After weeks of heavy salvage work in the Chesapeake Bay, the massive continership Ever Forward is free and underway.
The 334-meter-long Ever Forward has been stuck in the mud since March 13th after straying from the Craighill shipping channel as it departed the Port of Baltimore for Norfolk, Virginia, with a pilot on board.
Just before 7 am on Easter Sunday, two anchor barges and five large tugboats pulled the ship astern and sideways until she was dislodged. The salvage crews recieved help from a full moon and a spring tide to release the ship that had been stuck for more than a month.
Having exhausted all salvage options, authorities took a costly last resort on April 9 and began removing containers from the ship. Salvage professionals 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.
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“Looks like Ever Forward was not using her engine and instead is under tow by Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise,” said maritime expert Sal Mercogliano in a tweet this morning. “We saw some black smoke when the ship backed off the shoal. Not sure if there is not some sort of damage.”
Experts still don’t know if the grounding was caused by human error or mechanical failure but the US Coast Guard has inspected the ship and recovered the ships Voyage Data Recorder (Black Box).
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