Four of the 11 ships trapped for a month behind the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge left the Port of Baltimore Thursday using an alternate shipping channel that opened in the morning.
The Balsa 94, a cargo ship, sailed just before 10 a.m. with the help of two tugboats, passing chunks of the fallen steel bridge and the still grounded Dali freighter that crashed into and destroyed the span March 26.
At nearly 350 feet long, it was the smallest of the stranded vessels. The Balsa 94 is headed to Saint John, Canada, where it’s scheduled to arrive by early next week.
It was followed shortly before noon by the Saimaagracht, a Netherlands-flagged general cargo ship, then by the Wallenius Wilhelmsen vehicle carrier Carmen just before 2 p.m, sailing under the flag of Sweden. The Phatra Naree, a Thailand-flagged bulk goods carrier, went through the temporary channel two hours later.
The day marked a key milestone toward port recovery, allowing vessels back into the stream of commerce after weeks in port. About half the vessels that currently call in Baltimore’s port can use the new deep-draft channel, said Richard Scher, a spokesman for the Maryland Port Administration. The Coast Guard has the final say, however, and considers criteria such as weight and beam limits.
“This has been, and continues to be, a long and emotional process for many people,” Scher said. “It will take time, but we will rebound from this incident.”
Coast Guard officials said Thursday the channel had a depth of 38 feet, a clearance safety number confirmed by surveys Thursday morning, though vessels refer to the 35-foot draft depth. It is the deepest yet of four temporary, alternate routes in and out of the port. But the new Fort McHenry Limited Access Channel, for commercially essential vessels, will stay open only through 6 a.m. Monday, or through Tuesday if weather adversely affects transit.
After shutting down next week, the 38-foot channel will not reopen until around May 10, to allow salvage crews to begin lifting steel off the Dali and using a hydraulic grabber to clear debris from the harbor’s main shipping channel. The Army Corps of Engineers expects to reopen the Port of Baltimore’s permanent 700-foot wide, 50-foot deep channel by the end of May.
“The primary focus of this four-day period is to allow the ships that have remained within the Port of Baltimore since the March 26 incident to leave,” port officials said in a statement Wednesday.
The port has been blocked to most vessel traffic since the Dali appeared to lose power and struck a bridge support column, causing the 1.6-mile bridge to collapse and killing six construction workers.
Capt. David O’Connell, the Coast Guard’s Captain of the Port for the Key Bridge Response Unified Command, said five of the vessels stranded in the Baltimore harbor were expected to get out during the four-day window. By late afternoon, four of five were sailing down the Chesapeake Bay en route to their next destinations. Inbound vessels are expected include a small bulk carrier and a ship carrying aluminum, he said.
“We’re working to strike a balance between enabling temporary access to support commercial activity and undertaking necessary measures to fully reopen the Fort McHenry Channel,” O’Connell said in a statement Thursday. “This limited access deep draft channel will provide a window for five of the deep draft vessels currently unable to depart the port as well as some smaller deep draft vessels to transit.”
The fifth ship expected to depart in the Palanca Rio, an oil/chemical tanker, that left its berth at Apex Oil in the Canton Industrial Area and appeared to be approaching the fallen bridge early Thursday morning but then turned into Curtis Creek, where the vessel was moored at the Liquid Transfer pier in South Baltimore. A spokeswoman for the Joint Information Center Key Bridge Response said Thursday she did not know the circumstances.
The new channel is marked with lighted aids and limited to transit at the discretion of the Coast Guard’s Captain of the Port based on weather conditions.
Vessels using it must be operated by a Maryland State pilot and escorted by two tugboats at speeds at or below 5 knots because of the channel’s proximity to the grounded Dali. Ships with more than 60,000 long tons of displacement likely will not be allowed through the channel.
The Carmen, owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen, was the deepest draft of the ships that left Thursday, needing 37 feet of water if it’s fully loaded. It is carrying autos and heavy vehicles and headed for Manzanillo, Mexico, said David Hopkins, a Wallenius spokesman, on Thursday.
The Norway-based shipping line said earlier this month that it estimates a monthlong financial impact in the range of $5 million to $10 million from the Carmen being stuck in Baltimore. Cargo operations were completed at the port before the bridge fell, and the Carmen and crew of about 20 were prepared to sail, the company said at the time.
Last year, the shipping line made more than 150 port calls in Baltimore.
“We are currently assessing the practicality and viability of our vessels entering the port during the current limited window,” Hopkins said.
Four of the 11 cargo ships docked at berths in the port have no “immediate” plans to depart just yet. They are part of the U.S. Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force, a fleet established in 1976 to quickly supply American troops around the world. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration said Wednesday that he knew of no immediate plans to move those ships from the port.
Two of the stranded ships likely need to wait until the main channel is reopened to its full depth, currently expected by the end of May. Based on their required draft depth, the bulk carrier Klara Oldendorf, sailing under the flag of Madeira, and the coal carrier JY River, sailing under the flag of Liberia, both need a nearly 50-foot channel to sail when loaded.
Several vessels also were headed toward Baltimore’s port as of Thursday morning, according to the tracking website VesselFinder. They included Strategic Tenacity, which stopped south of the Bay Bridge and was approached by a pilot boat a little after 8 a.m. but was then at anchor, and Frisian Ocean, a cargo ship that had been at anchor south of the Bay Bridge for several days.
Others that might arrive in the coming days include the Fu Quan Shan, which is in Bermuda but reports an estimated arrival in Baltimore late Saturday, and Lake Wanaka, a vehicle carrier near Canada estimated to arrive in Baltimore on Sunday.
The first three temporary channels, including one with a 20-foot depth, have been in use by smaller vessels and barges.
Domino Sugar, which has a refinery on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore’s Locust Point, posted Wednesday on Facebook that the sugar barge Jonathan, which regularly delivers shipments of raw sugar to the refinery, returned Wednesday using the 20-foot navigation channel.
“Thank you to the Coast Guard and the entire Unified Command who made this possible,” the manufacturer said in its post.
Baltimore Sun reporters Angela Roberts and Dan Belson and photographer Jerry Jackson contributed to this article.
