It’s a car carrier and many of them have been delayed due to bad weather
Southampton docks is a car park right now
So there should be others all doing similar delayed “mooching” around
All the “groups” illicit arms haven’t found a way to circumvent customs due to updated legislation so presumably are being offloaded at sea and are working it out now. Probably drop transponder and rename the ship while en route too.
[sits back with bucket of popcorn]
I've been keeping an eye on this ship ever since [I noticed it last in Southampton.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectricVehiclesUK/comments/1oj7f6l/a_lot_of_byd_cars_arriving_in_southampton/). It's been loitering off the coast of Spain for days now.
Here's the link to the ship. Click on 'track' to see its recent positions.
https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9993949
Don't know if you noticed but there was a big storm over the weekend and it's moved towards Spain. The Bay of Biscay is extremely rough right now and isn't fun sailing at the best of times. Lots of shipping has been delayed by it.
I've been on the Bay of Biscay during a storm. We'd have capsized if we went past 45 degrees, maximum lean was 44.7 That would have been fun with 15 - 20 foot waves.
Some hella big waves out in the Bay of Biscay - particularly the last 10-14 days. The waves generated by Storm Harry reached the height of 5 story buildings, and the winds last night were hurricane force off Portugal. I don't know that this ship is doing, but even a container ship is going to feel those effects.
I remember the golden days of when Teslas first came to the UK. You'd be able to find out what ship yours was on and fanboys would be having meltdowns about why the ship was just sitting there, floating outside the port. As if a multi-billion pound freighter was taking its sweet time just to spite you.
Not just Teslas to be fair. Ordered a BMW three years ago and the specific model was then manufactured in Mexico. You can check the status online which gives you the date when it was shipped but not the ship details anymore.
I remember tracking down all the ships that left the port from Mexico around that date and were bound for the UK. Fun times!
Having just used the Azores to shelter from the storms in the Atlantic, I would guess its the weather.
Our SAT-C weather report says 10-15 meter seas at the moment...
Also if a ships not got a job they will often just sit at sea to save on costs being at the harbour, my grandad use to work on freighters and explained to me why lsrge ships were sitting there all day in the distance not moving.
Same thing all those other ships are doing, waiting for a berth to dock and unload. Whoever owns the cargo does a cost analysis comparing paying a premium to skip the line or paying for the ship for a few days and being at the back of the line, but the costs are all on the charterer once the ship gives notice that it’s ready to dock.
Being crew on a ship at anchorage is the worst. No sea breeze, stuck in the same spot, doing crap maintenance work that can’t be performed while underway.
OK so it's waiting to dock in Spain? I was confused because the destination is showing as Southampton, I hadn't considered that it might stop in other ports on the way.
I think it's actually hiding from the waves/swell. Look at Windy in Swell and Wave modes and it's the only place in the whole area that doesn't have massive swells and waves right now, the wind is a lot lower too.
This is 9 hours later I see but the weather has been up so I think it's still apples.
Hanging round the Bay of Biscay can be entertaining...:-
[Parts of the continental shelf extend far into the bay, resulting in fairly shallow waters in many areas and thus the rough seas for which the region is known. Heavy storms occur in the bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_biscay#Geography)
Both times I've been through it on a cruise, I was about the only person still sitting at the bar demanding gin. Everyone else was hanging over the rails returning their breakfast.
They do, but ports are so busy that they can't really be hanging out at the dock. If they were in a port controlled anchorage they may also have to pay so just loitering somewhere is cheaper, then when the time is right they will steam straight in to the port.
Not only had I wondered the same thing while waiting for a delivery recently, but I work for a coastal and ports consulting engineers so we have to know this stuff!
Would be my guess. You’ll see this outside most major ports. A large number of ships just loitering about waiting for their berth schedule. There’s a number of other reasons they are waiting, could be waiting on a pilot, could be waiting on 3rd party quality/quantity inspections to be complete, could be waiting on customs and immigration.
Test run out for something, new ship?, broken part repaired testing before they get on their way? Spare capacity waiting for something to be loaded and they have to keep moving out of the way for other vessels? Could literally be anything?
Ships wait for berths to become available all the time. Try looking off the coast of Hull/Immingham on Marine Traffic and you'll see loads of them waiting for a spot.
AIS could be set wrong, or she could be waiting for bunkers in Spain, could be weather issue and she’s taking shelter. Backlog in the port of Southampton but seems unlikely as we usually drift closer to the port.
It's a roll-on, roll-off car carrier with a capacity of 9,400 cars and owned by BYD so is probably full of Chinese EVs.
There's likely to be quite a bit of paperwork to check, plus with the storm that's been passing it might have been waiting in a relatively sheltered area for the storm to pass. Or, as others have suggested, it's simply waiting for a berth. Although that length of time would be odd.
I don't know if its still true or not, but the cost (port fees and insurances) to be anchored / in port used to be much much higher than being on the water in motion, so a lot of ships if they are ahead of schedule, or have nowhere specific to be would go for a few loops in calm seas, away from the shipping lanes.
This is genuine curiosity, not animosity or to be degrading: why does it matter?
And the rest of you answering, how the fuck do you know so much about maritime affairs??
It doesn't matter of course, but I find the move to EVs interesting and BYD seems to be dominating the market, especially since they own their own fleet of ships. Also I live in Southampton so it's interesting from the point of view of the local economy.
It's something that, on an intellectual level, I know is important but somehow I've had literally zero overlap with the maritime services outside a friend who left school to join Merchant Navy
There's currently a big storm passing over the area that the ship is in, most of the boats there are hanging around to wait it out for a couple days. So yeah, normal boring reason
I don't know the answer but I am happy there's someone else out there who likes to nosey at ships too, everyone always talks about the plane trackers but no-one ever brings up the ship ones :(
The captain is shy and can't dock if people are looking.
Or could just be like one of those things airplanes have if they miss their landing/take-off slot they have to wait around for an opening, and un/loading cargo ships takes a while.
I have worked in Oil and Gas - most of the time it’s just waiting for the right size berth to free up before it can dock.
If it’s transporting LNG, sometimes it will wait off the coast if the analysts think the market price of the LNG will rise over the next few days, so that it only docks when the price is right
The cruise I went on last year had to cancel one of the port days when the port shut due to bad weather. We headed back towards Southampton on that extra sea day and I think spent the final sea day sailing round in circles.
Probably an issue at the port/backlog due to weather. Looks like it's moved into position a few times to enter port, and had to wave off. Currently looks like it's positioned itself again to move into port again
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