Posted on 03/14/2022 2:39:32 PM PDT by C210N
GIBSON ISLAND, Md. —
A container ship is reported to be stranded off the coast of Gibson Island in the Chesapeake Bay.
Marine Tracker lists the ship as the Ever Forward and that it is aground. It appears there are several tugboats out of Baltimore trying to assist.
(Excerpt) Read more at wbaltv.com ...
I believe the intercoastal pilots take these ships inside.
Stay in the channel and don't get stuck.
Both Virgina and Maryland will put a harbor pilot aboard these large ships transiting the Ches. Bay. but we had a high wind day Saturday and motors can stall, usually at the worst time.
I read a whole book about the incident...it was fascinating.
The scene on the bridge when an experienced seaman tried to tell the Missouri’s new Captain he was on the wrong side of the channel marker, and the Captain slapped him down...reminded me of the famous scene from The Caine Mutiny where Queeg steamed over his own tow line...
Sounds like quite a sight to see. Love watching stuff like that.
Yea, and they work the Suez as well.
Well, some ship’s break left.
Cool.
How fast was she going when it ran aground? That’s a long drag .....
At 8:17 am, Missouri slid up on a shoal (or mud bar) and stuck to the ground. In a last-ditch effort to save the ship, Peckham sent a message to Brown stating "Come right immediately! Twist ship!",[A 2] but this effort was too little, too late; Missouri had already run aground.
Her hull had traveled approximately 2,500 feet (760 m),[16] which was very nearly the entire length of the shoal, raising the battleship several feet out of the water, and her engines were shut down after the bay sand began to clog the battleship's intakes in engineering.[6][A 3]
She had come to rest on an almost even keel[16] on the sandbar within plain sight of "Admirals Row", the historic homes along Dillingham Boulevard at Naval Station Norfolk occupied by 18 flag officers of the United States Navy stationed at Hampton Roads, and the homes of a similar number of high-ranking officers of the United States Army stationed at Fort Monroe.[17]
From Wikipedia
I remember when that happened. I saw the USS Eisenhower do something similar in Norfolk . Extremely choppy water that day, very windy, oops , was stuck for a few hours, in sight of the pier.
Thank you.
That’s what makes it so fascinating.
It was the Captain’s first time on the bridge underway on his new command, and he was doing 15 knots in a 55,000 ton battleship through that area!
Down in the chart room, the Navigation Officer was looking out the porthole and saw the channel marker go flying by, and said something like “Hey! That marker shouldn’t be on the starboard side! It shouldn’t be there! Someone tell the Captain!” while furiously poring over the charts to see if he himself had made a mistake. Then the XO (I think) came running in.
During this time, the Quartermaster steering the ship made a comment to Captain Brown that the channel marker was on the wrong side, and the Captain ignored him. When he repeated it, the Captain rebuked him, so he kept his mouth shut.
They were cutting diagonally across a mucky-bottomed shoal (Thimble Shoals) and the bottom mud was so gooey and slick, and the decrease in depth so gradual, that many crew members did not realize the ship had run aground, it was so gentle and shallow, and the ship was going so fast.
As a matter of fact, the first indication that the ship had run aground (except for the crew on the fantail which saw mud being churned up by the screws) was the water temps in the intakes began to rise drastically because they were becoming clogged with mud.
It also happened during an exceptionally high tide, so the ship actually rod up on the shallow incline, nearly a half mile inland several feet up out of the water.
Unbelievable.
The ship was stuck there, embarrasingly public in full view of a busy highway, and became the butt of jokes, the worst of which was when an Army helicopter came out and dropped a line with a big sign asking if they needed a tow, which appeared on the front page of the Virginia-Pilot the next day.
They brought in Rear Admiral Homer N. Wallin who had been a heavy lifter in the Pearl Harbor salvages after the attacks, so he knew his business.
They had to unload every single thing off the ship, had tugs pulling astern, and tugs nosed in on each side rocking the battleship side to side, while Navy divers in the full hard-hat or copper hat equipment were undersea alongside with firehoses trying to spray underwater to free the hull from the grip of the mud.
The Admirals were not amused.
Gad. How many ships have transited that area and not run aground, and you do it in a carrier????
“People are seeing lots of dots. They should think more about connecting them.“
Maybe they just need a good exam if they are seeing dots.
Sometimes dots are just dots.
Yep, I’ve been looking at various maps of its track, and baffles me how it ran aground, seemingly on the normal path taken at that point in the bay. One report states there is 25’ of water there, with 50’ of boat below the water.
At any rate, surely rising sea-levels will re-float the boat by weekend.
here are the depths in that area
Perhaps the ship was intentionally overloaded in the port, making its grounding pre-meditated.
LOL, or at least in the next ten-point-three years!
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