The United States Coast Guard (USCG) has announced that grounded Ever Forward should be unloaded before the next refloat attempt.
After two unsuccessful tries to free the 5,000 TEU-loaded ship, salvage experts believe they will not achieve to refloat the Evergreen-operated boxship, unless they remove a number of containers from the vessel.
“The anticipated number of containers for removal will likely be in the hundreds. The exact number will be determined once the process has begun and assessments can be made,” told Container News an official.
Meanwhile, the dredging will continue to a depth of 13 metres and boxes will now be removed as soon as the installation of two crane barges with suitable lift heights to remove containers are installed.
The containers will be removed in daylight hours only for safety purposes from both the port and starboard sides and placed on receiving barges. Then, these barges will shuttle the containers back to their original onboarding facility, Seagrit Marine Terminal in Baltimore, where they will be offloaded by shore-based handling gear.
Once the containers are removed, tugs and pull barges will make another try to free Ever Forward.
The shipping channel will remain open to one-way traffic during the operation, which is estimated to take about 15 days. Hopefully, the incident has not caused serious traffic disruption despite the fact that the vessel is stuck in the Chesapeake Bay since 13 March.
#USCG, #MDE and Evergreen Marine Corporation continue work to refloat #EVERFORWARD. Refloat attempts to resume next week following additional dredging to depth of 43 feet. A 500-yard safety zone, around-the-clock monitoring for potential pollution and stability checks on-going. pic.twitter.com/FOyLP0hct4
— USCG Mid-Atlantic (@uscgmidatlantic) March 31, 2022
