A 1,095-foot cargo ship that ran aground outside of Baltimore more than a month ago has finally been freed.
The vessel, Ever Forward, which had been stuck in shallow waters in the Chesapeake Bay since March 13, was dislodged early Sunday morning by two pulling barges and five tugboats.
Two previous attempts to refloat the vessel had been unsuccessful as dredgers worked to remove the nearly 18 feet of mud that surrounded the ship, as reported by the Baltimore Sun. Salvage crews resorted to last-ditch efforts on April 9, removing 505 boxes from the ship in an attempt to lighten its load.
CARGO SHIP RUNS AGROUND IN CHESAPEAKE BAY NEAR BALTIMORE
The ship is the largest to ever get stuck in the Chesapeake Bay, and efforts to dislodge it Sunday required parts of the waterway around the ship to close for several hours, according to the outlet.
The vessel’s 27-person crew remained aboard for over a month as salvage efforts were underway.
The reason the ship first diverged into shallow waters after leaving Baltimore for Norfolk, Virginia, is still under investigation by the Coast Guard.
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Ever Forward first became lodged in March, a year to the month after the cargo ship Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal. Both are operated by the Taiwanese transport company Evergreen Marine Corp. Efforts to free the sister ship from the canal required more than a dozen tugboats, costing at least $9.6 billion in trade each of the six days it blocked the waterway.
