Shipping Lines - Many timber cargoes have been logged out of Montrose

Chinese-built, Portuguese-flag Aland loaded logs at the North Quay, Montrose port.

A news cutting from the pages of the Montrose Review of October 6, 1983, headed ‘Timber has always played an important role at Montrose’ still rings true today, with a 4000-tonne shipment of softwood logs having left the Angus seaport in early March of this year bound for the German port of Rostock, writes John Aitken.

That particular cargo departed in the holds of the Portuguese-flag short sea trader Aland, registered in Madeira. The original article, written over four decades ago, was based on information gathered by the late David Duncan a well-known source of local harbour history.

This recent consignment had been assembled over a short period on the North Quay via a regular procession of timber-laden trucks. The 7,056-ton deadweight Aland, built in China by Qingdao Hyundai Shipyard at Qingdao 2007 and 117 metres in length is an example of the steadily expanding Portuguese merchant fleet, with another smaller vessel of similar registry, the Vertom Eva, seen at the same berth a few days later.

For interested ship watchers, there has been sufficient maritime traffic through the port to take up their attention since the start of the year, with ships of interesting backgrounds including some from shipyards in the Low Countries and Germany.

For example, the CEG Cosmos which reportedly arrived round from the West Coast harbour of Kyleakin. Quite noticeable on the North Quay, her red and white livery stood out quite clearly against the grey harbourside properties. CEG Cosmos along with her sister ships CEG Galaxy and CEG Universe spend much of their trading time around the Western Isles, Irish Sea ports and Corpach near Fort William in the log trade as well as transporting fish meal from west of Ireland sources. The CEG Cosmos was built by the Husumer Dock and Repair company at the German port of Husum in 1983.

For the keen harbour observer there has been plenty of interest in the cargo shipping over the past few months after a rather slow start to the year. What appears to be a German or Dutch ship with the relevant crew could well have a far different background.

Take as an example Tucana, apparently registered in Heerhogovaard but built by the Nevsky Shipyard and Shiprepair Plant at Shlisselburg in Russia in 2008. A coaster with an apparent UK connection was the Fluvius Plym, now registered at Bridgetown, Barbados. Students of Latin will recognise the first word in the name as meaning river while the second is the watercourse which enters the sea at Plymouth. The Exe Shipping Company based at Newton Abbot in Devon previously named their fleet after rivers in the West Country.

The Bonabelle was another product of a shipyard in China, having been constructed by the Dutch-owned Damen international conglomerate shipyard in Yichang in 2001. Then it was back to European shipbuilders with the older Eurica, flying the flag of Latvia having been built in Russia in 2000 at the Yantar shipyard at Kaliningrad on the upper Baltic. During the period described a number of other modern coasters appeared including Robijn from the Kampen shipyard of Peters.