After being stranded in the Chesapeake Bay for more than a month, a ship has been released.

Two barges and five tugboats refloated the Ever Forward, a container ship the length of three football fields, just before 7 a.m. Sunday.

stranded in the Chesapeake Bay

BALTIMORE (AP) – More than a month after it went aground, a container ship the length of three football fields was eventually pulled from the muddy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

The Ever Forward was refloated just before 7 a.m. Sunday by two barges and five tugboats after two unsuccessful efforts to dislodge it and the subsequent evacuation of around 500 of the 5,000 containers it was carrying.

The salvage vessels were aided by a full moon and a strong spring tide as they hauled and pushed the big ship out of the muck, across a dug hole, and back into the shipping channel.

The Ever Forward was held down by water tanks once it was refloated to guarantee safe transit beneath the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on its journey to an anchorage off Annapolis, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Before the Coast Guard authorises the ship to return to the Port of Baltimore to recover the offloaded containers, marine inspectors will check the ship’s hull.

On March 13, the cargo ship, controlled by Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp., went aground just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge while heading from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia.

Officials claim there were no injuries, property damage, or pollution as a result of the grounding. The Ever Forward ran aground for unknown reasons, according to the Coast Guard.

Unlike the Ever Given’s high-profile grounding in the Suez Canal last year, the ship became stranded outside the shipping channel and did not obstruct maritime movement. For days, ship traffic and the global supply chain were affected as a result of this catastrophe.

Salvage personnel worked until 10:30 p.m. Saturday to unload containers off the Ever Forward. The containers were loaded onto barges and transported to the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore.

Salvage personnel assessed earlier this month that offloading some of the containers had the best chance of refloating the more than 1,000-foot freighter after two failed attempts. Crews also resumed dredging around the vessel to a depth of 43 feet.