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The sightseers are laser-focused, holding binoculars and folding chairs, on the giant container ship Ever Forward, which has been stranded in the mud of the US East Coast’s Chesapeake Bay for a month.
Some bring their families, while others come with friends, squatting at the greatest vantage point available: a park in the city of Pasadena, Maryland, which provides a clear view of the vessel, which is lodged in 20 feet (six metres) of mud a few hundred yards off shore.
“Even with the storms we get here in the bay, we don’t get ships grounding like this,” said Frederick Schroeder, a retiree who travelled from neighbouring Baltimore with his camera and telescopic lens to chronicle the spectacle, which he described as a “once in a lifetime phenomenon.”
The enormous tanker, owned by the Taiwanese company Evergreen, became trapped on the night of March 13 after missing a turn into deeper water.
The ship, which is approximately 1,100 feet long and capable of carrying nearly 12,000 containers, is one of many that ply the heavily trafficked waters of the Chesapeake, a massive estuary whose banks house both the city of Baltimore and the Port of Virginia, the second- and third-largest ports on the US East Coast.
dredge boats and tugs
The misadventure of the Ever Forward in the Chesapeake is reminiscent of that of the similarly titled Ever Given, another Evergreen container ship that famously became stranded in a sandbank in the Suez Canal in March 2021, delaying traffic for nearly a week.
For more than three weeks, the US Coast Guard has been attempting to extricate the Ever Forward with the help of tugs and dredging boats, but has been unsuccessful.
Cranes have encircled the ship in recent days, working to unload as many containers as possible in order to make the vessel lighter.
When questioned by AFP, the Coast Guard stated that more than 130 containers had been unloaded thus far, but that even more would be removed before a further attempt to refloat the boat, the date of which is yet unknown.
“The skipper who ran aground, he must be beyond embarrassed to do such a thing,” said John Zeglin, a nearly 80-year-old retiree from Bethesda, Maryland, a Washington suburb about an hour’s drive from the ship.
‘Osprey abundance’
Doug Myers, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental organisation, told AFP he was concerned about the likelihood of a hull breach, which could release hundreds of gallons of fuel.
Birds are the most susceptible animals to an oil spill after those that live in the water, and the Ever Forward became stranded just as migrating birds pass by the bay and even nest there for the summer.
He claims that officials have not yet considered the environmental hazards and that a containment boom – a form of protective barrier – should be installed around the Ever Forward to prevent any oil leaks from spreading.
Even if the threat is not immediate, he claims that a leak of this magnitude might reach both sides of the bay in an hour or more.
“To Marylanders, this bay is everything,” Myers explained.
“So many people make their income directly or indirectly from the bay, whether it’s tourism, fishing, or just waterfront property.”
