A Harwich Haven pilot boards the Marseille Maersk from the shore side to assist the captian in taking his new build out from Felixstowe to the Sunk, where the pilot disembarks and the captian takes over to her next scheduled port of Antwerp. Cargo complete the pilot radios for the services. Two Svitzer tugs, Svitzer Kent and Svitzer Deben leave the tug pontoon to Felixstowe Berth 8. Deben takes the centre lead aft while the Kent takes the centre lead forward.
Just before the Marseille broke away from her berth, the DFDS ferry Suecia Seaways departed Ro-Ro 4 as the 400 metre Marseille Maersk takes a little while to get going.
Both tugs ready to work, they wait for the last spring to be released. Steadily the ship begins to move away from the berth then the pilot gets the tugs to increase power to pull the ship clear and into the channel. Once in the channel, the forward tug, Kent, moves to straight ahead to help the pilot increase speed ahead before getting them to slacken up to let go. Kent breaks away onto the Felixstowe side back to the pontoon
Speed building, the pilot checks with the Deben if they were happy to go out of a powered indirect in the weather conditions. Deben gave the ok. Approaching the Fort Buoy, the pilot asks the Deben to move out onto the starboard side at full line load to help steer around the 90 degree Beach End turn out of the harbour. Once on an Easterly heading the Deben eases up astern and closes up to the transom to retreive their towing gear and leave the pilot to naviagate to the Sunk. The pilot gives updates to VTS about the viisability as it reduced further to only 3-4 cables as the Marseille headed for the Sunk.
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