PASADENA, Md.—Linda Miller made a beeline to the end of a fishing pier and trained her marine binoculars on a giant container ship 2 miles offshore in the Chesapeake Bay. As usual, it wasn’t moving an inch.

The 1,095-foot Ever Forward has been making a mockery of its name since March 13, when it strayed out of a Baltimore-area shipping channel and plowed so deep in the silty bay bottom that two refloating attempts haven’t budged it. A third is under way, the Coast Guard said.

Now, Downs Park, a patch of county land with direct views of themarine mishap, is attracting gawkers like Ms. Miller, who drove 42 miles and paid the $6 park fee. “I walk a few miles every day, and I thought, ‘Why not here?’ ” she said. “I find it fascinating, for some reason.”

The stuck ship is testament to both global supply-chain clogs and Covid-19 pandemic boredom. It is a low-stakes sequel to last year’s drama in the Suez Canal with the 1,300-foot Ever Given, which, like Ever Forward, is operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp. Ever Given blocked traffic in the canal for nearly a week before a flotilla of the world’s largest tugboats pulled it free, an ordeal said to have cost Evergreen about $200 million.



Ever Forward isn’t impeding other ships, nor is it attracting the kind of world-wide intrigue of its sister ship. Nevertheless, a Washington TV news station posted on its website a one-hour 19-minute video of a failed effort to free the ship. It has been viewed some 40,000 times.

The grounding also has given new life to a website that popped up during the Ever Given drama, “istheshipstillstuck.com.” “This one is a lot more chill,” the website notes of the Chesapeake version. “You can basically just drive around it.”

Stacked with about 4,900 cargo boxes of household goods, the Ever Forward began its voyage in Asia. After leaving the Port of Baltimore

on its way to Norfolk, Va., the vessel veered far enough outside the 50-foot-deep shipping channel that it ran aground in 24 feet of water, said Coast Guard Capt. David O’Connell. The ship’s draft is about 42 feet.

“With that in mind, you can see why this has been a challenge,” he said.

The circumstances of the grounding are under investigation. Capt. O’Connell said no one has been injured or is in immediate danger, and there isn’t any pollution risk.

“The cause of the incident is under investigation by the competent authorities,” Evergreen Marine said on its website. Company officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The ship’s plight has been a boon for the 236-acre Downs Park between Baltimore and Annapolis, which also features a dog beach and views of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

The park saw a bump in attendance last month even compared with a year earlier, which had been its best-ever March, said park superintendent Nolley Fisher. Visitors, he said, have come from Pennsylvania and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and park employees buzzed about coming visits from the national media.

“We’ve never had this much exposure,” Mr. Fisher said. “Every day we get people calling to ask, ‘Can you still see the ship?’ ”
Karen Piccoli, visiting the park with her friend and a dog named Bailey, said the Ever Forward has become her latest pandemic-era distraction. It was at least her fifth pilgrimage, she said. She lives 20 minutes away.

“It’s just an amazing sight, and so crazy to think about how this could happen with all that technology on board,” she said.

Park employees have enjoyed the extra attention, Mr. Fisher said, although the novelty is wearing off. “Really, it’s just a ship offshore, so it is only exciting for so long,” he said.

Action is picking up. After the failure of two refloating attempts involving tugboats yanking on the hulking vessel, the Coast Guard, Maryland Department of the Environment and Evergreen Marine have begun a new approach.

They dredged the silt underneath the ship and are undertaking a Jenga-like unstacking challenge to remove about 500 containers without throwing the ship off balance.

“There are a lot of engineers involved,” said Capt. O’Connell. The wild cards include tide and weather.

The last step will be to use two barges with winch systems to try to tug the Ever Forward forward. The whole process could take at least another week, Capt. O’Connell said.

Just north of Downs Park, motorists on Bayside Drive can glimpse the looming ship between the bay-front houses in the Pinehurst neighborhood. Residents have noticed at times a slow-moving parade of rubber-neckers.

The other day, a couple of people set up lawn chairs on an empty lot, said Karen Pierce-Blandamer, who has lived on Bayside Drive since 2001.

As for the ship outside her front windows, she said, “Well, I can’t help but keep an eye on it.”

Pinehurst resident Angelo Glorioso, who recently was mowing his lawn overlooking the stuck ship, said the mishap is as interesting as the Atlantic hurricanes he has weathered during his 60 years on the water. “At first, I was just looking at it thinking, ‘Why is it anchored there?’ ”

His wife, Harriett, poked her head outside to chime in that she has been imagining what life is like for those who have been stuck on board. (The crew, Capt. O’Connell said, is free to leave, but hasn’t.)

“You know,” Ms. Glorioso said, “I’m going to miss this ship when it finally goes.”


LINK: https://www.wsj.com/articles/g...ing_now_article_pos5

Sites like this are fun to use: https://www.marinetraffic.com/...ipid:6378710/zoom:10

I followed Evergreen to Rotterdam once it was freed. It anchored offshore in the Med once out of the canal area, then went to southern Italy where it literally sailed in figure eights for a few days, finally moving out of the Med and then to Rotterdam.

I never found out why they were wasting time south of Italy and finally speculated it was getting "in line" to arrive at Rotterdam closer to docking time, rather than anchor, but the expense in fuel still makes no sense.

R click and drag to see where it is in the map.

Uh oh. Has Balze been moonlighting?

It was announced last week that off loading about 5000 containers would be required to lift it where it could free itself from the muck.

It's a balancing act to get them from both ends and sides, no tipping over allowed. It requires a crane, and smaller freighters to cross load, all of which have to be contracted at extra expense to get things to a destination. Very little of that stuff is just sitting around waiting, owners try to keep it making money with a backlog of work. Kinda like, making ammo.

It could still be sitting there in two or three weeks at this rate.

Turns out the pilot was on his cell phone and missed the turn at his waypoint.

Not kidding.

Investigators: Bay Pilot Operating Ever Forward Was Distracted

quote:

"Ever Forward"

That's an ironic name for a grounded ship...

Akin to the "SS Unsinkable" sinking.

No time to be complacent.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Turns out the pilot was on his cell phone and missed the turn at his waypoint.

Not kidding.

Investigators: Bay Pilot Operating Ever Forward Was Distracted

For those that don’t know, these “pilots” board a vessel and navigate it into port. It’s supposed to be a safety practice.

My only experience is the Houston ship channel (largest port in Gulf Coast). Not sure about other ports, in Houston it’s a very well compensated job but hard to get in due to nepotism.

And this is why we cannot have nice things. I mean, why not have a mobile phone free zone on the command deck? How hard would that be. To enter, you must stow your phone. We have this at our fuel blending facility. No one enters with any electronic device.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
And this is why we cannot have nice things. I mean, why not have a mobile phone free zone on the command deck? How hard would that be. To enter, you must stow your phone. We have this at our fuel blending facility. No one enters with any electronic device.

Hell, I’ve worked in offices where you had to stow everything except the clothing you had on.