A week after the initial incident when the Ever Forward ran aground in Chesapeake Bay, the Evergreen Marine-owned containership remains stuck and could take another seven days for it to refloat and move from this position.
Up until this moment, the Ever Forward still remains stuck at the Chesapeake Bay, when the vessel run aground in the bay on Sunday, after leaving the Port of Baltimore en route to Norfolk, Virginia.
Professional salvors have been appointed by shipowners on commercial terms in order to assist the refloating operation, but the operation is expected to take all week.
There is a plan according to which a ballast will be released in order to lighten the load, dredging the bay’s muddy floor around the ship and making space between the propeller and rudder and the seabed.
After that, and once the ship is light enough, and sufficient mud has been moved, the salvors will wait for a high tide and deploy tugboats to shift the 334 m long boxship.
According to a maritime historian at Campbell University in North Carolina, the ship was exceeding the recommended speed, doing 13 knots as it slipped out of the main navigation corridor and grounded.
The apparent complexity, time and expense of the salvage operation now makes the possibility of shipowners declaring General Average more likely
…cargo claims specialist WK Webster stated in an update last week.
