Thursday, February 15, 2007

Shipping news


Thursday 15 February 07

I'm used to see various ships and ferries coming and going on the Mersey, but every so often you have a close encounter with a vessel so huge that you feel quite insignificant in comparison. This morning the enormous Chinese ship Le Cong was being carefully manouevred into the Birkenhead docks with help from three tugs, which was quite a sight from our little ferry. I had a quick look for Le Cong online and found it on this handy website of photos of Ships of the Mersey, which includes many other ships I've seen over the years. There's even some pictures of our very own Edmund Gardner pilot boat.

While enormous container ships like Le Cong are an impressive sight when they tower over everything around them on the Mersey, it's easy to forget just how vulnerable even they can be when out on open water. The year before last the Merseyside Maritime Museum opened a small display to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the sinking of largest British registered ship ever lost ast sea, MV Derbyshire. You can read the story of the Derbyshire Family Association's fight for justice and how they continue to fight for safety at sea in our MV Derbyshire feature.


Posted by Sam | 15/02/2007 10:53   | Comments [0]

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