Shortly after leaving Baltimore, the EVER FORWARD (IMO: 9850551), a nearly 1,100 feet long container ship, ran aground on Mar 13 in the Chesapeake Bay channel at around 00:15 UTC. The 334-meter vessel was on its way to Norfolk, Virginia, with an ETA of Mar 17, when the incident occurred. As of 11:00 UTC Mar 15, the vessel was still aground with tugs in the vicinity to facilitate its refloating.
According to the US coast guard, the vessel is outside the navigable channel. The pilot was aboard the ship was in control of the ship when it ran aground. However, it has still not been determined if a mechanical or a human error prevented the vessel from turning into the designated channel, causing it to run aground. No injuries were reported.
AIS snapshot of EVER FORWARD’s current location
According to experts, the vessel needs to be in a depth of 43 feet to be refloated but is presently stuck in an area only about 25 feet deep. This could pose a challenge to the salvage operators. It is not yet clear as to when the vessel will be refloated. Although there has been no impact on vessel traffic so far, once the salvage operation begins, access to the navigation channel is expected to be limited. In the meantime, vessels in the area were instructed to slow down and proceed in a one-way traffic pattern.
It was around this same period last year when the infamous blocking of the Suez Canal happened by another mega containership, the EVER GIVEN, also belonging to The Evergreen Marine Corp. It had managed to bring the global shipping industry to a standstill single-handedly.
Given the slightly smaller size of the vessel compared to the EVER GIVEN and the location, it is expected not to cause any significant supply chain disruptions. However, looking at the present situation of the industry, such incidents are a cause for concern.
Click here to watch an interesting video shared on the official YouTube channel of the Chesapeake Bay Media showing the real footage of the stuck vessel.