Ships at Anchor.

[E.Martin]

Off the Suffolk coast lots of ships are at anchor.expect to see all the ships pointing the same way, Not So How come?
Can only assume that some of them have anchors at both ends.
Can anyone enlighten me on this?.

[Ron B Manderson]

Could it just be the currents???
Ron

[Doc Vernon]

Now i am not sure on all this and may be quite wrong!
But isnt it normal to have Ships pointing in various Directions whilst at Anchor!?
Surely all ships wouldnt point one way only!

Would it not depend on where they may have to be Berthed !?

I have seen at times especialy at Cape Town both in my Sea Days and also after that when working at the Docks,many Ships at Anchor,waiting for Berths etc and there certainly were a lot that had various positions !

Well thats it!
Cheers

Open for corrections!!

[Les Woodard]

Well there can be several reasons for it. Not all currents flow in one direction then you have to take into consideration how high are they riding as they may have discharged ballest before entering port so are subject to strong winds. Could be under power before coming in. That is a few reasons for it and there will be many more. If I am wrong then I had better ask Jim if there is any room under his rock for me to hide.

[Ian Walsh (paddy)]

Hi Lads,there are a couple of terms relating to that phenom, Tide rowed and Wind rowed and,also the draught can have an effect,tonnage and eddys.Sometimes it just takes a while for all the ships to line up.See it a lot off Fort Lauderdale beach when you get several ships in the general anchorage,
all the best,
Ian

[happy daze john in oz]

We get a lot of cargo ships in the bay here in Melbourne. They sit at various distances from the shore and they will all face in various directions. There appears to be no definite reason for this, just the time of day when they drop anchor.

[Gulliver]

Sounds right to me,Ian,also the scope of cable(i.e.amount of cable out in proportion to depth)

Also,that's wind -rode and tide-rode.......but we all know what you meant!
Keep on swinging!
Gulliver

[pemcol]

If you look closely you will see they are not at anchor, you will also note they are tankers, and are just waiting for the right price for thier cargo before discharging. We only have to look at pump prices to see the ploy is working. I counted over dozen off Southwold a few weeks back when I was up that way.

[E.Martin]

As far as i am concerned when ships are at anchor in a tideway they all face the same way,the tide turns the ships swing but still finish up facing the same way,might be a differance of a few degrees but surely not 180 degrees.
Pencol suggested that some of the ships are not at anchor they are fully laden tankers waiting for a better market,I will go along with that,2 weeks ago i counted 40 ships either at anchor or stemming the tide,today i counted 5,maybe the laden tankers have got their better price as the price of oil is the highest it has been since last year.
According to our local press a tanker capable of carring 14,000,000 barrels of oil joined the ships off Southwold a couple of weeks ago,if she was fully laden you dont have to be clever to fathom out the extra profit she will be making when oil prices have increased by 5-10 dollars a barrel this last couple of weeks,But!!
According to our local paper the ships at anchor are empty of oil and are waiting for smaller tankers to bring oil from the Baltic to offload the oil into the bigger ships which then take the oil to the far east,that seems strange to me
Various Local Councils are worried about oil spills when oil is being transfered from one ship to another,in fact some people are worried that there could be a enviromental disaster.
It is all a bit of a mystery

[happy daze john in oz]

I somehow doubt the tankers would be waiting for a better price of oil. Oil is managed on the futures market with the price often set months before delivery. Oil companies cannot afford to have their ships just waiting around, so I would suggest they were just waiting for a suitable berth.