Dozens of recreational boats use alternate channel to pass collapsed Key Bridge for first time

BALTIMORE — Chuck and JoAnn Anderika were up before dawn Tuesday to bring their sailboat back home.

The Anderikas set out around 6 a.m. from Solomons Island, headed for Baltimore. The couple wanted to ensure they made it in time to take advantage of a one-hour window for recreational boats to pass by the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and into the harbor, where they have a slip.

“We were afraid to miss it,” Chuck Anderika said.

The Anderikas’ boat was among nearly two dozen to pass the Key Bridge Tuesday evening using an alternate channel that had previously been accessible only to commercially essential vessels and those helping to clear the wreckage around the bridge. Recreational boats had been unable to enter or exit the harbor since a container ship struck the bridge on March 26, sending it into the Patapsco River. Six construction workers died in the collapse, which has also hampered traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore.

Tuesday’s opening for recreational boats was a one-time trial run, for now. Sailboats, yachts and other vessels were allowed to travel out of the harbor between 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., and into it between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Seventeen recreational boats passed through the Sollers Point Alternate Channel in the morning, and 23 used the channel in the evening, according to the Key Bridge Response Unified Command.

Though the Coast Guard has not announced another opportunity for recreational boats to come and go, local marinas are hoping they will. Tuesday’s passage came after a meeting between Unified Command and marina leaders, who explained the impact of a closed harbor on their business.

“There’s a whole ecosystem built around the marinas,” said Paul Sanett, the chief commercial officer for Oasis Marinas, which manages nearly half of Baltimore’s boat slips. “There’s restaurants, there’s bars, there’s shops.”

For Wayne Easton, a marina is home. Easton is the dockmaster at Anchorage Marina in Canton, where he also lives aboard a boat.

Tuesday evening, he headed toward the Key Bridge site, a 5-mile trip by water from Canton, to greet the Anderikas and other returning Anchorage Marina slip-holders. The day was clear and bright, but windy. Occasionally choppy water grew choppier as boats streamed past the bridge shortly after 6 p.m., leaving waves in their wake.

There were power boats, yachts and a catamaran. There were at least three sailboats, including the Nanny Kay, which the Anderikas brought back to Baltimore after spending the winter in Florida. The couple was in Hampton, Virginia, making their way back up the Atlantic coast, when they heard the channel would be open on Tuesday. They decided to high-tail back to Baltimore, powering through three 10-hour days of travel in a row.

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