As “experienced” Gunboat 60 sailors, Sophie and Sebastien were part of the delivery crew of Gunboat 60/02 FLOW from Xiamen to Hong Kong earlier this month. During the whole trip we didn’t see or cross any other sailboats but thousands of fishing boats and cargo ships. As you can see on the picture below, not only Singapore is very busy but also the surroundings of Xiamen has a significant ship traffic. It has been noticed that compared to the last trip in December more and more fishing boats are showing AIS signals.
There is also a kind of “Chinese” practice that often the fishing vessels come in pairs but only one of them has a visible AIS transponder. Also the increase in AIS signals around, doesn’t mean that at night time there aren’t any unlit, unmarked fishing boats and lots of nets and fishing pots left – there is nothing like a good look-out with assistance of radar, AIS receivers on the chart plotter, a good pair of binoculars and one or two pairs of well awake eyes ;-) Also no wonders that with the high quantity of trawlers, purse seiners, fishing pots and nets around – we weren’t lucky enough to catch any fresh fish – the fishing grounds must already be quiet overfished. The picture shows the coast line just south of Xiamen, China.
To explain: the picture above, you can see lots of little triangles – each of them represents one vessel. With our AIS receivers and chart plotters we can than put the curser on the triangles and access further transmitted information about the other vessel. This shows the name of the vessel, the call sign and MMSI number, SOG (speed over ground), COG (course over ground) and distance to the other vessel, collision course and time, etc. as well as length, width, draft and destination with ETA (estimated time of arrival) at their destination – some of the information is only transmitted by AIS Category A vessels. It is very interesting to check out the length of the vessel – from far they look big and some look even bigger – we have crossed some cargo ships that are more than 1090 ft long – like swimming islands…
Hong Kong is a great city with lots to see and lots to do, besides sightseeing, shopping, dining, etc. – the cargo ship terminals and ship traffic are definitively one of the brand marks and highlights of the city. (Looks like my “passion” for cargo ships is bigger than my “addiction to shopping”). Hong Kong is one of the busiest harbors worldwide with handling over 20.000.000 containers per year. There are 9 terminals which are working non-stop as well there is a multitude of anchorages where some smaller “floating / movable” cranes are operating and handling the container movements.
It is impressive to see the tow boats maneuvering the huge cargo ships. Not only they are “parking” them – you have to imagine that the cargo ships arrives next to the dock in a certain distance and depending of the size of the ship one or two tow/tug boats push the boat against the dock where it gets moored up for loading and un-loading. When it’s time to leave the dock again, the tow/tug boats are pulling the huge cargo ship away from the dock. Most of the cargo ships are that big that they don’t only need a pilot boat to guide them into and out of the terminal but also a tow/tug boat that helps them to come around the corner under the bridge to enter the commercial harbour area, for example. We really felt “small” and “feathery light” next to this huge pieces of steal …
