ZHEN HUA breaks adrift at Port of Felixstowe. Much damage.

[suffolk]

According to BBC Radio Suffolk, a ship broke loose from its moorings at the Port of Felixstowe causing damage to two quayside cranes. No further information is known at present.
Looking at the AIS plots, it appears that ZHEN HUA 23 moved in a southerly direction along Landguard after 0150hrs. She is currently being attended to by the tug ADSTEAM INTREPID.

[Timber]

The ZHEN HUA 23 broke adrift in high winds and drifted in a southerly direction along the quay.

In dfifting south, the aftermost container crane stowed on deck (bound for Gothenberg) came into contact with a shore side container crane which toppled over and collapsed.

This shore crane in toppling had a domino effect with the next shore crane which also toppled over.

These 2 cranes are now lying on the quay in a heap of twisted metal.

The new crane for Gothenberg was also damaged.

The ship has grounded on the extreme south end of the quay with the stern sitting on the beach near the viewing point.

The 1st picture shows the vessel alongside yesterday, with 3 shore cranes to the south.

[suffolk]

There is a time lapse video of her arrival at Felixstowe here.

Here are a few more pics.

Yesterday:

Today:








Yesterday:

Today:

[Nor Tickle]

I hope nobody was injured in this catastrophy.

Why did the ship come into the layby berth and not remain at sea with the forecast of strong winds later in the day?

This will have a major impact with the port operation. I presume the Landguard terminal will be un usable for a long time.

Coupled with the crane collapsing at Southampton in January, where they are still not back up to a full operation, this must surely impact on UK's ability to handle all the imports.

[suffolk]

Here is the AIS plot of the incident:
The red arrow is the course
The yellow arrow is the heading
The arrows are a magnitude of the speed.
The X is the position of the GPS receiver at that point in time.


At approximately 0152hrs she is reported as not moving.
One minute later she is drifting at 0.8knots.
After a further two minutes she is moving at over 2 knots.
Another minute later she reaches her maximum reported speed of 2.8knots.
A minute later at 0157hrs she has stopped after running aground.

Her positioning indicates she remained close to the quayside throughout the drift.

[Timber]

That's quite a speed to get to in such a short distance.
The wind recorded at Harwich on my neighbours wind guage was 60 knots during the night.
Thanks for posting the photos taken from the Felixstowe side, they are very impressive.

[DutchDocker]

Seems the Zhen Hua boys have got a lot of difficulties with wind...

Couple of weeks ago, Zhen Hua 10 had it's anchors slipping and despite managing to get her engine going full steam, she still ran aground, carrying several cranes for Rotterdam terminals.

http://shipoftheday.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html ( scroll down to Feb 2nd )

She did make pretty pictures though!

[Timber]

The ZHEN HUA 23 was moved back to its original position at 1800 last night.

Three tugs were made fast for'd, the SVITZER SHOTLEY, SVITZER MELTON and SVITZER INTREPID and were pulling at full power to drag the vessel off the beach at high water.


Once the vessel was moved, it revealed the collapsed cranes

[Timber]

Here is a video from Felixstowe TV

Click on the following link to view
www.felixstowetv.co.uk/e107_plugins/eplayer/eplayer.php?view.522.0.20

[banjodan]

the high winds where forcasted why was`nt the ship anchored out at sea until its berth was ready?

[carl D]

When will they be opening landguard back up ?

[DutchDocker]

[Timber]

So what happens now?
.
Felixstowe have released the following statement

Landguard Terminal Update

Further to the incident on 1st March 2008 in which two existing ship-to-shore quay cranes on Landguard Terminal were damaged, the latest update on the situation is as follows:

There is no evidence of any damage to the three new cranes on board the 'Zhen Hua 23', and the Port does not expect major disruption in its operations as a result of this incident.

The 'Zhen Hua 23', which is delivering the three new cranes, is expected to be transferred to Trinity Terminal on Friday 7th March 2008, when work will commence on unloading the new cranes.

Thereafter, Landguard Terminal will re-open to shipping lines on a limited basis. It is expected that Landguard Terminal will re-open for the collection of import containers only from Tuesday 4th March 08:00 hours.

The Port can confirm the two cranes that sustained the damage were existing equipment at Landguard Terminal.

There is also a rumour that they are now in talks with the Tate Modern in London.........!!!

Many will have noticed that she has a tug in attendance at certain times.

Near the bow of the vessel is an overhang which at high water would sit above the level of the quay.



The tug is made fast and is used to keep the bow off the quay until the overhang can sit alongside the quay fendering.

[Timber]

I have put a series of photos of the ZHEN HUA rounding Beach End when she arrived.

The photo taken from end on shows how much the cranes are overhanging each side.

The photos can be seen in the Gallery section and selecting "ZHEN HUA"

[suffolk]

There is a story
here from the Evening Star regarding the port looking into replacing the cranes on a short term basis before Landguard is reconfigured.