ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Shipping News and information => Topic started by: Alan Green on January 03, 2014, 11:13:06 PM
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MSC Rita is showing on the port of Felixstowe arrivals list as being due to arrive on 08.01.14 at 0100 hrs from Rotterdam, and yet also appears on the PLA arrivals list as due to arrive at London Gateway on 05.01.14 at 0530 hrs from Rotterdam.
Are both ports laying claim to the same arrival or is MSC Rita going to effect a voyage from London Gateway - Rotterdam - Felixstowe ?
MSC Rita is currently anchored near the Sunk.
Likewise, Northern Jaguar was recently showing on the Felixstowe arrivals list as being due, but actually appeared in Zeebrugge.
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Hi Derek,
I just noticed that the Maersk Seville which had also been showing as due Felixstowe has also transferred to London Gateway due 06.01.14.
Best wishes,
Alan
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Alan,
As Derek said this is probably due to weather delays and problems. MSC Rita & Maersk Saville are both showing due at LGW on 5th & 6th Jan. if the weather situation improves I guess they will revert back to Felixstowe. Diversions & rotation changes are common at times like this, & with LGW being more sheltered than Flx it's not surprising they will pick up some diversions.
Rgds
Andrew
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what are they doing going to Gatwick ?
Allan
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what are they doing going to Gatwick ?
Allan
Diverted from LHR as this is very busy!
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I suppose she's too big for LCY, otherwise the Tilbury spotters would have been able to photograph her on the way upriver ;D
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I wonder why Hutchison Ports -- owners of Felixstowe -- don't offer up their virtually unused terminal at Thamesport to the Felixstowe-bound vessels being held up at the Sunk because of weather-related issues.
I don't think that MSC Rita is too big for Thamesport to handle. Thamesport could certainly do with the business these days!
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Palbertini, it's nothing to do with what HPH wants or promises, theses changes are instigated by the shipping lines and they will decide where they will berth or on occasion miss a call.
If I were MSC or Maersk I'd pick a port as close to the one I cannot get to and London Gateway fits the bill, I suspect they will be discharge only callings and as such most og the goods will be going to the midlands so it makes sense to pick a port North of the Thames and miss out London and it's traffic and shorten your truck fuel bill.
A lot of Europe has issues with bad weather and vessels are missing calls all over the place, Maersk have recently cancelled calls to Zeebrugge and Bremerhaven due to the holiday season and weather.
Quite a few ports in Europe are suffering the same and many have vessels moored off shore waiting for berthing slots like Felixstowe is.
Regarding wind, the predominant wind direction in the UK is SW, thus London Gateway is no more sheltered than Felixstowe, in fact it may be more exposed due to the expanse of the Thames and low lying North Kent terrain. Parts of Felixstowe are often sheltered by the Shotley peninsular, but berths 6 and down and 8&9 on FSR get hit by wind that comes directly down the river from Manningtree. It must also be remembered that the wind is measured at crane height and that's often higher than any surrounding terrain, so there is effectively no shelter at all anywhere when your 150 feet high. Generally speaking London Gateway stops for wind about as much as Felixstowe, though the propaganda war would have everyone believe otherwise.
Rumours of London Gateway working at higher speeds is probably false, the wind agreement is bound by local employment rules but is also governed by structural safety, if a cranes safe working limit is 45mph then to work above that would negate their insurance.
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Derek, your welcome.
The war of words is already starting as to who is best and for this and that reason, both Ports have good and not so good points. London Gateway (LG) isn't physically in the best location, Felixstowe (PoF) is much better located geographically, despite what the hype says, however LG has an automated stack, that's a technology leap over Felixstowe, but automated stacks are slow and quiet inflexible, you cannot beat driver driven cranes for speed and flexibility. On the other hand automation has no staffing costs and they don't take tea breaks so you can offer shipping a cheaper box rate due to your lower overheads.It will be interesting to see how LG copes as opposed to PoF high density RTG operation and Southamptons low density straddle operation.
One other factor that people seem to forget is Thamesport, whilst it's virtually withered away, it wasn't like that initially, initially it was going to take all of Tilburys traffic, it never did, they had capacity to take a lot but shipping lines do seem shy of the Thames and the extended transit times. Thamesport was also poorly located for inland operations as the majority of boxes head for the Midlands. Thamesport also had automated stacking and even cheaper box rates, but it did not attract further shipping lines after the honeymoon rush. I think LG may well do better, but they will have to work very hard at it and if they do succeed then all good and well to them as they will have earned it and not had it gifted to them.
To be fair by the end of 2015 if predicted box rates are correct, there will be more than enough work for both Ports and by 2020 we will have a large shortfall in the whole of the UK, even after you take into account Southampton, Liverpool, Felixstowe and London Gateways current expansion plans.
Felixstowe will loose some services, it is inevitable, to think otherwise would be naive, they may even gain some, but it'll take 18 moths to all shake out and quite frankly competition is generally good, it keeps people honest and on their toes and drives innovation and technology.
Ironically, MSC Rita is already at the Sunk and has been all day and will be until called for berthing tomorrow at LG, so they haven't really saved much at all, the vessels has still had to moor at the Sunk for nearly two days to get a berth once MOL Caledon sails, what the shuffle has allowed is following MSC vessels to remain on target for their rotation.
Both Ports are also going to suffer from Sunday night onward and through most of Monday with high winds if the predicted weather fronts materialize, so poor MSC Rita isn't going to save much of her rotation by swapping ports, it's all just one big weather mess right now.
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MSC Rita just passed Southend 0830 inward bound for LG. She was preceded by Tugs Svitzer Ramsey & Svitzer Victory.
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I think there is more to it than just how much wind the cranes can work. I understand Felixstowe is up to 36 knots and LGW is 40 knots.
It is also down to the Pilot Launch, at the NE spit we tend to keep operating through stronger weather than they do up at the Sunk. The Maersk Seville is due to take a Pilot at 2330 tonight from the NE Spit. This was planned yesterday as the Port and agent expected the Sunk pilot station to be off service tonight due to weather. We have even shipped Felixstowe pilots before but this doesn't tend to happen too often because of the time constraints of their travel down to Ramsgate. We have always offered to serve the LGW ships at the NE spit and send them 'around the top' but I think we need to wait until they have a steadier flow of traffic to see if this will become then norm.
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We have even shipped Felixstowe pilots before but this doesn't tend to happen too often because of the time constraints of their travel down to Ramsgate.
When the Sunk is off station, Harwich pilots have boarded a few times at the NE Spit, but usually they board and land at Dover if they are still working. From Harwich, it is 2 1/2 hours taxi to Dover, then approx 15 mins on the pilot boat if the ship is waiting, then it's around 4 hours steaming to get to the Sunk pilot diamond where the Harwich pilot then takes over.
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Felixstowes wind agreement is 40knts, I have no idea what LG is, it'll be the same if not close, I'd be staggered if it were more than 50mph (43knts), good as new cranes are, it's the box on the end that's the problem and they have cranes the same height as Felixstowes newest.
Your ok in the lee of the vessel on the quay from a SWesterly but, the minute you clear the deck boxes all hell breaks loose, and to make matters worse the wind swirls and rips though the gaps in the deck stack making the box helicopter (rotate) and that's very difficult to stop without hitting something else. When the box helicopters you then run the risk of a rope comming off a sheeve as they are not designed to take that sort of loading, if that happens your in a world of hurt. If their cranes are fitted with the same staff lifts as ours then those would probably be limited to 40knts.
In reality when you get upto these sorts of speeds it's a matter of minutes between 40 and 43knts, which makes claims that they can work at higher speeds a bit suprising, perhaps they can, but in reality they're not gaining much over the competition.
I've been caught up a crane at 50mph and it's not pleasent. I wish them well if they're working at those sorts of speeds.
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Quite surprised to find myself posting again here, but seriously surprised also to see that no-one has so-far mentioned an interesting and important fact about MSC Rita's outbound journey from Gateway.
Instead to making the diversion up to Sunk, she popped out of the Thames via the Princes Channel, dredged to 8m below chart datum, dropped her pilot at NE Spit, and cruised off towards her next call.
This doesn't destroy PoF's arguement about additional steaming distances to Gateway, but clearly shows that if Rita can do it safely and happily on a suitable tide (a 90,000 GT vessel showing a 9m draft) then other large vessels will do the same. Inbound voyages where the vessel is making a UK call before making another European call will result in less distance steamed . . . interesting times ahead, I think.
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She did not collect her full cargo load, i had several container due to load on her which are now being sent by feeder to Antwerp.
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I would assume that as MSC Rita was diverted from Felixstowe to London Gateway, it would have been for discharge only as her export containers were at Felixstowe.
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It looks as if London Gateway have picked up another 2 from Felixstowe: Gudrun Maersk due London Gateway on 08.01.14 (according to PLA schedules) and Maersk Kiel due London Gateway on 13.01.13 (according to Maersk schedules).
If it is correct that Gudrun Maersk will berth at London Gateway, I believe her statistics will make her the largest vessel compared to the previous holder - Zim Rotterdam.
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Quite surprised to find myself posting again here, but seriously surprised also to see that no-one has so-far mentioned an interesting and important fact about MSC Rita's outbound journey from Gateway.
Instead to making the diversion up to Sunk, she popped out of the Thames via the Princes Channel, dredged to 8m below chart datum, dropped her pilot at NE Spit, and cruised off towards her next call.
This doesn't destroy PoF's arguement about additional steaming distances to Gateway, but clearly shows that if Rita can do it safely and happily on a suitable tide (a 90,000 GT vessel showing a 9m draft) then other large vessels will do the same. Inbound voyages where the vessel is making a UK call before making another European call will result in less distance steamed . . . interesting times ahead, I think.
We have served ships at the NE Spit inbound/outbound of the Princes with drafts of 11m before now. As you say very tide dependent but also it depends on the Pilot; Some are scared of their own shadow others couldn't care less. We served the Maersk Seville East of the NE Goodwin and she traveled on up via the Sunk separation scheme into the Gateway. When you look at the ships passage track it hardly had to alter course to get it's pilot(s). This something we would be quite happy to do for all LGW ships that are inbound from the South and as pointed out they could transit the Princes when draft and tide permit.
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Yes, LGW have picked up two more Felixstowe vessels, discharge only I believe, we're currently being hammered by high winds recently so LGW are (rightly so) making hay whilst the sun shines.
Having said that I did hear today that Felixstowe is accepting a Maersk vessel off rotation for severe storm damage, it's not showing on our database as it has no work plan, we're only going to recover damaged boxes and repair as best we can, as yet I cannot see any vessels on AIS that fit the bill, it's due tomorrow sometime, probably late afternoon and our engineering night shift tomorrow have been prepped for deck work for some considerable time.
Felixstowe currently has quayside tied up with cranes in deep maintenance so slotting a vessel in there makes perfect sense as it will not hinder the other berths which are working at capacity right now. The work involved on the inbound vessel will not require gantry cranes, it may require a mobile in due course.
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Derek, it may not be a Maersk vessel in Maersk colours but a rental or other vessel on a Maersk service, as I say, it's only hearsay at the moment and with European shipping, especially Felixstowe is in such disarray due to the weather it could go anywhere. The information I got was 'it's just a Maersk Ship', not a ship spotter clearly LOL.
I think LGW will be keen not to accept (Zim Rotterdam incident) as it'll tie their singular (at present) berth up from other vessels planned.
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Nothing other than scheduled vessels showing on the Harwich Haven Authority forecasts as yet.
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Cheers Derek.
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London Gateway have picked up another diversion from Felixstowe:
MSC Vancouver (previously Cosco Vancouver) was due to arrive Felixstowe at 0800 hrs on 02.02.14 but has now disappeared from the Felixstowe arrivals schedule and re-appeared on the London Gateway schedule as due at 1000 hrs on 02.02.14.
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London Gateway schedules are showing the PUCON as being due on 10.02.14. This may be another diversion from Felixstowe.
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Yes, this vessel is on CSAV's IMEX 1 Mid East/Indian Sub Con service which normally calls at Felixstowe. I think CSAV operates the service jointly with MSC.
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Having recently called at Tilbury on 10/11.02.14 the Sealand Eagle (Maersk Far East service) will call at London Gateway on 16/18.02.14.
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The vessel MSC Katrina (366 metres) operating on the MSC Silk service (normal UK port of call is Felixstowe) was showing on London Gateway schedules as arriving there on 19.02.14 and departing on 20.02.14. This is now showing as cancelled and MSC Katrina appears on the Port of Felixstowe schedules as arriving on 22.02.14.
One wonders if MSC had been hedging their bets with the recent weather disruption to operations at Felixstowe.
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Interesting! When I asked them late this afternoon, they weren't too sure how it got on the page! Relatively lucky for me, really, as I realised the only footage I had of MSC Katrina was late one evening . .
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Hyundai Singapore, operated by MSC was due Felixstowe on 20.02.14 but has arrived at London Gateway 20.02.14 0810 hrs and due to depart at 1900 hrs