Go away.
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My guess is that the pilot gave the helm order too late.
Reason why is the pilots intuition wrt the handling of VLCS has not sufficiently adjusted to the size of the ship and to the forward position of the wheelhouse. The perspective from a larger ship very different than that of a smaller one, even in a familiar area.
That or a distraction or perhaps a combination of the two.
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Thank you Captain Obvious. The rest of us would have never figured that out!
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Or you had a trim by stern of 10 ft. at the outset.
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Plans to lighten the ship don’t include offloading containers. Not yet anyway.
“The plan involves releasing ballast to lighten the load, dredging the bay’s muddy floor around the ship and making space between the propeller and rudder and the seabed, Evergreen said.”
Don’t get too worked up over our resident “expert” @Heiwa who never knows what he is talking about and when all his BS ends up being wrong, just suddenly becomes silent. Ask him how the repairs on the Felicity Ace are coming along since he assured us that it would be patched up and back in service in no time.
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Pilot (and rest of the bridge team) should have been watching the rudder on every command. There’s time to fix it if you notice it instantly.
Well , have observed that Mr.Heiwa is a bit lonely here , so out of compassion and care have decided to cheer him up a little. Stay assured , i have seen many threads here with Mr. Heiwa “starring” and even visited his website . Interesting and original opinions but I see no particular reason to condemn let alone castigate and/or stigmatize him. Have a wonderful rest of your day . 
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By now the salvors will have used the sailing draft and the present draft and given the nature of the bottom will have calculated ballast that can be shifted (preferable) or discharged, and the force required to move her.
Given the standard of crew members available today in pilotage waters a hand signal to indicate the direction of the turn and close observation of the helmsman is required. Gone are the days where we had 3 Quartermasters ( Sercunny in Hindi) who were senior AB’s. In the coastal trade we had an old and experienced AB who was known as the mud pilot.
Here is my stupid tugboat opinion.
They will lighter the ship. Ballast, fuel, etc. They will dredge around the ship, they will then get all the big tugs around to make up and yank like hell. Its sticky mud up there they will need to break the suction.
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It seems the Felicity Ace finally sank in the middle of the Atlantic before being repaired. It is standard marine insurance fraud practice to ensure that the object insured cannot be surveyed, etc. So sinking at deep water is the best way.
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One would assume that both steering pumps were running and being mindful of the vessel’s age, a failure should be unlikely. I lean towards an undetected wrong way helm with a vessel in deep draft transiting at 13 knots.
A stab in the dark yet all should be revealed by the VDR.
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Both those things are plausible.
Maybe it’s just recency bias but it seems like these VLCS have been going aground a lot more than the smaller ships lately. I’ve not seen any official reports but I’ve been assuming that the cause is simple pilot error. The Milano Bridge crane allision in New Port Busan for example.
There’s no reason to think that helmsman are making more errors than usual.
Another possibility is some combination of errors or events that would be impossible to guess.
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Yes that was the standard at the very early stage of development of freight containers, but originally applied to US Army shipment only:
Source:
http://www.containertech.no/freightContainerHistory.htm
Today freight containers standard are set by the International Organization for Standards:
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:668:ed-7:v1:en
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THX. Always appreciate your high standard of research. Very informative and always spot on and cool unbiased comments. Great pleasure reading them including your maritime news section.
Agree with everything except : " Here is my stupid tugboat opinion" 
The Signet Warhorse went by my backyard yesterday outbound with an LMSR on its towline. I don’t know the name of the LMSR but was told it is bound for Texas. Probably the MARAD layberth facility in Vidor.
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Could it be the change in currents moving the sand on the bottom of the sea too fast for the ship to change course?
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I think my; “Could it be”, is more likely than yours
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Warhorse’s AIS says it’s destination is Sabine, so you are probably right.
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