The Evergreen shipping vessel has been freed after a month.

Last month, an Evergreen-owned shipping vessel, the Ever Forward, departed Baltimore, Maryland on a routine shipping trip to Norfolk. However, the vessel strayed from its usual shipping route for unspecified reasons, and ended up getting trapped in the muddy, shallow waters of Chesapeake Bay. Salvage operations had been ongoing for the past month, and over the weekend, the Ever Forward was finally freed from the shallows.

The salvage team needed to dredge 43 feet of mud underneath the vessel, then manually drag it back to deeper waters using two pulling barges and six tugboats. The Ever Forward is now being towed to the Annapolis Anchorage Grounds, where the hull of the vessel will be inspected for damage and its cargo crates will be refilled with their original contents, all so the vessel can resume its original voyage.

“The vastness and complexity of this response were historic, as an incident like the Ever Forward grounding, in type and duration, is a rare occurrence,” said Captain David O’Connell, commander of Coast Guard Sector Maryland-National Capital Region. “It was the collaboration of each responding agency, Evergreen Marine Corporation, and dedicated responders that resulted in the successful refloating of Ever Forward while ensuring the safety of the public and response personnel, mitigating pollution potential, and minimizing economic impacts.”