Dali Arrives in China to Begin Repairs Eight Months After Baltimore Allison
The containership Dali arrived without incident at China’s Fuzhou Port yesterday, November 13, after a nearly two-month voyage from Norfolk, Virginia. It is nearly eight months since the vessel stepped out of obscurity to become the center of worldwide attention after she destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge and with a trail of legal entanglements set to run at least until mid-2026.
The nine-year-old containership (116,851 dwt) registered in Singapore traveled empty to China after offloading its containers in Virginia and undergoing initial repairs. Port officials in China emphasized the close coordination required to bring the vessel into port due to the extent of the damage. She continues to have no functioning anchors as one was cut off in Baltimore and the machinery was damaged when the roadway and bridge collapsed onto the bow. The thrusters are also reported to be severely damaged.
The containership is going to the Fujian Huadong Shipyard in the Luoyuan Bay Port Area. According to Chinese media reports, the plan calls for fitting a replacement bow on the vessel. No timeline was given for the repairs.
Last week in Baltimore, U.S. District Court Judge James Bredar released the trial plan and timeline for the first of likely several court cases. The judge has bifurcated the case meaning they will first consider if the vessel’s owners Grace Ocean and operators Synergy Marine will be able to limit liability to approximately $44 million under a 1800s admiralty law.
Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine while agreeing to a settlement with the U.S. federal government for the $100 million clean-up costs, which were covered by insurance, continue to deny liability for the vessel hitting the bridge. They “expressed rejected” liability when announcing the settlement and said it was not indicative of liability. It has been suggested that they will seek to place a portion of the blame on Maryland and Baltimore for failing to protect the bridge as well as possibly a faulty electrical system design by the ship’s builder Hyundai Heavy Industries. Quietly, Grace Ocean has also paid nearly $100,000 to the U.S. Coast Guard’s pollution fund for oil pollution from the incident.
Judge Bredar compromised between the owners and operator’s lawyers which proposed a January 2027 trial and lawyers for the multitude of claims which were seeking a December 2025 trial. The trial date is now set for June 1, 2026, and it will be a bench trial, meaning it will be decided by the judge without a jury.
Several key dates were also set including a plan to start taking witness depositions for a week in December 2024 and again in the first half of 2025. Expert witnesses will be scheduled between December 2025 and February 2026. The deadline for additional cargo claims is the end of next week while the deadline for fact discovery was set for July 2025. He anticipates pre-trial in April and May 2026 ahead of the two-week trial in June 2026.
In earlier hearings, Judge Bredar said his goal was to get the case to “the launching pad for settlement.” If they fail to settle, the June 2026 trial would determine issues such as if the ship was unsafe and lacked a properly trained crew and proper maintenance, all points argued by Maryland and other claimants. The second phase would seek to portion the liability and award the potential claims which range from Maryland which is seeking the replacement cost of the bridge to Baltimore which cites the economic impacts, individual businesses affected, and the families of the six victims.