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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 31, 2018 17:04:04 GMT
Since my planned cargo trip will be on a container ship, I am always totally enthralled by these photos.
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Post by mossie on Sept 3, 2018 18:30:20 GMT
Took a trip to the seafront at Felixstowe yesterday, there has been nothing of any interest down at the dock, just the routine big boats. I had forgotten that the annual art show was on along the promenade, so lucked into it. There is a mixture of amateur and professional artists and some other stalls and some selling crafty stuff This picture caught my eye, mainly because it was illuminated by the sun behind it I don't ignore the dock, there was some traffic
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 3, 2018 21:35:36 GMT
Oh lucky you, to come across that art fair! Did you get anything?
I really, really love that last photo.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 5, 2018 4:42:15 GMT
I am struck by the painting of the VW van.
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Post by mossie on Nov 14, 2018 21:25:44 GMT
Now I am right at the other end of Felixstowe, as far from the port as one can get, where the river Deben which runs through Woodbridge, enters the North SEa. Here is some history across the rivermouth stands Bawdsey Manor. Taken over in the late 1930's by Watson Watt to hide his team developing our radar. Just visible behind the house is one of the original aerial towers used for early experiments and, during the war, to assist in detecting German aircraft. In fact used prior to the war to track the Zeppelin which the jerries cruised up the coast trying to spy on our defences. And some more ancient history. A Martello Tower, one of a chain erected round the south east corner of England, to defend against Napoleon when he threatened to invade. The radar tower is visible just to the right of the tower. The towers were inspired by similar forts originally constructed by the Genoese to defend Corsica
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 15, 2018 1:57:27 GMT
Interesting military history covering quite a span of time. The manor's architecture is interesting, too, in sort of a mish-mashy way from what I can see.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 16, 2018 14:10:30 GMT
The manor strikes me because, seen from where you took the photo, it looks like it is standing in an unkempt woodlot although I am quite certain that it is surrounded by spacious gardens.
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Post by mossie on Nov 16, 2018 14:45:12 GMT
Yes, there were extensive grounds, which as the war progressed and then morphed into the cold war, hid a complex of underground bunkers. Above ground were the dish aerials for the later radars used for search and control. There were underground control rooms from where fighters could be directed to intercept enemy aircraft, I spent many happy hours being controlled from here as we endlessly practised our trade.
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Post by mossie on Jan 6, 2019 17:46:23 GMT
Not a good day for the dock, cold and 'damping' as my mother would say, but I wanted to go as one of the newer 20,000+ box megamaxes was in. As I walked along the beach to take a shot I picked up this odd scrap which I assume to have come from a burnt out crashed aircraft. But this is the shot I wanted Both boats have been build within the last year, the nearest is the Vayenga Maersk, which I assume has been built to tramp round the lesser ports of the North and Baltic Seas. The biggie is the Ever Golden which is of course for the long haul to China and back, via the Suez and serving those ports capable of handling such a monster around Europe. There are concerns that the supply of these boats is exceeding demand as several are on order but the flow of goods is slackening. Plus the craze for size which enable cheaper cargo rates and more boxes per unit of operating cost. A big problem also is that ports are now reluctant, or unable, to provide the size of berth to accommodate them, Felixstowe spent a fortune in the dredging and construction of these 2 new berths. Another concern is geopolitics, people are worried that China is intent on world domination and are driving the western economies into debt with their great output of cheap goods which undercut and bankrupt home industries. WWIII anyone??
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Post by mossie on Jan 7, 2019 15:23:35 GMT
What I forgot to add to yesterdays post was that some people in Holland had a lot of beachcombing to do. During a recent storm in the North Sea the megamax MSC Zoe lost some 270 boxes overboard and a lot more tipped at crazy angles on the boat. There are pictures of pairs of shoes, refrigerators, toys and furniture washed up on beaches. More worrying was hydrogen peroxide and possibly other chemicals
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 10, 2019 7:41:47 GMT
Yes, that was all over the news.
I read recently that 90% of the goods in the world are still transported by sea, which makes perfect sense. Just try to imagine putting that number of containers on a series of trucks, or even on a freight train -- just impossible. However, those huge container vessels mean that most medium-sized countries can have just two or three ports at the most big enough to handle them. And that brings back the problem of the additional transport required after being unloaded from the ship. It would definitely make sense to have smaller container ships to bring the goods closer to their final destination, even if those ships had to come to the "big" port to pick up the cargo to take it to a smaller port.
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Post by mossie on Feb 24, 2019 17:27:32 GMT
We have had a super spell of weather, more like May than February. So I took a trip down to Felixstowe this morning as my Ship finder program showed these two megamaxes were on berths 8 and 9, which are the newest deepest berths built to handle these monsters. Leading is the Maersk Maastricht, which is the last of 11 which had been ordered, and behind is the OOCL Japan. Maersk had requested that construction be delayed for a few months because of the slowdown in the Chinese trade and they were losing money. Anyway both boats can carry in excess of 21,000 boxes crammed with cheapo Chinese goods to satisfy our lust for junk. The dock facilities are still growing as seen on the left There was still a light sea mist, here the Stena ferry is turning the corner round Landguard Point to enter the channel leading out to the North Sea pat various sand banks
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Post by mossie on Feb 24, 2019 17:30:56 GMT
Sorry, don't know my arse from my elbow, the construction work is to the right.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2019 22:52:24 GMT
Without the first photo, it would have been impossible to estimate the size of the ship in the second photo because our brains just don't automatically process these mega sizes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2019 13:59:08 GMT
Lovely pictures as always, Mossie. This ongoing report has really turned into a great historical document. I just went back to the first couple of posts, from July 2013. Comparing the second photo in reply #6 on page one to the pictures in this post really brings home how huge these megamaxes really are.
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Post by mossie on Feb 27, 2019 19:21:55 GMT
Today they told us will see the end of our winter heatwave so I decided on a stroll along the prom. It was a lovely day again but with an early frost and still the sea mist hung about late into the morning. I finished my last post on this site with the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry disappearing into the mist, here it is as seen from the seafront today Noticing twinkling lights I tried to take a picture, very gloomy but looking at it on the monitor I see that the pilot boat is on its way back to Harwich and I remembered that the ferry had stopped momentarily so was in the course of dropping the pilot, an action I had not seen because of the mist. the lights are the sun glinting off the boats wake
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 27, 2019 21:24:19 GMT
That one takes more squinting than usual to appreciate.
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Post by breeze on Feb 28, 2019 16:54:37 GMT
The misty photos are special, even for you, mossie.
What are those diagonal things people are standing on in the first photo of the three? It doesn't look safe.
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Post by mossie on Feb 28, 2019 19:53:33 GMT
Those diagonal things are groynes which are to stop the sand and shingle being washed along the beach by the tides. They were originally wooden but have mostly been replaced by concrete and latterly rocks. On this coast the sea takes the beaches in a southerly direction, even without the groynes it is still sometimes necessary to have a dredger pick up sand and shingle from the sea bed and pump it onto the beach to replace stuff that has been swept away.
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Post by mossie on Apr 28, 2019 16:08:11 GMT
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Post by mossie on Jun 23, 2019 10:49:35 GMT
Took a trip to the dock this morning, over the far side was this special ship, which I fear I have shown you before. Any way it is a heavy duty carrier built to transport cranes and dock equipment, what it was bringing to Felixstowe I have no idea, but it was carrying some new dockside cranes for the port of Kumport, which serves Ankara in Turkey. Thinking about it I realise that Felixstowe Dock pioneered and developed much container handling equipment, so at a rough guess, something of that nature was being loaded for Kumport. The Felixstowe dock people have also acted as consultants for ports working containers What I had gone to see was a new monster, can a boat really be 'gifted' ?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 23, 2019 15:23:21 GMT
It's either constantly being given away or has exceptional talents.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 24, 2019 15:34:35 GMT
I just read a second book about a cargo ship voyage. While the first book was more personally atmospheric, the second one was very technical, and if I had taken notes I could name all of the types of container cranes and all of the ways to manipulate containers. One of the things that was mentioned was if one of the top containers has something disgusting leaking inside, it generally manages to contaminate all of the containers beneath it, a total nightmare for the insurance companies.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 24, 2019 15:59:25 GMT
Do you know this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_a_Shipwrecked_Sailor ? I read it years ago and remember it to this day. It's a compelling non-fiction account of a seaman washed overboard from an overloaded vessel. The account of the containers on board breaking loose from their bindings is scary thrilling.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 24, 2019 16:54:46 GMT
No, both of them were French books written in the last three years. I can't seem to find the first one at the moment, but the second (technical) one is called Pontée. That is the term for cargo on the open deck.
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Post by mossie on Jul 21, 2019 14:47:44 GMT
Felixstowe produced this odd beast this morning. A cable layer which can also do other odd jobs like digging trenches. There are another wind farm being installed around Suffolk so I guess it is going to work on that
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 22, 2019 5:01:01 GMT
A cable layer which can also do other odd jobs like digging trenches. Something I never before thought about -- that of course "ditch witches" are needed for undersea work as well!
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Post by mossie on Sept 8, 2019 10:37:20 GMT
Another 'Art on the Prom' event and as Kerouac seems to like shots from cafes, here is one from the Boardwalk Cafe which is on what remains of the pier, the foundations in the sea have been got at by the sea and it is not considered safe any more
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 9, 2019 4:14:50 GMT
I am wondering what would happen if a rogue wave suddenly swept up the beach at the art event.
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Post by mossie on Nov 10, 2019 19:40:26 GMT
A marvellous day for November this morning so I sat in the cafe at the dock viewpoint to see if anything happened, and also to observe the minute's silence at 11 o'clock, as relayed to us from the cenotaph in Whitehall. I have a few people to remember at that time. Anyhow my wait was rewarded when the megamax Ever Golden crept into view rounding Landguard Point on its way to the dock, accompanied by 3 tugs who were soon going to earn their money. The tugs had to turn the boat round to go alongside the berth, facing down river. One is shoving the stern round while another, which is out of sight behind the berth is pulling on the stern. The third is pulling the bow out, and slowly it came across the stream Half way round Nearly there, note how hard the tug is working by the stream of disturbed water thrown out by its thruster Most of the time I was taking tese pics a young starling was hanging round hoping for crumbs. Unlucky. I was off home for lunch
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