Big boat

A large container ship made its way into Southampton yesterday afternoon, with our having a grandstand view from Ryde Esplanade, say in the vicinity of Appley Tower. Plus interesting clouds, which appeared to be dropping lots of rain on selected spots on the mainland.

The new Samsung camera has a zoom which is more readily accessible than that on the Microsoft camera, but a zoom which goes well beyond its ability to produce a crisp image - at least if the snap above is anything to go by. But at least it is an image of reasonable size: without the zoom the ship would have looked very small indeed compared with what one gets with the naked eye.

Camera apart, we continued to wonder how these ships stay the right way up. How would they fare in a serious storm? In the wilds of the Southern Ocean? The only defence that I can think of is that they are very wide, more like large barges than the ships of old.

Ever curious, back home, I wanted to find out more about this ship. Which I now think is the 'Al Dahna Express'.

Arriving from various places in China and, most recently, Antwerp. Which last perhaps explains the various gaps in the load. Presumably some cunning and management is needed to ensure that the right containers are at the top of the heap.

So four calls in China, then Singapore, then about a month to get to Rotterdam. It certainly made a good speed from right to left yesterday afternoon: maybe the engines make those in the Belfast look puny? Despite this last being a warship, built for speed. See reference 1. From all of which I deduce Indian Ocean with monsoons, but not the Southern Ocean with its winds and waves.

And heading out on Sunday to north Africa. Assuming that I have read the runes in the right order.

And assuming that I have got the name right, I do get a decent picture of the ship itself.

But just 60m wide to 400m long, so not as wide as I had thought. Named to honour the birthplace of a big or a controlling shareholder of one of the companies involved?

Once again, impressed by the amount of information about all this to be found in the public domain. But confused by the letters on the side in the snap immediately above, UASC for the 'United Arab Shipping Company'. The same side said 'Hapag Lloyd' yesterday.

Confused that is until Bing tells me that: 'FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd AG HLAG.DE has agreed a merger deal with United Arab Shipping Company (UASC), creating a group with an estimated value of 7 to 8 billion euros ($7.7-8.9 billion), as both seek to weather a market downturn'. Datelined June, 2016.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/belfast.html. Engines towards the end.