News coming through from Evergreen about its ultra-large container vessel (ULCV) that got stuck in shallow water in Chesapeake Bay on Sunday evening is that the Ever Forward’s hull remains intact and that none of the cargo has been compromised by the line’s latest marooned vessel incident.
Word from the US Coast Guard late yesterday eastern time was that the 2020-built, 20 124-TEU vessel had also not sprung an oil leak as was initially feared.
Neither had any discomfort or injury been reported by any of the box ship’s crew.
The 334-metre vessel has a draught of 15.5 metres and needs at least 7.62 metres of water to sail freely.
However, as it was heading south towards Chesapeake Bay Bridge after departing from the Port of Baltimore, it reached a point in the bay where the depth was 7.6 metres – just too shallow for the loaded vessel to continue south towards the Port of Virginia.
Latest information from the Coast Guard is that it’s still trying to free the vessel.
Yesterday it was reported that William P Doyle, executive director for the Maryland Port Authority, had said that the Ever Forward wasn’t impeding any other shipping traffic from where it was stuck south-east of Pinehurst Harbour.
Vessels heading to and fro through Chesapeake Bay have, however, been advised to proceed with caution and adhere to a one-way sailing pattern.
Evergreen has since said that divers are still busy with inspections to ensure that all is okay for the vessel to be re-floated.
Evergreen will be remembered for last year’s Suez marooning incident when one of its largest ULCVs, the Ever Given, got stuck in the southern channel of the waterway on March 23.
At least 30 000 cubic metres of sand had to be dredged from under the behemoth’s hull before it was freed on March 29.
Thereafter, it was detained in Great Bitter Lakes by the Suez Canal Authority as it levied damage charges against the Ever Given’s owners, Shoei Kisen Kaisha (SKK).
Saddled with a bill of $916 million, SKK only managed to resume the Ever Given’s voyage after litigators from London intervened and succeeded in substantially reducing damage charges.
As news yesterday spread about the Ever Forward, Evergreen actually announced that its nett profit for 2021 had risen nine-fold to $9.5 billion.
