PIRATES OF THE SOLENT! – THE CURSE OF THE MARCO POLO…

INTO THE DARKNESS!

Its almost pitch black along Cowes seafront on the Isle of Wight on a dreary December evening back in 2012. I’m sitting in the van with Scott Gardner peering across the Solent, both desperately trying to make out the ghostly silhouette of the biggest container ship in the world heading into the mist out as she heads up the channel.

The plan to shoot Scott windsurfing in front of this beast was abandoned an hour ago when we heard the Marco Polo had been delayed leaving port and by the time it would depart it would be too dark to shoot in the dying breeze. I had a picture in my mind of capturing a tiny windsurfer up against the hull of one of these enormous mega cargo ships and Scott seemed to be reading me on the same wavelength. 

Words & Photos John Carter 

We were both gutted. We had been prepared and all rigged up for three hours prior to the scheduled sailing and our anticipation had built and then been scuppered. As this massive manmade wonder disappeared into the darkness we headed home dejected with no idea when our next opportunity would come round again.

Fast forward nearly two years and any hopes of catching the Polo had been cast out of the window. Slightly nerdy I know, but I had made a point of checking the cruise and container ship schedule each time I was home on the Isle of Wight, but this elusive ship hadn’t even returned once since its inaugural voyage from Southampton. It was time to instigate Plan B instead, a journey that took us on a rollercoaster of hit-and-miss missions back and forth to Cowes with a similar aim, but different list of objectives. This time round, the new list included at least one of the Cunard fleet of Super Liners, any majestic, white cruise ship and the biggest container ship we could hunt down. With plenty of boats heading in and out of the port during the summer surely this tiny list would not be present too many problems. The Polo seemed to have eluded us since that dark December night in 2012 but this new trio of Super Ships was sure to present a swashbuckling adventure in the abyss of the Solent!.

A PAIR OF QUEENS

So now its early June 2014 and perusing the shipping schedule both of Cunard’s, Queen Victoria cruise ship followed by the Queen Mary 2nd were due to leave port around 4.30 p.m. on the 7th. There was just about enough wind forecast up until 6-ish, but then dying fast at 7 p.m. onwards. As long as everything was on schedule, we were in with a shot of securing our first target.  So at 4.30 p.m., bang on the dot, we were on the parade, rigged and ready waiting for the distinctive black hull of Queen Victoria to appear beyond Calshot on the other side of the Solent. Our parking spot was perfect – smack on the front of Cowes esplanade with a little slipway down into the water, the logistics could not be easier. We had chosen our location directly in front of the turning circle for the shipping lanes so we knew for sure that the vessels would come out of Southampton water and arc round in front of us before heading up to the NAB tower at the end of the Solent. By 5.15 p.m. we were still sat on the wall like a couple of lemons with no sign of any ship in sight. A few passing walkers kind of looked at us strangely wondering what we were up to, just sitting around with a windsurf rig on the pavement and my camera on the tripod ready to roll?

A quick scan of the port of Southampton web site revealed that both ships were delayed. The Victoria had weighed anchor at 4.40 p.m. and the Mary was not due to set sail until 7 p.m., darn it! Five minutes later I spotted the red funnel of the Queen Vic heading along Southampton water with the rest of the ship obscured by trees. At last it was game on. I dispatched Scott into the water, with a few rough guidelines where to sail and hoped that common sense would prevail and he would not do anything stupid. Fall in the path of one of these beauties and there is not much a captain could do, even if he managed to spot a tiny windsurfer in the path of his 1000 feet long vessel! Less than half an hour later Scott was back on dry land as the ‘Queen Vic’ headed out up the Solent. It was all over that quickly. With the wind dying fast we decided to head to the Woodvale pub on Gurnard Esplanade for a debrief and a few pints of grog. On our way home as we passed along Cowes front, we watched the Queen Mary 2nd slip out through the channel but the wind was down to zero by now and we had to let this one slip away.

THE SHANGHAI EXPRESS

Two days later, a solid force 5-6 south-westerly was forecast, perfect for our next target – a massive German container ship – the Shanghai Express. Built in 2013, ironically by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan Korea (Just round the corner from the PWA World Cup event site), this huge vessel is owned by leading global shipping company Hapag Lloyd. ‘Shanghai Lil’ as we nicknamed it is a beast of a ship, 48 metres wide and an almighty 366 metres long and was sure to make a daunting backdrop as Scott made his approach. Despite being 30 metres short of the Polo, the Shanghai Express still ranks as one of the biggest container ships on the planet so hopefully was going to provide a spectacular back drop to Scott’s relatively tiny 8m Tushingham and Starboard Carve 133L. For mission two we tried to be more efficient and didn’t even leave home until five minutes before the scheduled departure time. We reckoned if we raced across the island we could be in Cowes, rigged and ready for a one-on-one up against this monster without having to wait around.

With the wind set to build we had no worries about that at least, Scott was most likely going to be hanging on for dear life, but we could not take any chances with a smaller rig especially if he made any mistakes in the boat’s path and the wind suddenly died! Rigged and ready we waited on Cowes parade once again. When the ship finally started to appear through the trees along Southampton Water my initial reaction was something along the lines of “Oh Jesus Christ look at the size of that!” Or words to that effect! Laden with thousands of brightly coloured containers, this enormous black beauty was slowly creeping out of Southampton Water towards us bathed in the morning sunlight. Scott duly blasted out into the ruffled waters of the Solent on a direct line towards the hull of this ridiculous craft. Like a man on a mission Gardner was pushing to sail as close as possible but was spotted by the harbour master who was clearing the way and forced him to take a wide birth right on the turn. Just shy of four football pitches in length, once Lil had turned and was racing up the Solent parallel to the shoreline, there was no way I could fit her in the frame of my camera using my big lens. With Scott’s tiny sail blasting down the side, it was a truly awesome comparison of scale between the windsurfing rig and the 140,000-tonne super container. As this giant ship disappeared down the Solent at least we scooped another batch of shots and our jigsaw was almost completed. We were starting to find a groove with capturing these big ships and our confidence was rising. This time round two café lattes were required to wash down a huge slice of carrot cake doused in cream for our ‘Shanghai Lil’ debrief as we celebrated our conquest.

THE RUBY PRINCESS

I kind of fancied catching a massive white cruise ship to complete the set of shots and with a decent forecast and Carnival’s Ruby Princess set to sail on the Monday after the IOW pop festival we decided to have one last stab at capturing our prey. With a kind of mushy onshore wind and dreary skies, we were at our usual spot and went through the motions but despite having over 1200 crew on board, nineteen decks, 1500 guest rooms and measuring in at over 1000 feet long, this ‘booty’ just wasn’t ticking the boxes for me when compared to the Shanghai Lil.

As we were packing up, I was kind of feeling down in the doldrums, so decided to do one last check on the Southampton Port website. Scanning down the ‘size of ship’ column I suddenly had to take a deep breath as my heart momentarily stopped when I spotted 396m length monster in the list. “Shiver me timbers” I exclaimed to Scott. “The bloody Polo is due in port in two days’ time, she’s on her way up as we speak, en-route from Tangiers” It was this moment that I realized I was in the midst of a strange addiction with these ships. Had I become a serial ship spotter? Oh blimey!

THE MARCO POLO

After coming to terms with my self-proclaimed obsession with the Polo we both knew we had to take any chance we could to unleash my canons on her way into port. Who knows when the next opportunity would arise? Like a bunch of pirates we planned our attack. There would be no room for mutiny or any scallywags on our crew, everything was going to have to be shipshape if we were going to capture this mighty bounty.

The CMA CGM Marco Polo is an Explorer class ship, an almighty 396 m or 1198-feet long and able to hold 16,000 twenty-foot-long containers. To put that into perspective, all lined up they would stretch 97 km. or 60 miles! Imagine 5.5 Airbus A380s all nose-to-tail and that is approximately the length of this ogre of a craft. Catching the Polo on her way into port would present a different challenge to the outbound departure. Luckily thanks to the live Marine Traffic web site I was able to keep track on every movement the Polo was making as it headed out of the Gibraltar Straights, round the coast of Portugal and up past Spain and France. Come the morning the Polo was due in, I could now tell she was off of Ventnor and reckoned I would be able to spot here from the cliffs in my local bay. Sure enough, through my binoculars I could make out the huge white CMA CGM on her hull as this wonder of a giant steamed across the horizon. Almost trembling, I grabbed my phone and informed Scott that the beast had arrived.

By the time Scott had made it down to the beach to pick up the windsurf equipment the Polo had already rounded the NAB tower and all of a sudden we realized that we were cutting it fine to be rigged and ready when she rumbled up the Solent. With everything flung into Scott’s van we hit the gas and made it to Egypt Point in Cowes in record time. With no sign of the Polo, for some reason we became complacent again. Scott was screwing in the fin on the board and the sail was still in the van when, all of a sudden, I spotted the gigantic hull of the Polo creeping past the towers of Osborne House towards us over towards East Cowes. In a blind panic we both tried to assemble the gear as the Polo steamed closer at an alarming rate. At this point we had not even bothered to check the wind assuming there would be plenty. Today we faced an onshore north east breeze, probably only about 10-14 knots and when factoring the strong Solent tidal currents we were rolling the dice. With all the components slung together this was the best we could manage. Scott didn’t even have time to put on his wetsuit and raced out into the water while I loaded fresh memory cards into my canons. To say we were cutting it fine was an understatement. Now the big question was could Scott even plane or make it upwind before the Polo hit that all important turning circle? By this time I was in a cold sweat. If we blew this opportunity I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope with the fact we had two days to be ready for this and not been prepared. The Polo was set to depart the following evening at 10 p.m., in the dark, so this was our one shot and it had to count.

Finally Scott hit the water with the Polo almost upon us. I knew I was going to struggle to score a shot with the whole ship and my 500mm lens, but as she came close to the Cowes shoreline broadside, I was shocked to discover I couldn’t even squeeze the whole boat in with a 70mm lens and my full frame sensor. I needed the ship to turn and be at an angle before I could catch Scott and the whole boat all in one. All this panic was kind of a shame because I had no time to stop, take a breath and just admire the sheer magnitude and scale of this massive manmade 175,000-tonne hunk of steel.

Finally lady luck seemed to shine our way as the Polo turned right on cue with one of Scott’s passes. ‘Fire in the hole’ I whispered before blasting off a few frames, I was pretty sure I nailed a decent picture at last. Finally the sweat started to evaporate as the worst of the pressure was over! For the next 10 minutes Scott lashed his way back and forth across this gigantic freak of a vessel and then it was all over once again as the Polo churned around the corner up into Southampton water. It was a real rollercoaster ride. One minute everything is so intense with that precious window when everything is in line and then a moment later it is all gone with no way of clawing back that time frame. But the Polo was in the bag!

Our last move was the obligatory après ship debrief, this time back in Sandown with a four-rasher bacon roll, lashings of ketchup (No brown sauce? Ed.) and a mug of steaming tea! Now that the mission is complete, I can finally let go of the daily scouring of the planned shipping departures and hopefully move on with my life.

Unfortunately since that murky night when the Polo sailed off into the dark, rival company Maersk several launched the Triple E container ships each clocking in at 399 metres and a ridiculous 58 metres wide. As far as I know none of these brutes have been into Southampton to date so the Marco Polo would have to do us for now. As far as I know the VTS port authority was given permission to dredge nearly half a million cubic meters of mud between the new terminal and Marchwood (Hampshire) to widen the channel so it can handle these bigger ships, so watch this space.

BON VOYAGE

Scott does not know this yet, but I am not done with these boats completely. Once you become a ship spotter, it’s in your blood, curdling away and now I know there are even bigger fish in the sea, I will be striving to net some of these from new angles and new perspectives. I can’t wait to be shouting ‘Aye, aye captain, ship ahoy!’, but for the meantime I’ll be keeping my weathered eyes open, me hearties. But for now it’s ‘three sheets to the wind’ and maybe I’ll spend some of my hard-earned doubloons on a cruise?

SCOTT GARDENER

“A couple of years ago JC came up with the interesting idea of a windsurfer (smallest craft) verses a massive container (largest craft) man verses vessel!

Having lived in Cowes in the past, spending some time windsurfing and Sailing in the Solent I was more than happy to help out Carter with his slightly insane plan. My first flat was just back from the start line of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the west side of the balcony looked over Egypt point, so I know these waters well. I had previously windsurfed in its fast tides and busy seas so I was pretty up for the challenge. After rigging up I found myself having a bit of an adrenaline rush. Normally I windsurf happily in pretty big waves, but now I had a nervous twitch heading out into the Solent. ‘What the hell are you worried about Gardner?’ I thought to myself. I guess the size of these ships and the fact that if I fell in the wind shadow there was no way the Captain would be able to do anything to stop mowing me down was a justified cause for concern?

Carter wanted me to sail as close as I could to them. My mind then went into slight overdrive! What happens if I get sucked in to the massive props as she passes? Christ, what a way to go! In the end I just said to myself ‘stop it man get just out there! I never said a word of this to JC. To be frank it was quite a buzz to sail close to these massive machines feeling the low bass of the engines beating through me, all on the power of the wind too! Then to be able to bear away and sail down the length of such a vast ship made me kind of proud to be a windsurfer. It is still the cheapest and one of the fastest craft to put to sea on. However I must stress that this was actually a well worked-out plan studying the winds, tides and ships and that why it has taken us some time to put together! I can’t wait for Carters next crazy plan!”

If you are coming to the Isle of Wight and want to windsurf or give your kids some expert and qualified tuition check out Scott’s adventure water sports business: http://www.wightwaters.com

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