VIDEO: Containership Dali departs Baltimore
Written by Nick Blenkey
The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sailfish, an 87-foot Marine Protector class vessel, prepares to escort the containership Dali during its transit from the Port of Baltimore to the Port of Virginia. [U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Bokum]
We don’t have to wait any longer to know when the containership Dali will leave Baltimore. Local media, including WBAL TV, have been showing video of the ship departing Baltimore today.
Three months after it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, just before 8.30 a.m. this morning the 984 foot containership Dali began moving away from the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine terminal under its own power, headed for Norfolk, Va., assisted by four tugboats.
Because, as we reported earlier, the Dali has lost both its anchors, the four tugboats will assist it the entire way. The Coast Guard will oversee the entire voyage. During the transit, the Coast Guard Cutter Sailfish, an 87-foot Marine Protector-class patrol boat homeported in Virginia Beach, will provide a 500-yard safety zone around the Dali while Coast Guard watchstanders at command centers in the Fifth Coast Guard District, in Portsmouth, Virginia, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region and Sector Virginia will closely monitor the ship’s movement as it transits through each captain of the port zone.
A vessel from salvor Resolve Marine is also escorting the Dali as “another set of eyes.”.
On arrival in Norfolk, the vessel will first unload all its containers prior to receiving temporary repairs.
According to cargo claims specialist WK Webster, which is assisting cargo interests with matter such as general average claims, “it is likely that the containers and cargo will then be transhipped to their destinations on alternative vessels.”
