Ever Gentle arrives deep draughted to the Port of Felixstowe unusually heavily laden 1st August 2021

Ever Gentle arrives to the Port of Felixstowe unusually heavily laden with a maximum draught of 15.8 metres even keel from her last port of  Tanjung pelepas in Malaysia. Because of circumstances of the last 5 months with the Ever Given grounding in the Suez Canal in March and causing substantial congestion to European ports and beyond. Rotterdam was under pressure with the congestion.   Finally the Ever Given was released 4 months behind schedule arrived at Rotterdam last week which meant the Ever Gentle did not have a berth straight away so they switched the Rotterdam and Felixstowe calls around.  

At 16:00 local, the Harwich Haven pilot launch St Christopher boards a pilot at the Sunk pilot station for the inward journey.   Once onboard the pilot radios Harwich VTS to confirm he was onboard inbound for Felixstowe Berth 9.  VTS replies that there was a ready berth planned port side to and continued with height of tide and wind on the Landguard gauge.   The pilot replies that he would like three tugs for berthing, first at 7&8 buoys to make fast centre lead aft, second at the platters to make fast on the starboard quarter and third inside the harbour bow to bow.  Duty tug copies the radio conversion.

Svitzer Deben breaks away from the tug pontoon followed by the Svitzer Sky a little while later with Svitzer Kent shortly after.  Approaching 7&8 buoys, the Deben contacts the pilot to work out the berthing plan. The skipper on the Deben says to the pilot that he has themselves aft, Sky will be the starboard quarter tug and the Kent will be the bow to bow tug inside the harbour.  As the time was getting on and closer to the end of the flood tide, the pilot radios VTS to find out what the tide was doing. At present it was still rising and top of the tide was 18:20 so the plan was to use the tide to their advantage and swing to starboard.

Once the Deben had made fast the pilot confirms that they were fast on a bollard with a safe working load of 112t.  Shortly after, Svitzer Sky goes alongside on the starboard and makes fast on a bollard with a safe working load of 100t.   Approaching the Platters, the pilot get the Deben to move out onto the port side at 75% for a powered indirect.   Rounding the Beach End and headway reducing, the Kent makes their approach to make fast forward. A weighted heaving line was thrown down to the Kent to make fast. Once fast the pilot confirms that they are fast on a bollard with safe working load of 112t.   

Steadily the headway reduces to a crawl by the Deben leaning back 50% and the pilot running the engine astern.   Sky squares up on the starboard quarter ready to push the stern around.  Kent moves out onto the starboard shoulder and begins to build power to take the bow around.  Deben starts to move out onto the port quarter to take the stern around and Sky pushes up on the starboard quarter. 

Half way through the swing to starboard, the pilot gets the Kent to ease up and move onto the port side to pull towards the berth but changes his mind and gets them to let go and push up on the starboard shoulder.

Final tie up 4,2,2 each end with springs first fore and aft

ETD Thursday 5th August 2021 PM