Help Required

[henrycourt]

I know it's a very long shot but I'm hoping someone out there can help me please.    I did a bit of ship-spotting today from the Leas at Folkestone and a very large Orange hulled tanker (fully laden) came up the North East lane not showing any AIS signal. The only other info I can gather is that there were three large white letters on the PORT side that I could see.  She must have come right up the channel and the only other relative info I can give is that I spotted at 1511 local MAERSK ROSYTH in the NE lane and at 1537 local URALS PRINCESS in the NE lane.  This unidentified tanker was between these two. Does anybody have a historical record that can come up with a name ?? I live in hope !!! Rgds. jw..

[Gerolf Drebes]

Any photo placed in the mystery ship category, even from a large distance, would help to identify the ship much easier.
Gerolf

[henrycourt]

With respect sir I'm not talking about photographs and anyway this ship was approximately 20 miles distant from where I was sitting, I have a good pair of binoculars. Rgds jw.

[Robert J Smith]

Try checking aisliverpool website, it has ais history. Below is 15:00 and shows the two vessels that you mentioned but if the other ship was not transmitting then probably no good

http://www.aisliverpool.org.uk/historymap.php?map=folkstone&hh=15&mm=0&date=20100406

[Ian Thomas]

Perhaps I can help, but it might be a bit of a long shot can you tell me the spelling of the three large white letters on the vessels hull.

Ian Thomas

[Jesper T Andersen]

Hi.

Was it NCC or OAS or UPC  if you say the ship was a orange Tanker.
Regards
Jesper
 :-D  :-D  :-D
Always funny to see if you can find a name on long distance.

[henrycourt]

Many thanks for all your help especially "rjs", I suspect I shall never find out. "rjs" I went backwards on your theory and it would appear that this vessel went the length of the Channel without showing an AIS signal, I went back as far as midnight. Whilst this vessel was passing me at Folkestone I did in fact speak to the Dover Coastguard and they tell me that as the ship was in the NE Lane it was not under their jurisdiction and therefore they couldn't help. Rgds jw..

[rondavies]

Hi

Just might have been the 42000 Grt CAPE TEXEL which is red and has UPT on the side in white letters... arrived Ro'dam 8th, so could have been at anchor between the time you saw her and berthing. Not quite very large but a good size one.

Not many tanker companies have three letters on the side of orange/red hulls... this one actually has quite an orangy red hue...there are pics of her on Shipspotting.

Any ideas on colour of funnel and superstructure or how many cranes she had amidships? Also, was she bigger than the Urals Princess or similar/smaller?  Per ShipAIS history there seems to have been a line of largish tankers going up with the Front VLCC , Petrozavodsk , Iasonas, and the LPG Captain John NP all ahead of this one.  

Cheers, Ron