The berthing of a tanker (8 images with FZ200)

grebeman

Old Codgers Group
As some of you will realise my recent move back to Plymouth has enabled me to indulge myself in one of my lifelong passions, ships and the sea

This morning, before the rain arrived, I was able to take a sequence of shots with the FZ200 from extreme wide angle to virtually full telephoto of the berthing of the Thun Globe, at 7,500 tons one of the smallest tankers using the port. She had arrived overnight from Milford Haven in west Wales. However unlike most of the other larger tankers it has a single stern screw (the majority seem to have twin steerable stern screws) as well as a bow thruster propeller. This adds some difficulty to the berthing procedure. Over 40 years ago tankers of this size would have had three tugs to assist, in those days from the fleet of W J Reynolds, the last fleet of coal fired tugs in the UK.

Today it's just the harbour tug Prince Rock, although for some of the larger tankers a second tug, the Morgawr is also used.

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Here the Thun Globe passes the end of Mount Batten Pier which, being just a few minutes from my new home is where I'll be spending a lot of my time. As you can see they pass very close here. The catwalk and pontoon in the foreground are the terminal for the ferry to and from the historic Barbican.

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Negotiating the Cobbler Channel she rounds under the walls of the Citadel, built in the time of Charles II, so about 1665, the old walls being visible top right. This shot includes the pilot boat Maker and the tug Prince Rock

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Entering the Cattewater, passing through Deadman's Bay

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Beginning the operation to turn the Thun Globe. Since they need to come in near high tide, by turning them now they are less restricted by the state of the tide when they come to leave. The pilot boat is hurrying around the stern in it's role to keep other vessels away during the passage of these bigger ships. The large grey buildings on the Mount Batten shore are the old hangers from the days when this was an important seaplane base. In the early 1930's one Aircraftsman Shaw served here, that was an assumed name to hide the true identity of a man seeking anonymity, T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). On the horizon can be seen the line of Plymouth Breakwater, moored inside the breakwater is the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus and beyond it a 16,000 tanker that was occupying this berth yesterday, but came in and departed at night.

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The Maker rounding the stern of the Thun Globe

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Prince Rock working hard to assist in the turning operation

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The final member of the team, a small launch used to take the mooring lines ashore

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Almost berthed at the discharge jetty. By this time the rain had just started, so I was lucky to catch this sequence before the rain. At least I wasn't hampered by the sun, since the majority of shots were taken looking towards the south.

I'm hoping to continue a series of photographs from my native city, Plymouth, call this a first installment.


Barrie
 
Nice, Barrie. Image quality from the FZ200 seems fine. The only image "issue," if you can call it that, is from the slight atmospheric haze. But it kind of lends something to this series, don't you think?

Thank you Steve. It certainly wasn't the best of conditions to demonstrate a camera shooting at any distance. I wasn't altogether happy with the FZ200 on first using it, but since I've begun to use it at around f/4 and iso 100 I'm beginning to see it's merits as a walk round camera. I almost certainly would have needed 3 different lenses for any of my micro 4/3 cameras to obtain the range of focal lengths used for the above series, although image quality would of course have been better. So it's the difference between having something convenient to shot a picture opportunity or miss that opportunity, that's not to say that at some time I wouldn't take a similar series with say my GH2 and a couple of lenses.

Barrie
 
Thought you might already know. I'm at the furthest West port in England this week but struggling to get 100m vis so no point in my trying to track floating things ...
 
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