What Happened to Ships Bound for Baltimore When the Bridge Fell

Just before midnight on March 25, a container ship dubbed the MSC Toronto pulled away from Baltimore’s port, turned in the harbor and headed south for its next stop. Unbeknownst to the crew, they would be among the last sailors to cross under the 47-year-old Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Some 90 minutes later, in dramatic footage viewed around the world, a Maersk-chartered container carrier named the Dali crashed into a bridge pillar, plunging much of the 1.6-mile-long span into the river and killing six construction workers repairing the roadway. The wreckage blocked ships from entering or leaving the port, and forced dozens more to chart a new course.

Bloomberg News used ship-movement data to track 21 ships which were broadcasting a destination of Baltimore on the day before the bridge collapsed. These vessels include vehicle carriers, and bulk cargo and container ships. Some changed course quickly and docked at nearby ports within a day or two, while others took longer to figure out where to go.

Rerouted to Other Ports

Among the closest inbound vessels to the crash was another MSC ship, the Alina, which the data show had just passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading northbound for Baltimore when the Key Bridge was struck at about 1:30 a.m. local time. By 4 a.m. the Alina was steaming south again and was redirecting to Philadelphia, where it docked by about 3 p.m. the following day — as the company’s schedule posted online confirmed.

For other ships, Plan B took a little more time to execute. The general cargo carrier the Aragonborg, was just entering the Chesapeake Bay when the Dali accident occurred and kept on course toward Baltimore, the data showed. Before noon it was anchored near Annapolis, Maryland, and waited there another day and a half before carrying on north. It went through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to a port terminal near Wilmington, Delaware, in the early-morning hours of March 28.

A total of seven ships rerouted or turned around to a new destination only after they had entered the Chesapeake Bay.

A spokesman for Royal Wagenborg, which records show is the beneficial owner of the Aragonborg, said decisions about vessel operations are made in accordance with contracts with its partners, though details about cargo, routes and destinations are confidential.

Other ships were only approaching the US East Coast when the accident happened. They were able to change course to a different port before even having to enter the Chesapeake Bay.

The vehicles carrier the Grande Torino, on a trip from Italy, was still crossing the Atlantic near Bermuda the early-morning hours of March 26. That gave it ample time to reroute, signaling Wilmington as its new destination around 24 hours later. It sailed through the Delaware Bay and docked in the port about 5 a.m. on March 29.

In an email, External Relations Manager Paul Kyprianou with Grimaldi Group SpA, the owner of the Grande Torino, said its vessels will divert until Baltimore reopens. “The risk that we might experience soon is the congestion of these alternative ports due to the lack of storage space,” Kyprianou added.

In total, seven ships managed to change destination before entering the Chesapeake Bay.

The Unaffected and the Unmoving

For other vehicle carriers, the disruptions have been minimal. The Amethyst Ace was halfway into its journey from Germany when the port’s closure didn’t appear to have altered its course.

That’s probably because car terminals near Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point — where BMW and Volkswagen have operations — weren’t blocked by the fallen bridge and stayed open. The ship docked in the terminal March 30. A spokesman for Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., listed as the beneficial owner of the ship, confirmed its course was unaffected by the accident.

A total of four ships Baltimore-bound at the time of the accident called at Tradepoint Atlantic.

But other cargo vessels still appear to be in a holding pattern, more than a week after the disaster.

According to the tracking data, three ships that at the time of the accident intended to go to Baltimore are anchored near Annapolis, a city about 20 miles south, and they still identify Baltimore as their next stop.

Future Diversions

For ships headed to Baltimore on scheduled loops but hadn’t transmitted that destination, diversions are still playing out. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA said it was sending more than a dozen vessels cargo to New York, Norfolk and Philadelphia. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S announced it was sending seven Baltimore-bound ships to the Port of Virginia in Norfolk and Newark, New Jersey. Hapag-Lloyd AG sent two vessels to New York.

The range of ship diversions illustrates both sides of the debate that followed the accident. Some experts said supply chains are flexible and logistics networks will quickly absorb this isolated shock. Others warned of months of potential bottlenecks, especially on surrounding roads and for Baltimore’s bread-and-butter shipments — cars, farm equipment and coal.

Looking at the range of ship movements, the answer may lie somewhere in the middle.

“There’s a lot of different coordination and impact,” Ann Marie Jonkman, senior director of global industry strategies at Blue Yonder, a supply chain management platform. “This isn’t going to be just a lift and shift of a two-week delay.”