Bad luck strikes again. A year to the month after a cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal, another ship under the same operator, Evergreen Marine Corp., has run aground in the Chesapeake Bay.
Efforts were underway Monday to refloat the nearly 1,096-foot-long container vessel Ever Forward after it ran aground Sunday in the Craighill Channel. It had departed from the Port of Baltimore, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
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The ship, which was headed to Norfolk, Virginia, got stuck in water outside the channel roughly 25 feet deep at around 9 p.m. Sunday evening, Maryland-National Capital Region Commander Capt. David O’Connell told CBS Baltimore.
The vessel’s crew is required to submit a salvage plan and report any “noticeable change in stability, change in draft readings, change in vessel position, or signs of an oil discharge,” a Coast Guard spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
Currently, the ship’s position is not obstructing navigation in the channel.
Vesselfinder, a ship-tracking website, shows, as of Monday night, that the ship is still stuck and is sailing under the flag of Hong Kong. The site reports that the ship is fairly new, having been built in 2020.
Massive container ship #EVERFORWARD has run aground in the Chesapeake Bay.
Yes, same operator as #EVERGIVEN.
Yes, almost exactly a year later. 1/ pic.twitter.com/z4rCjGSbzR
— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) March 14, 2022
As of Monday, there have been no injuries, pollution, or damage to the ship, per the Coast Guard. A salvage company has already been contracted to help develop a plan to refloat the ship.
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In March 2021, Ever Given, a sister ship operating under the same Taiwanese transport company, ran aground in the Suez Canal, costing at least $9.6 billion in trade each of the six days it was blocking the waterway. More than a dozen tugboats were used to dislodge the ship after days of dredging and excavating.
The Coast Guard did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
