Welcome to the fifth edition of the FleetMon Maritime Gallery. Each month, you’ll find a special section on our blog featuring the Best Maritime Photos in a certain category. You’ll not only get to view the most popular photos being voted by our community for “Photo of the Week” and “Photo of the Month”. We also present special shots which are less noted but in the same way extraordinary.
To finish off October, we want to showcase popular shots of one of the most important vessel types in terms of carrying heavy loadings. We’re proud to have a collection of around 2,570 heavy lift cargo vessel photos on FleetMon.com. Let’s take a closer look at selected photographs and tell their story.
To all our ship spotters out there: We truly appreciate your work. Keep it up, guys!
in Research, Sponsoringby FleetMon HQThe goal of the student thesis was to conceptualize a data pipeline combining AIS data with environmental data measured by sensors to track the route of cargo and the conditions it has been exposed to.
We support students and researchers by offering access to the FleetMon API Suite and our extensive AIS Data Archive with historical vessel position and port call data. Read this guest article we received by Niklas Scherer, a master’s degree student of the University of Applied Sciences in Bingen, Germany.
The academic project investigates a correlation between specific weather conditions a vessel was exposed to and occurring cargo damage. AIS data and weather data were used to examine if certain weather conditions on maritime high-traffic lanes are likely to cause damage to freight in order to prevent damage by realistic forecasting.
Sanlucar de Barrameda, the seaside resort and fishing port (Bonanza) at the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir in SW Andalusia, is a unique location for ship spotters. Lying on the beautiful sandy beach or swimming in the 30° warm water, you see all kinds of vessels sailing by – numerous fishing cutters chugging into the nearby harbour and cruise liners, container ships or tankers sailing up river to Seville or returning to the Atlantic. The Rio Guadalquivir is navigable as far as Seville, around 60 miles further north, and the capital of Andalusia is not only a popular destination for cruise liners but also a regular port of call for various cargo ships.
On August 10, for example, the 30,000-ton P&O cruise liner ADONIA sailed past the Sanlucar sunbathers heading from Seville into the Atlantic en route to her next port of call, Gibraltar.
A cargo ship regularly seen off the beaches of Sanlucar is the OPDR LISBOA, a 698-TEU container ship operated by the Oldenburg-Portugiesische Dampfschiffs-Reederei (OPDR) that runs a shuttle service between Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Casablanca and Seville. When seen sailing past the Sanlucar swimmers on August 20, the LISBOA had left Seville the day before and was heading for Las Palmas where it docked on August 22.
On six evenings at low tide in August the Sanlucar beach also stages professional horse races that attract crowds of up to 30,000 – an unparalleled sporting event held since 1845. It also offers the horseracing spectators the uniquely remarkable sight of thousands of horsepower sailing past ten horsepower on the sand.
