If you are a late night traveler and use the Delaware Memorial Bridge for your commute, you may want to alter your plans on how to get to New Jersey or Delaware on Tuesday night.

The Delaware River and Bay Authority announced the bridge would be closed for a half hour between 11:55 p.m. Tuesday and 12:15 a.m. Wednesday morning to allow a massive cargo ship to travel under the twin-span bridge. Once the vessel safely clears under the two spans, the bridge will reopen.

A similar closure happened in March 2018, when cranes were delivered to Philadelphia, but the DRBA is closing the bridge “as a precaution and to eliminate driver distraction.”

The authority says the Zhen HUA 25, a Hong Kong-registered ship, will be carrying three ship-to-shore cranes made by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co in China up the Delaware River, traveling under the Delaware Memorial Bridge before continuing to PhilaPort’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in Philadelphia.

Because of the size of the cranes, which are just over 188 feet tall, the ship has to wait until low tide to safely travel under the bridge without striking it. According to authority spokesman Jim Salmon, the last time a ship carrying the type of cranes under the bridge, there was a clearance of 5 feet, 8-inches from the bridge to the top of the cranes.

The DRBA will be monitoring the clearance through sensors on the bridge and tide data to make sure the ship safely passes through.

According to the Marine Traffic website, as of 3:13 p.m. Monday, the ship was anchored on the Delaware side of the Delaware Bay, waiting to make the trek up the river.

This will not be the last time the bridge will be closed in the near future. Once the ship delivers two of the cranes, it will turn around and head back south with the remaining crane headed for Wilmington, North Carolina. Because of this, the bridge will close once again on April 2. Details on the time the bridge will close will be available at a later date.

Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews or on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us.nj.com/tips