Ill-fated cargo ship Dali will be refloated and hauled from the bridge wreckage site Monday, officials say

As the sun rises on the Port of Baltimore Monday, the cargo ship Dali is set to be moved from the site of its catastrophic collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge – a crucial step toward reopening the key port and reinvigorating the local shipping economy.

As the sun rises on the Port of Baltimore Monday, the cargo ship Dali is set to be moved from the site of its catastrophic collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge – a crucial step toward reopening the key port and reinvigorating the local shipping economy. The painstaking relocation process is set to begin at high tide around 5:30 a.m. Monday, when crews will refloat the vessel at its resting place in the Patapsco River and haul it to a nearby marine terminal, according to United Command. Nearly eight weeks have passed since the Dali lost power, veered off course and slammed into the bridge in the early hours of March 26, killing six workers on the bridge and triggering the collapse of most of the hulking steel structure. The vessel’s removal is finally possible thanks to a series of controlled explosions that broke apart a massive piece of the bridge that has been pinning down the ship’s bow, officials said. Crews began preparing the ship for its journey around midday on Sunday. Their tasks included dumping part or all of the 1.25 million gallons of water that had been held in the ship’s tanks to help stabilize it during salvage operations, according to a release from Unified Command. Once the Dali is ready to be moved Monday, up to five tugboats will tow and push the ship about two and a half miles to the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore, the release said. It will take an estimated three hours to transport the 984-foot, 106,000-ton ship. The removal of the Dali brings officials one massive step closer to reopening the Port of Baltimore, which has been incapacitated since the destruction of the bridge. The wreckage has clogged the major shipping channel for the sugar and automotive industries and crippled a major city thoroughfare. More than 30,000 commuters relied on the Key Bridge every day, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.