EVER… FORWARD?

Cargo Ship Wedged in Chesapeake Bay Freed After a Month

Almost exactly a year after its sister ship, the infamous Ever Given, became lodged in the Suez Canal, the Ever Forward ran aground.

Thirty-six days and three attempts later, the Ever Forward is finally free. The 130-ton, 1,095-foot cargo ship, which ran aground just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on March 13, was successfully prised out of the muck and refloated just after 7 a.m. Sunday, Coast Guard officials confirmed. The ship had been on a short journey from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, when it became lodged in shallow waters. Somewhere between an eyesore and a curiosity, the Ever Forward’s grounding was nowhere near as disastrous as that of its sister ship, the Ever Given, which unleashed a global commerce crisis last March when it became lodged in the Suez Canal. The Ever Given, however, was dislodged after six days. In contrast, crews previously failed to free the Ever Forward twice in March, once with tugboats and once by dredging around the hull. Its full load prevented refloating in both instances, however. Finally, this weekend, authorities managed to unload enough of the cargo ship’s containers to allow a simultaneous dredge-and-tug effort to succeed. An investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing.