Phase one of the salvage of grounded Evergreen Line container ship has failed, so salvors are embarking on what the liner operator described as the “next phase” of the effort.
That involves unloading containers from a vessel that is too firmly wedged in the Chesapeake Bay silt to move after running aground in silt on 13 March.
“Salvage experts have determined they would not be able to refloat the Ever Forward in its current loaded condition,” the Taiwanese liner operator told customers. “This determination has triggered the next phase of the previously developed rescue plan for the vessel.”
Evergreen Line said that once dredging is completed at the site of the 12,118-teu Ever Forward (built 2020), two crane barges with “suitable lift heights” will be brought to the site. They will unload some of the ship’s containers to receiving barges, which will then shuttle the containers back to shore.
Coast Guard private first class Cynthia Oldham said that the equipment removal will be staged this week.
A third attempt to refloat the vessel, owned by Evergreen’s Taipei-listed Evergreen Marine unit, had been expected this week.
But on Monday, the US Coast Guard, the Maryland state Department of the Environment and Evergreen Marine said that would be impossible.
“Salvage experts determined they would not be able to overcome the ground force of the Ever Forward in its current loaded condition,” they said.
Oldham said in previous efforts to push and pull the vessel out of the mud, it did not budge. Because of the weight of the ship and because it is hard aground, salvors determined that it needs to be lightened before it can be refloated.
“The ship is aground from bow to stern,” the Coast Guard spokeswoman said.
The revised plan calls for dredging to a depth of 13 metres, which satellite tracking data shows is the full draught of the vessel at the time of the incident.
Salvors intend to attempt to refloat the vessel once the containers are removed. The Coast Guard said on Monday that the operation could take two weeks.
The cause of the incident remains under investigation.
On the day of the incident, mariners were warned that high winds would cause what are known as “blowout tides”, a phenomenon that drives water out of the bay.
