Friday 12 August 2011

Ships in the Sound

This is Gunnhilda, WK72, a Wick-registered trawler. She spent previous night in Kilchoan Bay moored at one of the West Ardnamurchan Jetty Association moorings. There have been an unusually large number of fishing boats in the Sound over the last month or so. This may simply be that the fishing around here is good, but it seems more likely that it reflects either poor fishing elsewhere or a need to come into more sheltered waters because of the weather.

In contrast to the neat working boat, this 39m (127ft) long 'super-yacht', the Kathleen Anne, is available for cruise charter at €140,000 (£122,750) per week. Accommodating ten guests who are looked after by 7 crew, she usually cruises in the Mediterranean. If you're interested in booking her for a late summer holiday, there are more details here.

Again, in complete contrast, this beautiful sailing ship has been seen several times in the area. She may be the same boat that was pictured off Sanna in this blog post. The Diary has her pennant number, T5 K23, but cannot identify her. Can anyone help? (Many thanks to Julie Allcock for drawing my attention to her).

We see fewer and fewer Royal Navy ships in the Sound - which is hardly surprising since there are fewer of them - but this minesweeper, M111, HMS Blyth, came up the Sound yesterday at a good speed, as if she had a purpose in life. She's a Sandown Class mine hunter capable of 13 knots, and she's based on the Clyde.

Another busy little boat is this 37m anchor handling tug, the Forth Hunter, which, like the Kathleen Anne, is available for charter from Briggs Marine. There's a rather fine computer graphic of her, and more information, here.

5 comments:

  1. We think she might be the Sea Cadet training ship the 'TS Royalist'. The AIS website has her anchored just south of Greenock but she has spent the last few days around the West Coast of Scotland. We can not confirm her pennant number at the moment though.

    Jenny (all information provided by Grampy who at the age of 80 has just discovered the AIS website and combined with a huge knowledge of ships!)

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  2. TS Royalist (TS K23).

    UK sail training vessel launched in 1971. Owned by the Marine Society & Sea Cadets:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TS_Royalist

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  3. TS K23 is the training ship 'Royalist'.

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  4. Brilliant! Many thanks to all of you.

    I am like Grampy - I think the AIS site is wonderful - but I simply couldn't find the Royalist when she came by. I wonder if her transponder, or whatever it is, was turned off. Please thank him specially for me.

    Jon

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  5. I don't know how good the fishing is for boats, but for shore anglers there have been very lean pickings of late, perhaps due to the number of porpoises/dolphins and seals seen in the area.

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