A container ship called the Ever Forward was finally released from the muddy bottom of Chesapeake Bay on Sunday more than a month after it ran aground.
Ever Forward is owned by Evergreen Marine Corporation, the same company that owns Ever Given, which famously stalled and blocked the Suez Canal for a week, disrupting the global supply chain.
The ship, which is more than three football fields long, was shot down early Sunday by two barges and five tugs.
The operation to free him from the bottom of the bay was the third attempt, after two previous ones failed and after the removal of about 500 of the 5,000 containers he was carrying
A full moon and a high spring tide helped secure the lifeboats as they pulled and pushed the massive ship out of the mud, through a dug hole and back into the ship’s canal.
Upon his return, Ever Forward was again pulled from water tanks to ensure safe passage under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on its way to an anchor near Annapolis, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Maritime inspectors will inspect the ship’s hull before the Coast Guard allows it to return to the port of Baltimore to retrieve the unloaded containers.
A tugboat pulls a barge full of containers from the Ever Forward container ship in Pasadena, Maryland, on April 11. Photo: Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images
The cargo ship, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp, was traveling from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, on March 13 when it ran aground north north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Authorities said the grounding did not result in reports of injuries, damage or contamination. The Coast Guard did not say what caused Ever Forward to get stuck.
The ship remained outside the shipping channel and did not block maritime navigation, unlike last year’s high-ranking grounding in the Suez Canal of his sister ship, Ever Given.
Rescue crews continued to unload containers from Ever Forward until 10.30pm on Saturday. The containers were towed to the Seagirt Naval Terminal in Baltimore.
After two failed attempts to free the ship, which is more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) long, rescue experts found earlier this month that unloading some of the containers offered the best chance of re-raising it. The crews also continued dredging to a depth of 43 feet (13 meters) around the ship.
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