We finally managed to get out sailing, after two weekends more or less gale-bound. This one looked like being more of the same, but there was a little lull on Saturday morning.
It wasn't quite drizzling, but poor visibility spoke of plenty of water in the atmosphere as we set off down river, upwind and up tide. There wasn't much breeze, just enough, in fact for a gentle shakedown - a check that we had run the reefing pennants correctly when putting on the mainsail, and that everything was in place and working properly.
It was great just to be sailing again. And better still, as we headed out towards the harbour, the visibility cleared, and the sun made a brief appearance.
It was perfectly timed to take photographs of the carnage caused in the previous weekend's storms when Zhen Hua 23, a remarkable ship loaded with five giant dockside container cranes, broke free of her mooring at Felixstowe's Trinity Terminal, and hit the quay at Landguard Terminal, felling two of the (slightly smaller) container cranes there.
Remarkably, it seems the ship is undamaged, as are the three gigantic new multi-million pound cranes it was delivering to Felixstowe. A slightly smaller one en route to Thamesport is also apparently unharmed. But the fifth crane of the cargo, which is bound for Sweden, has a bent jib.
It seems it was the jib of this crane which hit one of the cranes on the quay, which then toppled into its neighbour, and they both fell in a spectacular heap of twisted metal. Fortunately, because the port was closed due to the high winds, which make it impossible to operate the cranes, nobody was injured.
Fortunate, too, that the dockside cranes, standing on wheels, proved less resiliant than those on the ship - which looks worryingly top-heavy and unstable with its towering deck cargo. Supposing the cranes ashore had stood their ground, and the ship had been toppled?
Anyway, it's going to be quite insurance claim. It's fortunate that it is the Landguard terminal, where the smaller ships dock, which is out of action, and not the Trinity Terminal, where the world's biggest container ships are accommodated.
“How much the disruption will cost the port is unknown - but probably not many millions of pounds because Landguard is used for the smallest vessels which have the quickest turnaround. Some that usually berth there will be slotted into gaps on Trinity,” said one commentator.
There's also the cost of removing the wreckage of the two damaged cranes - and finding replacements for them. Unfortunately all the cranes at Trinity, including the three new ones, are too big for Landguard, running on wider gauge tracks.
Then there's the cost of delayed delivery of Zhen Hua 23's cargo to three ports - including Felixstowe. As of yesterday, the ship still had not been moved back to the Trinity terminal to begin the tricky business of unloading the cranes.
She has been held up by surveyors and insurance assessors checking for damage, and of course the weather.
But the port is hoping that the ship will be moved - and the new cranes finally unloaded - any day now.
The cranes are welded to the deck of the ship for the nine-week voyage from China, where they are built. On arrival they are cut free and rolled ashore - a critical manoeuvre that has to be carried out as the tide brings the deck of the ship level with the quayside.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, despite the unpromising weather, the dock viewing area was packed with people looking at the damage! The crane ship, which is a relatively regular visitor to the port, always draws a crowd, because it is such a spectacular sight. It doesn't look as if it ought to float, never mind cross oceans with such an unwieldy cargo.
And it's extremely disconcerting if you spot it, hull down, out at sea!
- The last time a batch of new cranes was shipped into Felixstowe, before it was even commissioned one was hit on the quayside and knocked off its wheels by a ship making its first visit to the port.
After prolonged international negotiation between the port, the crane company and the ship's owners, the crane was finally returned to China for repair. Presumably it is one of the three on the ship this time!
