Two months after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore caused by a massive cargo ship, the vessel, named “Dali” and registered in Singapore, was successfully refloated on Monday morning (May 20) and towed out of the shipping channel.
According to reports from the Associated Press, the cargo ship appeared to start moving shortly after 6 a.m. on Monday, activating and deactivating multiple times before finally leaving the collapse site.
A Unified Command composed of local and federal agencies stated in a release last Saturday (May 18) that the entire process would take at least 21 hours, with Monday morning’s high tide providing optimal conditions for “raising the cargo vessel and starting its movement.”
The Unified Command mentioned that once the “Dali” was clear of the collapsed position, five tugboats would escort the vessel at a speed of one mile per hour over a 2.5-mile distance to a nearby shipping dock.
On Sunday (May 19), Maryland Governor and Democrat, Wes Moore, declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that efforts were underway to promptly remove the ship from the shipping channel and vowed to reopen the channel swiftly.
Moore stated, “Despite people saying this might take 6 to 9 months, I’m proud to note that we are on track to reopen the federal channel by the end of May; within days, we will have that massive vessel ‘Dali’ out of the federal channel.”
In the accident on March 26, the “Dali” cargo ship collided with the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing one of the busiest bridges in the area to collapse and resulting in the deaths of six construction workers.
The incident disrupted shipping at the Port of Baltimore and impacted East Coast maritime traffic. For the past 8 weeks, the “Dali” had been stranded in the Patapsco River.
Reports indicate that Grace Ocean Private Ltd., a Singapore-based company, owns the “Dali.” The vessel had been chartered by Maersk, a Danish shipping company, with ship management handled by Singapore’s Synergy Marine.
A report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) last week revealed that the “Dali” had experienced two power losses prior to the accident.