NEW PHOTOGRAPHS ADDED 

18 April 2013

Iron Point (Chemical/Oil Products Tanker) IMO 9388209
Arklow Flair (General Cargo Ship) IMO 9361732
Hebei Shijiazhuang (Bulk Carrier) IMO 9482706
Arcadia (Cruise Ship) IMO 9226906
Wade Stone (Sewage Tanker) IMO 7830545

NEW SHIPS SEEN AND ADDED TO LIST

18 April 2013

Tessa W (Tug) IMO 9503794
Arklow Flair (General Cargo Ship) IMO 9361732

Went to Liverpool first thing and even though the light was not the best at 7.45am I managed to take a couple of pictures of Lovina and SKS Tweed. My one hour meeting took six hours which meant I had to race to my next appointment near Trafford Park. It was quiet in Liverpool as far as new ships go and it was only on my way back to the car I saw anything new.

The new ship was the Dutch registerd tug Tessa W (IMO: 9503794) which has a GT of 212 and was built by Neptunus of Aalst in the Netherlands (Yard No. 307) in 2008. She had towed in Dutch registered multi-purpose barge Stemat 89 (no IMO? MMSI 244750587) owned by Stemat Marine Services who are based in Rotterdam. Stemat own a wide variety of vessels and seem to operate World-wide. There are a lot of vessels working on the wind farms in Liverpool Bay and beyond and Liverpool is a regular haunt for ships and crews working out there. Stemat 89's outline specification is noted below

Dimensions 80,0 x 24,0 x 5,0 m
Winches 6x 60 ton 
Central controlled from control cabin.
Cargo capacity 3900 ton
Gross tonnage 3665
Deck load maximum 15 ton/m2
Bunker capacity Fuel: 7 tanks, total approx. 600 m3.
Fresh water: 7 tanks, total approx. 900 m3.
Service unit with mess room, galley, dry store, cold store, freezing chamber, office, toilet, changing room and air conditioning.
Office unit with 3 offices, 1 recreation room and toilet.
Control unit bridge with 5 offices.

Heading through Eccles I saw Arklow Flair (IMO 9361732) at the Cerestar Wharf, the second Arklow vessel to vist in as many days. Arklow Flair has a GT of 2999 and was built by Murueta, Guernica, Spain (Yard No. 263) in 2007. I'm sure I have seen this ship before as Arklow vessels are relatively common sites in the North West but apparently not. I read somewhere that they are renaming the vessels in the Arklow 'fleet' by replacing the Arklow name with something else. Need to find out what this is via google at some point.

I was in Liverpool for a few hours this morning before having to travel back into Manchester. Billion Trader II a Phillipines registered Bulk Carrier was moored opposite the main container terminal at Seaforth. Further South I parked opposite the terminal at Tranmere where SKS Tweed and Lovina were both discharging. Seeing two new ships at the same time at Tranmere is unusual and it is a shame I didnt have my camera with me. Although it was quite warm a gale force wind was coming up the estuary from the Irish Sea and Mersey ferry Royal Iris was battling through the white caps as she completed her circuit.

New ships seen and added to the list are noted below. 

Billion Trader II (Bulk Carrier) IMO 9323053
SKS Tweed (Bulk Oil Tanker) IMO 9122928
Lovina (Crude Oil Tanker) IMO 9308833

Im back in Liverpool tomorrow morning for an hour, might take the camera but they dont linger long at Tranmere and there is a good chance that both ships will have left on the next tide.

NEW SHIP PHOTOGRAPHS ADDED 

Daniel N (Ore Carrier) IMO 9398175
C Atlas (Bulk Carrier) IMO 9453080
RPA 20 (Pilot Vessel)
Feakas (Bulk Carrier) IMO 9304265
Audre (General Cargo Ship) IMO 9113056
Stena Freighter (Ferry) IMO 9138795
Arklow Raider (General Cargo Ship) IMO 9344540
Jost (Container Ship) IMO 9477347
NP Bloom (Container Ship) IMO 9511715
MSC Mahima (Container Ship) IMO 8308707
Cape Moss (Container Ship) IMO 9445916

NEW SHIPS SEEN AND ADDED TO LIST

Zeebrugge (Tug) IMO 8915483
Mersey Endurance (Bunkering Tanker) IMO 9568122
AHS St Georg (Container Ship) 9139634

An early moning shot taken today of the General Cargo Ship Arklow Raider IMO 9344540 at the Cerestar terminal in Trafford Park with a cargo of maize from France. Arklow Raider was built by Barkmeijer, Stroobos (Yd.No. 313) in the Netherlands in 2007 and has a GT of 2999. The terminal has seen an increase in shipping activity over the last couple of years and now has ships visiting on  a regular basis. Cerestar is the leading manufacturer of starches and starch derivatives in Europe, its site at Trafford Park being just one of many across the world. The Cerestar Wharf handles hundreds of thousands of tonnes of maize per year.

This is where I was exactly two years ago today.The Port of Laem Chabang in Thailand. Ships in port are the Container Ships CMA CGN Aegean (IMO 9116357), Panja Bhum (IMO 9338321) and Glorious Express (IMO 9403217). The cloudless blue sky is a stark contrast to the sky outside my office window at the moment i.e. low concrete grey clouds and rain without a single patch of blue anywhere. 

I have been back from Egypt almost a week now and work has prevented me from uploading any new pictures, a situation I hope to change later today. We didn’t actually stay in Sharm but in a resort called Nabq a few miles North East of the Airport. The hotel was not beachside but from a few places within the complex you could see the sea and across the Straits Of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia which was clearly visible most days although this did depend upon sand being blown in from the desert which did obscure the view at times.

The Gulf is located to the East of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsular and Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan as well as Egypt all have coastlines at various points along its length. It also reaches a maximum depth of 1,850m making it much deeper than the Gulf of Suez. The Northern end of the Gulf seems to have been well occupied in ancient times by numerous civilizations particularly the Egyptians and Nabateans, the Romans also built a major road in this area connecting to the existing trade routes already in existence.  Historically I imagine that the Gulf was well used by ancient seafarers and I’m sure that there are quite a number of ancient shipwrecks buried in the sands amongst the numerous reefs.

One of the most prominent visible modern wrecks is that of Louilla a 2479GT motor bulk carrier which began life as the Antonina. She was built at Öresundvarvet A/B (Yard No. 121), Landskrona, Sweden for Rederi A/B Poseidon, Stockholm, Sweden. She was launched in May 1952 and completed on July 1952 and had a length of 107 meters, beam of 14 meters, and draught of 8.49 meters Her diesel engines and single screw giving a reported top speed of 14.5 knots. In 1965 the ship was sold and renamed Zschopau, the ship was sold again in 1978 to the Blue Mediterranean Shipping Company but on 29 September 1981, while sailing in ballast from Aqaba, Jordan to Suez, the Loullia ran aground on the Northern edge of Gordon Reef in the Straits of Tiran.  The crew remained onboard and unsuccessfully attempted to refloat the ship. The ship was abandoned on 2 October 1981 and declared a total constructive loss. I was hoping to get a picture of what was left of Louilla but she was too far away from the beach closest to my resort.

At low tide from the end of one of the numerous piers extending into the sea I counted three other wrecks although some were nothing more than a few jagged pieces of steel sticking up out of the sea.

Ships seen whilst I was away and added to my ship list were the bulk carrier Deniz M (IMO 9353216), Container Ships Ever Utile (IMO 9188154) and Maersk Kalmar (IMO 9153862), Vehicles Carrier Heroic Leader (IMO 9441570) and the small cruise ship  Minerva (IMO 9144196) which was sailing South down the Gulf presumably after a visit to Petra.

At the end of my holiday FS Georges Leygues (D640) a French Type F70 Anti-Submarine Frigate – (not sure why the prefix is D and not F) escorted Mistral Class Amphibious Assault Ship FS Tonnerre (L9014) past me on the beach, I have pictures of these which I intend to add to my site when I can.

The only other ship of note was an apparently unnamed Vydra Class Utility Landing Craft operated by the Eqyptian Navy with the pennant number 340. This was seen at the tourist port at Sharm with a number of Coastguard Vessels (Pennants P405 to 407), at the moment however I cant find any details of these vessels.

I was in Liverpool on Monday and was surprised to see seven warships berthed at the cruise liner terminal, having just got back from holiday I had no idea thay were  going to be visiting. Apparently they are part of a Nato task group visiting Liverpool following an intensive two-week training period off Zeebrugge in Belgium before the group joins more than two dozen warships, 40 aircraft and troops from around the world for a major 11-day multi-national exercise ‘Joint Warrior’ off the coast of Scotland.

Seven Nato navies contribute to Nato’s standing Response Force on a regular basis with Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway providing ships continuously.

The ships berthed comprised ORP Czernicki and ORP Czajka from Poland, HMS Echo, HNLMS Urk from the Netherlands, BNS Bellis from Belgium, FGS Wilheim from Germany and HNOMS Hinnoey from Norway.