Anyone Interested in Ships

[Erichill16]

A bit smaller than recent offerings on here but just as interesting. 
‘Gondola’ on Coniston Water today. 
 

[J. S. Bach]

Hmmm, it appears that a longer jackstaff might be needed; or a slightly smaller Union Jack? It almost appears to be trailing in the water.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Ooh expensive.  Do you know what caused the turbo failures?  Not something I ever experienced, but one of our ships (my best man was on it at the time) had an exhaust gas boiler fire which caused turbo run-away, one blew big time, looked like a stickleback apparently bits all over the engineroom.

 

It was still in the courts when I left the company. The shipyard had to pay for the replacements as the ship hadn't been handed over, but they were suing the engine builder who in turn was suing the turbocharger manufacturer as the costs were indeed significant. It delayed delivery by several weeks as the engine builder shuffled their production around to deliver three replacements, and of course they're not cheap. The yard found the worst bit the embarrassment of a new ship being towed back in by tugs and tied up to a repair berth, very un-Japanese. The issue was incorrect assembly but the turbo-charger and engine builder were busy blaming eachother.

[jjb1970]

Japanese flag vehicle carrier Firmanent Ace in Tanjong Pagar, taking bunkers.

 

 

[jjb1970]

A couple of ships entering and leaving Tanjong Pagar.

 

[jjb1970]

For some reason the MSC Trieste is still at a lay-by berth in Tanjong Pagar, been a while now.

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

And now the Shipping Forecast

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

This comes as a spin-off from an enjoyable thread on Banana Vans at Dawlish

 

 

Anyway, I'd just been doing a search for "banana boats".  There were a few interesting results, like the banana boats in Newhaven.

http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page/banana_boats

 

What really grabbed my attention was this:

 

Quote

In 1960 Britten-Norman Ltd began trials of their new "Cushioncraft"—their name for an air-cushion vehicle built for Elders and Fyffes. It was used to study the potential of this type of vehicle for the carriage of bananas from plantations in the Southern Cameroons. Together with its associated company, Crop Culture (Aerial) Ltd, Britten-Norman studied the potential for the Cushioncraft in many different countries. These investigations revealed the possibility of a break-through in transportation techniques by the use of air cushion vehicles which could accelerate the pace of development in territories where roads are nonexistent and costly to build and rivers are seasonally unnavigable

 

Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cushioncraft

 

It seems amazing that an incredible British invention (hovercraft) was invented because of bananas.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

This comes as a spin-off from an enjoyable thread on Banana Vans at Dawlish

 

 

Anyway, I'd just been doing a search for "banana boats".  There were a few interesting results, like the banana boats in Newhaven.

http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page/banana_boats

 

What really grabbed my attention was this:

 

 

Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cushioncraft

 

It seems amazing that an incredible British invention (hovercraft) was invented because of bananas.

See my comment in the linked thread.

[62613]

On 06/09/2022 at 06:08, jjb1970 said:

Japanese flag vehicle carrier Firmanent Ace in Tanjong Pagar, taking bunkers.

 

 

How big is that bunker barge? It does remind me a little of the product tankers, in the range 20,000 to 25,000 dwt, that I served on.

[45669]

The first three parts of the return trip from East Cowes to Southampton can be seen on YouTube if anyone would like to have a look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope they're of interest.

 

Ron.

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, 45669 said:

The first three parts of the return trip from East Cowes to Southampton can be seen on YouTube if anyone would like to have a look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope they're of interest.

 

Ron.

A bit bigger than the old Carisbrooke Castle and Osborne Castle that I remember!

[jjb1970]

15 hours ago, 62613 said:

How big is that bunker barge? It does remind me a little of the product tankers, in the range 20,000 to 25,000 dwt, that I served on.

 

I am not sure, the bunker barges here can be rather big and much closer to sea going tankers than the sort of bunker barges typical in many other ports. 

[Bon Accord]

The last VLCC I was in was on a regular run and always took bunkers in Fujairah when outbound from the Gulf, this happening once every 3 months or so. We used to take 7000t of HFO in one go, usually from a bunker barge that itself must have been 20000dwt.

[JeremyC]

4 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

The last VLCC I was in was on a regular run and always took bunkers in Fujairah when outbound from the Gulf, this happening once every 3 months or so. We used to take 7000t of HFO in one go, usually from a bunker barge that itself must have been 20000dwt.

I can remember taking that amount of HFO plus 600 or 700 cubes of Marine Diesel, though that was in the day when the gensets used MDO and you also changed the main engine over to MDO before manoeuvring.

[New Haven Neil]

4 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

The last VLCC I was in was on a regular run and always took bunkers in Fujairah when outbound from the Gulf, this happening once every 3 months or so. We used to take 7000t of HFO in one go, usually from a bunker barge that itself must have been 20000dwt.

 

I recall a junior who had come from Ellermans to Bibbys commenting we had just taken more HFO than the weight of his previous ship!  Can't remember where it was, but the tanker we were on was 113,000 dwt. Memory has Panama City but that was too big for the canal, so it can't have been there!  It was dark though...LOL

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, JeremyC said:

I can remember taking that amount of HFO plus 600 or 700 cubes of Marine Diesel, though that was in the day when the gensets used MDO and you also changed the main engine over to MDO before manoeuvring.

 

As I remember once bunkered we would then be down to our loaded draft of 22 metres. There then followed a leisurely 6 week steam to California via Bali and Guam - so crossing the equator and the dateline on the same trip - and normally a few weeks alongside in Long Beach. They didn't have the ullage ashore to take the full cargo in one go, so it would be a routine of discharge for a day, stop for a few days, discharge again, stop for a few days and so on.

Much shore leave in Long Beach, jollies into LA, upto Malibu, San Francisco and all the tourist stuff including an interesting afternoon taking a behind the scenes tour on the Queen Mary followed by a very boozy meal and cocktails onboard which our local agent had organised for us.

Then another 6 week steam back to the Gulf via SIngapore and so on.

As tankers go it was a rather pleasant way to spend 5 months, helped of course by having a really good crowd onboard from old man to deck boy.

All the same, I only did two more and that was me finished with tankers forever.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Bon Accord

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I recall a junior who had come from Ellermans to Bibbys commenting we had just taken more HFO than the weight of his previous ship!  Can't remember where it was, but the tanker we were on was 113,000 dwt. Memory has Panama City but that was too big for the canal, so it can't have been there!  It was dark though...LOL

 

Possibly St Eustatius or Curacao? Those were the regular bunkering haunts in those parts.

[jjb1970]

When I worked on container ships we would regularly take 6000 - 7000T of bunkers. Although in Singapore at that time the ships I was on tended to use the quayside bunker lines to receive it rather than a barge. At the time it was a pleasant break from routine to be driven up to the tank farm to witness the tanks being dipped. Some of the bunker barges/tankers nowadays are rather impressive, with thruster manoeuvring systems to come alongside and fancy hose transfer systems. 

[jjb1970]

Bunkering has also seen a shift. Singapore and Rotterdam are still 1st and 2nd, but Houston is now 10th, Zhoushan in China is now in 6th and still growing rapidly. The list in 2020 was:

 

1.Singapore

2. Rotterdam

3. Fujairah

4. Hong Kong

5. Panama

6. Zhoushan

7. Busan

8. Gibraltar

9.  Antwerp

10. Houston

 

There's now a debate in Singapore about it as people are increasingly asking the question - what does Singapore get out of having hundreds of ships sitting at anchor polluting the air, acting as a sales point for fuel oil etc? I think these are fair questions. 

[jjb1970]

Another vehicle carrier in Tanjong Pagar, an older one looking at the design. Not very nice looking ships but quite impressive in their own way.

[New Haven Neil]

10 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

Possibly St Eustatius or Curacao? Those were the regular bunkering haunts in those parts.

 

Might have been Bonaire, as I recall being there on that vessel - chiefly because we had a total blackout due to losing sea suction as the draft aft was so little it pulled air.  It was a proper mess, took hours to get going again, for reasons that escape me now.  She was a motor ship but with steam turbine cargo pumps, two water tube boilers as well as all the normal motor vessel equipment.  No extra engineers to look after it of course.  It seemed at the time every piece of equipment in that engineroom was unreliable.  A very unhappy 4 month trip, joined on Christmas eve at Milford Haven, didn't set foot on solid land until the day I paid off in Houston.

[SHMD]

Due to bad circumstances, (I can't plan, I can't remember what I've planned, and I [usually] don't know what day it is), I found myself at the airport a day early - again!

So, I booked a hotel and went for a walk...

 

Here's the port 150m from the hotel I (randomly) chose.

Three beauties and a "box boat". (I wish I was any one of them!)

 

..another view..

 

This is the view looking away, from the yachts, and towards the harbour entrance. 

 

Another box boat (I wish I was on) near the harbour entrance.

 

Here's some activity just offshore...

 

I'm not sure what's going on but this chap may be a clue!

 

Yep, Pirates!

 

A cr@p zoomed in view (from my phone).

She is currently tied up about 200m from, my hotel (I can see her masts), where the first pic in this post was taken.

 

 

Kev.

 

[jjb1970]

Genting Dream in Singapore Cruise Terminal (150,695GT, Nassau). The ship was preparing to bunker, that's some fancy painting. They had already tied a barge alongside to sit between the bunker vessel and the side, that's not to protect the fancy paint but rather to prevent the bunker vessel hitting the lifeboats which project over the side.

 

[jjb1970]

Bunker tenker Thames (7420DWT/4758GT, Singapore) preparing to go alongside, crane already extended with hose.