Ships moored at sea, can somebody explain please...

[Bernie-the-bolt]

I've had a few days away his week in the Torquay area overlooking the sea and I can see at least three VERY big ships that have done nothing but sit moored off the coast for the last three days obviously that I'm aware of.

Now, I'm really not losing any sleep over this (although it seems a bit of a waste of fuel) but wtf are they doing?

You'd have thought in these days of CC, they'd be either running around picking up and delivering 'stuff' to us mere mortals, or if not used would be tied to a dock somewhere not running their engines 24/7.

Two of them are owned by NYK who are container shipping company, who clearly have more money than sense.

Can any 'ship/boat' people shed some light on why?

[FM]

The drop in import & exports have hit international cargo shipping. That I`m sure of. Perhaps they no longer have the same amount of charters leaving a proportion of the shipping fleet idle.

[Bernie-the-bolt]

FM said:

The drop in import & exports have hit international cargo shipping. That I`m sure of. Perhaps they no longer have the same amount of charters leaving a proportion of the shipping fleet idle.

That had crossed my mind, but it's a bloody expensive lump of metal to leave simply idling off the coast!

[rhinochopig]

There are lot of tankers moored all around the UK at the moment. Demand is down as are prices. There is nowhere to store the crude as the refinery's are full.

[Bernie-the-bolt]

rhinochopig said:

There are lot of tankers moored all around the UK at the moment. Demand is down as are prices. There is nowhere to store the crude as the refinery's are full.

I think these are container ships having had a look on the net.

[rhinochopig]

Bernie-the-bolt said:

rhinochopig said:

There are lot of tankers moored all around the UK at the moment. Demand is down as are prices. There is nowhere to store the crude as the refinery's are full.

I think these are container ships having had a look on the net.

Even so when you look at how tons of fuel these things burn per week then it's cheaper to lay them up somewhere when demand falls off and just pay a skeleton staff to care-take. Were they loaded?

Edited by rhinochopig on Friday 5th June 21:49

[deevlash]

I guess you save on habour fees if you just sit out at sea

[LD1Racing]

If they are at anchor they won't be running their main propulsion engine, only a generator or two which burn a comparatively small amount of fuel and would be running even in port. Probably just waiting for a berth to go and load/unload cargo.

[Dogwatch]

rhinochopig said:

Demand is down as are prices.

Prices are creeping over the 100p mark here (South Coast). Local paper says it is due to people taking UK holidays and driving up local demand.

[King Herald]

deevlash said:

I guess you save on habour fees if you just sit out at sea

A few years ago my ship was 'between jobs' on several occasions, so we sat at anchor for several weeks. One time we sat alongside the dock in Trinidad for a month over Xmas.

Another time we were alongside in the Bahamas for two weeks.

[Stu R]

happens all the time. Last ship I was on we got to spend 3 months at anchor in mexico. Cracking fishing

[deevlash]

King Herald said:

deevlash said:

I guess you save on habour fees if you just sit out at sea

A few years ago my ship was 'between jobs' on several occasions, so we sat at anchor for several weeks. One time we sat alongside the dock in Trinidad for a month over Xmas.

Another time we were alongside in the Bahamas for two weeks.

That must have been awful for you

[King Herald]

deevlash said:

King Herald said:

deevlash said:

I guess you save on habour fees if you just sit out at sea

A few years ago my ship was 'between jobs' on several occasions, so we sat at anchor for several weeks. One time we sat alongside the dock in Trinidad for a month over Xmas.

Another time we were alongside in the Bahamas for two weeks.

That must have been awful for you

Oh god, you have no idea. I've never spoken about it before, before now, but, but....

[jdbecks]

Sometimes vessels moar out at sea while they wait for a spot in the dock to unload maybe they arrived earlier than scheduled, or they were delayed and missed there spot. Another reason is they might be doing repairs on the vessel that does not require them to be in the port, its cheaper to sit in the sea than the port,

[hidetheelephants]

If they're container ships or bulkers they'll be laid up; the arrse fell out of the day rate about 8 months ago and is yet to recover noticeably, although there are rumours of the bulk trade picking up a little in the far east. Last I heard containers were being shipped for FREE! Despite this some shippers were struggling to raise finance(there isn't a hole deep enough to hold bankers) to underwrite the cargo, so it stayed sitting on the dockside in China, as consignees don't like their stuff not being insured. As a previous poster has pointed out, fuel costs are a big issue; my last ship was a 50,000 tonne/5000teu container boat, it burnt 160 tonnes of HFO per day @20knots or perhaps 8 tonnes per day at anchor with just hotel loads.

[andy400]

Definitely laid up due to the current global financial climate. Many will use Torbay due to the depth and shelter, and the well-established infrastructure for crew movements, stores embarkation etc.

There's a few in Falmouth harbour too.

[Taffer]

BBC News article and vid about ships laid up in the Fal. Always strange to see so many large-ish vessels in a relatively small (but deep) river.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8038471.stm

[bracken78]

To many ships, not enough cargo.

[K50 DEL]

There are a dozens sat off the coast here in Luanda, caused by an inneffiecient port and the fact that everything has to be imported into the country.

Runmour are that several large operators are on the verge of refusing to come here due to the amount of time they have to spend waiting to offload (average wait is about 3wks currently I'm told)