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2020 Shipping Movements

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Let's hope the ship's FSD is up to scratch.
Voyage Management Systems (VMS) have improved almost beyond recognition over the years. This is the ships 'autopilot' which takes care of the navigation and engine management however the vigilant bridge lookout is as important as it ever was. The advances in satellite data links and their integration into VMS is perhaps the most interesting developments at the moment. The operating efficiencies that these systems can bring offer real savings and a competitive advantage over ships with traditional systems. It is however easy to forget that an experienced, reliable and canny Captain is the best investment and just as important, budgeting for a comprehensive training and personnel development system being in place to replace him/her.
 
@Mr Miserable any idea why TRITON ACE lately switched its ETA to 21/11 7:00 ?
Thanks for your take!
I will in my daily report!

UPDATE: Actually I'll answer it now to save confusion later.
I'm still seeing an AIS ETA of 07:00 20 Nov.
Some apps/websites use a calculated 'predicted' ETA based on a closing speed or worse on an average closing speed and this can cause huge variations in the ETA.
I routinely note the ships position and calculate my own ETA based on great circle courses and average speed in the last hour. On this basis my precise ETA for TRITON ACE is currently 09:40 20 Nov.
It's worth bearing in mind that at this distance 0.1 of a knot makes an hour difference to the ETA and so is within a margin for error.
 
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RCC ANTWERP is unloading in Zeebrugge and I expect her to depart late tonight.
She was scheduled into Southampton at 14:30 tomorrow afternoon however the Southampton port schedule now shows just 'PM'.
Worth keeping an eye on....

TRITON ACE continues to progress across the Atlantic at 17kts 550nm NE of Puerto Rico.
By my calculations she has 3221nm left to run and is on schedule.
The weather looks OK for the moment but from Sunday onwards it’s looking a little rougher.
It shouldn’t be bad enough to cause a delay though.
She will arrive in Zeebrugge on 20 Nov and Southampton on 22 Nov

Triton Ace Atlantic Progress.png


GRAND AURORA is just entering the Gulf of Panama.
At midday Z she was at N7.3 W79.8 and was maintaining 16kts.
Her ETA for the canal has been adjusted to 18:00 local this evening and so I expect she has been told that she will transit the canal in tomorrow morning’s northbound wave.
She will drop anchor off Balboa and wait for her Canal pilot to board.
I will post my usual info on the Panama canal, webcams etc later this evening.
I still have her pencilled in for Zeebrugge on 24 Nov and Southampton on 26/27 Nov.

The free GRAND AURORA competition will close when she enters the canal- Click HERE to enter!

Grand Aurora Pac Prog.png


TOSCANA No update to her position has been received but I estimate she should be near Aden about now.
The weather in her area continues to look fine.
She will arrive in Zeebrugge on 27 Nov

Toscana to Suez.png


TANNHAUSER is currently making 17 kts in the busy Singapore Strait at N1.8 E104.2
There are no weather issues.
She will arrive at Suez on 25 Nov and Zeebrugge on 6 Dec.

Tannhauser to Suez.png


GLOVIS CRYSTAL is currently loading at Pier 80. She will depart tomorrow evening (probably around 6pm local) to Zeebrugge and I estimate she will arrive there on 4 Dec and Southampton a couple of days later.


RCC AMSTERDAM As predicted she is currently anchored in San Francisco Bay. The latest plan is for her to move alongside Pier 80 as soon as GLOVIS CRYSTAL departs tomorrow. Her destination remains unknown at the moment however I suspect it will be to Asia.


There is still time for another shipment to Europe……
 
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Hopefully there will be another one, many M3P orders have no VIN assigned yet.

Same with Red LR's - hopefully as Glovis Crystal departs San Fran vins will start to get assigned. My colleague and I ordered within an hour of each other on 23rd Sept. His was a black M3 LR black interior, aero wheels and mine was the same but red. he has his delivery date confirmed at late Nov, I've just got an allocation text. We ordered through Zenith, our company car provider.
 
I posted yesterday about how new regulations have been introduced preventing ships from using heavy fuel oil without a scrubber being fitted. It is actually only half the story though.
So what happens to the suphur that has been removed from the exhaust by the scrubber?
A scrubber is not a cheap device and there are essentially 3 systems on the market, a closed loop system, an open loop system and a hybrid system.
The closed loop system collects the sulphur into a storage tank for dedicated safe disposal when in port. It's the more expensive option which is why only 65 ships worldwide have one fitted. The cheapest system (£1.5m per ship and upwards) collects the pollutants in a liquid form and then discharges it into the sea - an open loop system. Now you don't need to be a bearded sandal wearing eco warrior to spot the flaw with this. Yes the air is cleaner however the ships are now discharging into the sea a lot of very acidic, warm, polluted water. I say a lot, because for every ton of fuel burned, 45 tons of the contaminated washwater is discharged.
Authorities around the world are banning ships that use an open loop system from their waters because they can see the damage that is being caused by them. China is one of them. China!
There is no EU ruling and so individual countries are having to impose restrictions to their waters. Belgium, Ireland and Germany have taken the lead so far.
The hybrid system is the result. The pollutants are stored onboard until clear of the controlled waters and then discharged.
Now think about where the UK sits geographically and where ships are likely to empty their accumulated waste.....
 
I posted yesterday about how new regulations have been introduced preventing ships from using heavy fuel oil without a scrubber being fitted. It is actually only half the story though.
So what happens to the suphur that has been removed from the exhaust by the scrubber?
A scrubber is not a cheap device and there are essentially 3 systems on the market, a closed loop system, an open loop system and a hybrid system.
The closed loop system collects the sulphur into a storage tank for dedicated safe disposal when in port. It's the more expensive option which is why only 65 ships worldwide have one fitted. The cheapest system (£1.5m per ship and upwards) collects the pollutants in a liquid form and then discharges it into the sea - an open loop system. Now you don't need to be a bearded sandal wearing eco warrior to spot the flaw with this. Yes the air is cleaner however the ships are now discharging into the sea a lot of very acidic, warm, polluted water. I say a lot, because for every ton of fuel burned, 45 tons of the contaminated washwater is discharged.
Authorities around the world are banning ships that use an open loop system from their waters because they can see the damage that is being caused by them. China is one of them. China!
There is no EU ruling and so individual countries are having to impose restrictions to their waters. Belgium, Ireland and Germany have taken the lead so far.
The hybrid system is the result. The pollutants are stored onboard until clear of the controlled waters and then discharged.
Now think about where the UK sits geographically and where ships are likely to empty their accumulated waste.....

That's horrific! Crickey....
 
I mentioned earlier today that there is still time for another shipment to Europe.
I think there is time but at the moment I can't identify the likely ship.
There are a numerous possibilities but on the short list which I am keeping an eye on are:
SILVER RAY
GLOVIS STELLA
GLOVIS SUN
with that last one being my favourite.
None of these ships appear on the European circuit in December/January and so it is possible that GLOVIS CRYSTAL could be the last shipment to Europe from Pier 80 this year.
We shall see....
 
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GRAND AURORA has about 40 miles to run to the entrance of the Panama Canal.
If she behaves true to form she will anchor up to the right of the channel and wait until she is called forward for her transit which is likely to be in the the small hours of tomorrow morning. (RCC ANTWERP anchored in the area on the other side of the channel which was very unusual)
She will have paid a fee to jump the queue.
A canal pilot will board prior to this - no vessel of any size can transit without one.

The Panama Canal provides a shortcut for shipping travelling from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and vice-versa. Instead of having to route to the south of South America and then back up, a distance of about 10,000 nm the canal offers a mere 50 mile transit. This comes at a big (well into 6 figures) price, calculated by a complicated formula, designed to maximise revenue to the canal operators. The original canal opened in 1914 and was an immediate success. In the first year it handled about 1000 ships and by 2008 it was handling nearly 15,000. These figures alone don’t tell the whole story because ships were getting bigger and bigger and one of the limits to the size of ships being built was the size of the locks in the Panama Canal. Ships that were built to fit (just) into the locks were described as Panamax ships. That is why so many cruise ships, container ships and car carriers are 32.3m wide and have a draft of under 12.6m.

The expansion of global trade and the increase in shipping meant that the canal was becoming a bottleneck with frequent delays and queues of ships waiting to transit. Fees for queue jumping became ever more expensive and ever more necessary to avoid delays. Alternatives to the canal were seriously being considered eg the NW passage and a number of alternative canal routes that avoided Panama completely. Panama relies on the income from the canal and could not afford for any of the alternatives plans to be viable and so the plan for the expansion to the existing canal system was commenced in 2007 and completed in 2016. This introduced two new sets of locks built parallel to the existing locks. Significantly, they now allow ships up to 366m long, 49m wide and with a draft of up to 15m to transit the canal. The new locks are of a modern design which use less water and are regarded as safer and more reliable too.

So a Panamax ship like GRAND AURORA will use the old locks - Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatun locks to transit whereas bigger ships like GLOVIS SUMMIT have to use the new locks at Coccoli and Agua Clara.

The canal is big business and so is generally a pretty slick operation entirely dependent on how much you have paid. The Tesla ships are normally booked in several weeks in advance and are given a pretty high priority. Delays of more than 24 hours are rare and normally we can expect the ships to start their northbound transit in the small hours of the morning and be in the Caribbean around 8 hours later.

There are webcams at the locks so you can watch the ships going through. The link to the webcams is here
Sadly the webcam covering the Pedro Miguel locks has been dislodged and is not offering a view of those locks at the moment.

For GRAND AURORA, I expect her to be at Miraflores around 6 am UK time tomorrow and Pedro Miguel locks around 8am UK time. By the time she reaches Gatun locks it will be daylight. I expect her to be in the Caribbean around 3pm UK time. Having said that, unusually this quarter the 2 previous ships have commenced their transits several hours later.

cfabbfa9-7989-4d9f-82b9-fdbe12efee8a-png.582713


Thanks to @Mister J for providing the above graphic.
 
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