a plan that was approved by Maryland’s Board of Public Works as an emergency license, and it is working alongside the Coast Guard and the Maryland Department of the Environment on rescue efforts. Throw in supply chain problems that have backed up West Coast ports, and massive ships have begun calling more often at ports like Baltimore.Įver Forward is owned by the same Taiwanese company, Evergreen Marine Corp., as the Ever Given - the even-larger ship that became wedged in the Suez Canal a year ago, choking off a busy, vital passage for global trade, disrupting the international supply chain and grabbing headlines. “We are seeing a trend towards these larger and larger ships,” said Pete Lesher, curator at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. East Coast after the Panama Canal was expanded in 2016. Long common in the Pacific trade, such ships started making their way from Asia to the U.S. Finally, the following day, after more than two weeks, the warship known as “Mighty Mo” was freed.Ĭontainer ships as massive as the Ever Forward are relatively new to Baltimore and the upper reaches on the bay. There was another effort the next evening, in the fog, and several other watercraft were themselves grounded in the process. The most notorious grounding in the bay came in 1950, though, when the Missouri, an 888-foot Navy battleship, was stuck on a shoal off the Norfolk Naval Station for 15 days, leading to a challenging salvage.ĭuring one rescue attempt, 13 tugboats, two salvage ships and nine rigs pulled on the boat while “her skipper paced the deck in silence,” per a Sun article from the time. The reason for the grounding is unknown - and it likely will be for a long while - but O’Connell named four categories of potential causes: mechanical failure, operational failure, environmental factors (like weather) or human error.Ī couple of large, 700-to-800-foot long vessels have been stuck in the Chesapeake for multiple days, but were freed within about a week in recent decades. “She is sitting, resting on the bottom,” U.S. Coast Guard Captain David O’Connell, the sector commander, said last week, “and basically when she came to rest, she tunneled into the mud and silt, so she’s about 15 feet or so into the mud.” The ship, which requires a depth of at least 42 feet to safely navigate, entered water that is only 24 feet deep, submerging itself in up to 18 feet of mud. Built in 2020 and sailing under the Hong Kong flag, the Ever Forward was traveling from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk on the evening of Sunday, March 13, when, at a speed of 13 knots, it did not turn south with the Craighill Channel and instead plowed into a shallow area outside the channel.
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