INTERNATIONAL SALVAGE UNION
July 2022
Donjon-Smit respond to giant boxship grounding in the US On March 13, 2022, the 334 metre EVER FORWARD was heading outbound within Chesapeake Bay enroute to Norfolk, Virginia when she grounded south of Baltimore outside the Craighill Channel. The vessel left the Channel making about 13-knots, entered shallow water and quickly became grounded on the Bay bottom about three metres out-of-draft. The incident took about 90 seconds. A ’Rapid Assessment Survey’ performed by Donjon-Smit divers and engineers revealed the vessel was hard aground along its entire length with an estimated ground reaction of nearly 20,000 tonnes. The Bay bottom in the area of the grounding is clay and contains numerous oyster shoals. The grounding of the EVER FORWARD eclipsed the largest previous Chesapeake Bay grounding, the USS MISSOURI late in 1950, by over 8,000 tonnes. The EVER FORWARD’s departure condition from Baltimore, liquid and cargo load, massive ground reaction, bottom conditions and asset availability effectively dictated a multi-faceted approach to the safe and effective refloat of the stranded boxhip. The Donjon-Smit team immediately undertook surveys, mobilisation and logistics support for two dredgers to remove and dispose of spoil from around the ship in five zones, to a depth of about 15.2 m. Over a period of 19 days, more than 213,733 cubic yards of spoil were removed and disposed in an environmentally friendly manner. At the same time the contractors assembled two 600 tonnes-capable pull barges in their Port Newark facility. The general arrangement of the two pull barges was a traditional pulling arrangement: two sets of ground tackle to provide the mooring-restraint for two 300 tonnes class chain pullers on a WITTE 1400-Series deck barge and which were connected by equalizing bridles to the
strand. The graphic, right, shows the overall general arrangement of one of the pull barges. The restraint was provided by four-sets of ground tackle, one set connected to each chain puller with each set consisting of two Moorfast anchors rigged in tandem, approximately 10 shots of 3” chain Whilst dredging was still ongoing, 500 containers were lightered in an engineered and managed fashion. Donjon-Smit said it was critical that this portion of the lightering be well thoughtout because hull girder stresses and stability, always a consideration, had to be considered well-ahead to the point when about 5,000 tonnes of ballast
water was discharged. Over a period of 8 days the containers, totaling 7,248 tonnes were removed and sent to Baltimore for backloading after refloat. Ballast water was discharged in the hours immediately prior to the refloat and on April 17, with the aid of 6 tugs, including the 70 tonne bollard pull ATLANTIC SALVOR and 70 tonne Bollard pull ATLANTIC ENTERPRISE, the EVER FORWARD was safely refloated and redelivered to the Port of Baltimore.
2021 ISU statistics The 2021 ISU salvage industry statistics show modest recovery in gross revenues
All numbers are gross income from which all the contractors’ costs must be paid.
• Gross revenue for ISU members - US$ 391 million (2020, US$ 301 million)
ISU President, Captain Nicholas Sloane, said: “The 2021 ISU statistics show a 26 per cent increase in the income received by our members compared with the previous year. Emergency Response services generated US$ 242 million split almost equally between LOF and other contracts - US$ 122 million and US $120 million respectively.
• 189 services provided (2020, 182 services) • Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF) - 29 cases (2020, 40). LOF revenue up at US$ 122 million (2020, US$ 60 million) • Wreck removal income - US$ 108 million from 56 services (2020, US$ 98 million Photo: Action Press / Shutterstock from 101 services)
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‘’Wreck removal income has stayed very similar to the previous year and is still down on the historic proportion of our Continues page 2