They counted them in – and counted them out as port enjoys ‘exceptional month’

Port of Wisbech had a quiet start to July due to a period of low tides so all of the shipping activity happened in the last three weeks of the month.

Despite this, July turned out to be a truly exceptional month with 11 vessels arriving. 10 of which arrived with timber from Riga in Latvia and one with bricks from Aalst in The Netherlands.

You would need to refer back to July 2019 when this last happened and prior to that over 20 years ago.

The first arrival of the month was the Helt with 1584cbm of timber arriving on the 10th pm tide and sailing on the 11th pm tide straight back to Riga to reload for Wisbech.

This is typically a five day voyage via the Kiel Canal that runs through Germany a distance of around 950 nautical miles in total.

Scanlark arrived on the 12th am tide with 1640cbm of timber from Riga.

She was joined on the 12th pm tide by the H&S Wisdom with 1650mts of bricks from Aalst and then on the 13th pm tide the Bon Vivant arrived with 2681cbm of timber.

Wisbech Standard: H&S Wisdom in the turning basin at Wisbech at 9.30pm 12th July.H&S Wisdom in the turning basin at Wisbech at 9.30pm 12th July. (Image: Archant)

That made it three vessels in port at the same time for the sixth time this year.

Both Scanlark and H&S Wisdom sailed on the 14th Am tide with Scanlark bound for Rotterdam and the H&S Wisdom for Berwick upon Tweed.

Bon Vivant sailed on the 15th am tide bound for Tilbury.

Regular caller Sandal arrived on the 16th am tide with 2011cbm of timber from Riga, her eleventh call of the year.

Sister ship Seg joined her arriving on the 17th pm tide with 2044cbm of timber from Riga her twelfth call of the year.

Sandal sailed on the 18th Am tide and Seg on the 19th Pm tide both bound for Riga.

Snowlark made her fourth call of the year arriving on the 22nd Pm tide with 1510cbm of timber from Riga sailing on the 23rd pm tide bound for Rotterdam.

Helt was back again on the 25th Am tide with 1819cbm of timber from Riga her eighth call this year, she sailed on the 26th pm tide bound for Skadovsk in the Ukraine a voyage that will take almost three weeks.

There were two arrivals on the 29th with Sandal arriving first on the am tide with 2468cbm of timber.

Bonita arrived on the pm tide with 1064cbm of timber both from Riga. At 64.35meters long the Bonita is the smallest vessel to now call at the port with most vessels between 75 to 82.5m long.

Sandal sailed on the 30th am tide bound for Riga whilst Bonita sailed on the 1st August bound for Tilbury dock on the River Thames.

Seg was back on the 31st pm tide with 1831cbm of timber from Riga sailing on the am tide 3rd August bound for Dunkirk in France.

So once again yet another busy month for the port handling some 18,652cbm (cubic meters) of timber (4906cbm more than June) and 1,650 metric tonnes of bricks (1600mts less than June) making it a total of 65 vessels year to date which is 17 more than the same period in 2020.