Leaving the Ark Royal we continued SW down Loch Long. As we cleared Cnap Point a Very Large Crude Carrier all but obliterated the view ahead.
She was an Indian owned ship called MT Ashna. She has a capacity of 2 million barrels of crude oil.
We met another kayaker who had launched just south of Glenmallan jetty.
Ashna was off loading her crude at the
Finnart deep water oil terminal. A pipeline takes the oil 57 miles right across Scotland, to the Grangemouth refinery on the Firth of Forth.
A tug was moored at the Finnart buoy. The SD Nimble is a Royal Navy support tug operated by Serco Denholm. She is 38m x 9m and has two diesel engines producing 2640bhp. She was probably waiting to manoeuvre Ark Royal from Glenmallan after the munitions had been unloaded.
HMS Ark Royal is a large ship but she was dwarfed by the scale of Ashna. By the time we had paddled her 330m length it was time for lunch.
I calculate her capacity as 1.85 million barrels (small US ones), funny how 1.85 vs 2 million doesn't sound like much, yet 150000 does! :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think I was carrying that much safety equipment, I just need to lose some weight, or buy a more voluminous boat. Anyone actually know the volume of a sea king?
But on the last photo you can surely see that the kayak actually is longer than the ship. ;)
ReplyDelete:D
Maria, Jim's kayak has been known to carry enormous loads of supplies on camping trips but it cannot match that tanker.
ReplyDeleteJim, my old school teacher has dug out an original sea king leaflet, 70 to 130kg payload!
:o)