The Zhen Hua 23 sails from Shanghai on a 79 day voyage to Felixstowe with two state of the art ship to shore gantry cranes.

*** Correction to the opening sequence of the video, Svitzer Shotley was made fast port shoulder and not starboard shoulder***

The Zhen Hua 23 sails from Shanghai on a 79 day voyage to Felixstowe with two ship-to-shore cranes .  4 Svitzer tugs assist her on to Trinity 1.   25th March 2018

The Port of Felixstowe welcomes the Zhen Hua 23 which was carrying 2 state of the art ship to shore gantry cranes from ZMPC's yard in Shanghai. The vessel left Shanghai on the 6th January, across the Indian Ocean towards the Horn of Africa as she could not fit through the Suez Canal with the cranes onboard. When she entered the Atlantic Ocean she stopped off at a port in Togo which we believe was for bunkers and then headed for Las Palmas, Gran Canaria for bunkers and stayed around there for about a week before getting on the move steadily heading north.

With a confirmed day of Sunday 25th March, the Zhen Hua picked up speed to around 10 knots occasionally up to  12 knots.  The day did not look brilliant as fog was forecasted. And with how the weather at Felixstowe differs from the actual forecast anything could happen.  The pilot which was going onboard the Zhen Hua had a decision to make, Was it safe to bring in the ship and what would be the tug order be?

At around 1500, the Harwich Haven pilot boarded the Zhen Hua 23 at the Sunk and immediatly ordered 4 tug for berthing. Two 3212 tugs to take the centre leads fore and aft and the smaller 2411's on the port quarter and port shoulder. 

As I got down Shotley, the weather was poor with visability at about 1-2 miles so I wasn't expecting a brilliant video but as she started her turn at the 90 degree Beach End the fog lifted slightly to get some shots. Svitzer Deben made fast centre lead aft, Svitzer Sky made fast prt uarter, Svitzer Shotley made fast port shoulder and Svitzer Kent made fast centre lead forward.

The plan was to edge her straight onto Trinity 1 and then move her onto Berth 9 when it became available on Tuesday.

As thoughts passed through everyones minds, would 10 years previous happen again.  The mooring gang and Zhen Hua's crew steadily egan to make the ship fast alongside with 10 lines each end with 2 chunky lines on the main deck to keep her alongside Trinity 1.