#RareQuayCall - A rare sight of a commercial ship took place this week along Dublin Port’s inner Liffey quays with the arrival of an Arklow Shipping cargoship, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The Arklow Resolve of almost 5000dwat had sailed from Belfast to Dublin last Saturday to initially dock downriver in Alexandra Basin west. This is where cargo operations took place, however on Monday she shifted berths much closer to the city-centre.

Afloat had monitored the rather unusual quay allocation of the 2,999 gross tonnage cargoship to that of Sir John Rogerson’s Quay.

At this south quay and its north bank counterpart of the North Wall, this area is the older former working port that in recent decades has been utterly transformed. The area dubbed the ‘Docklands’ quarter is where warehouses have been demolished. This to cater for finance houses and apartments that occupy commanding waterfront sites such as the new Central Bank of Ireland headquarters. 

The district stretchs from the IFSC and lines the Liffey downriver to the Tom Clarke (East-Link) Lift- Bridge. The bridge was raised to allow Arklow Resolve to head upriver to the city-centre quay, though the structure's span does restrict vessel size. 

The last routine cargo based operation from these Liffey quays took place in the form of the Guinness stout tankers, The Lady Patricia and Miranda Guinness until this trade ceased in 1992.

The practice of pumping the famous ‘black stuff’ on board was replaced by road tankers taking the ferry to the UK, from where the stout ships previously used to ply to Runcorn on the Manchester Ship Canal. Before that the tanker vessels navigated even further inland to Salford, a suburb of the English north-west city.

Arklow Resolve’s rare location in the Dublin Port required a special visit to this stretch of the Liffey quay at berth 8. On arrival, crew were observed on the former Irish flagged vessel attending to maintenance duties on the cargo deck.

The 89m overall long cargoship has hatch-covers again painted the same customary ‘Arklow’ green colour of the hull that makes up the livery of their mixed Irish and Dutch flags ships. As such these ships tend to stand out more in port or when underway.

The 2004 Dutch built cargoship is registered in Rotterdam, where some of her ‘R’ class sisters are managed by the Irish shipowners Dutch division Arklow Shipping Nederland B.V. When launched the cargoship had her Co. Wicklow owners homeport of Arklow as the port of registry.

Of the 50 plus fleet, Arklow Resolve belongs to the oldest ‘R’class cargoships which were built by Barkmeijer Stroobos. An elder sister Arklow Rose dating to 2002 as reported by Afloat in September 2016, had been sold to UK owners, Charles M. Willie & Co (Shipping) Ltd of Cardiff, Wales. The single box hold cargoship renamed Celtic Venture has options for up to 9 position separations.

The sight of the distinctive ‘Arklow’ green hull on this current ship occasion recalled memories of boarding an older fleetmate no longer in service, that been the Inishark. The boarding took place in the early 1990’s when this cargoship also berthed on Rogerson's Quay and to the nearby Hammond Lane scrap metal site. The merchants premises are now located downriver in Ringsend.

As for the ship, Inishark was then operated by another Arklow Shipping division Coastal Shipping, however she originally began her Arklow career named Darell. Again the Dutch connections continue as this 1981 built vessel had been built too in the Netherlands albeit at a different yard for ASL. She had a post 1998 gross tonnage of 2,009.

In recent years ASL have splashed out on a spending spree by ordering several new cargoships designs from yards in the Netherlands. This rapid newbuilding programme will invariably see older generation cargships replaced, notably more of the ‘R’ class disposed from the fleet. 

#RareCall – A rare appearance of a cargoship and aptly from Arklow Shipping took place recently with the vessel in its homeport of where Ireland’s largest shipowner’s have their head-office, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Afloat had monitored online the ship in question, the 4,950dwt Arklow Fortune that had arrived from Swansea last week. The berth occupied by the 90m ‘F’ class short-sea trader took place downriver from the nearby ASL head-office that overlooks the banks of the Avoca. The last call of a cargoship to the Co. Wicklow port took place four years ago and that of an ASL vessel a decade ago.

Of the record 50-strong Arklow Shipping fleet that Afloat counted following recent delivery of newbuild Arklow Vanguard, the historic presence of one of their distinctive ‘green’ hulled ships in the homeport was an opportunity not to be missed.

Arklow Fortune was built by Astilleros de Murueta SA in Spain from a series of 10 dry-cargoships that entered service between 2006 and 2011. In recent years there has been a rapid expansion of newbuilds and currently under construction but from Dutch yards. This modernisation fleet upgrade has notably contributed to the 50 ships in service.

The short-sea trader belongs to 31 ships that have Arklow as a port of registry and under the Irish flag. A balance of 19 ships fly the Dutch flag for Arklow Shipping Nederland B.V.

Under such unique circumstances the call of Arklow Fortune to the homeport required a dash down to observe the vessel before the opportunity was missed. This took place on Wednesday of this week, having had a gut feeling that the vessel was likely to depart. In which proved to be the case as revealed below.

While driving across the bridge spanning the Avoca, it was notable how high Arklow Fortune was on the water. This was because the Spanish built 2,998 gross tonnage ship was in ballast. No cargo was on board nor loaded as the vessel dating to 2007 had instead undergone repairs while alongside the North Quay.

On arrival that is to the South Quay so to enable a better view from the opposite bank, is was soon realised that Arklow Fortune was about to depart. The evidence was the white wave wash generated from the controllable pitch propeller.

So indeed the vessel was underway as it eased off the quay. At the same time a hatch cover was lowered into a closed position and beyond at the bow crew members were busy manning the mooring lines.

As Arklow Fortune cleared the harbour walls, the vessel headed on a course towards the most northerly of the seven Arklow Wind Farm turbines that lined the horizon. The next port of call involved a coastal passage of just over four hours to Dublin Port.

A cargo from the Boliden Tara Mines was loaded at the Zinc-Ore Jetty in Alexandra Basin and this is a typical bread and butter cargo for ASL. The ship has since completed loading and is currently off the Outer Hebrides, Scotland bound for Odda, Norway.