The year 2019 brought another varied shipping scene to the middle Thames region covered by #dlr_blog whilst in the Royal Docks the continuing London City Airport programme created the majority of vessel activity.
The overall number of visiting vessels did reduce, especially military visitors, with almost half of these visitors being Royal Navy Archer Class patrol vessels again but especially nice to see HMS ENTERPRISE visit the Thames.
There were about the same numbers of Cruise Ship visitors this year with a number making multiple calls and within the group were a couple of new visitors.
The Royal Docks had the biennial Defense & Security show again which brought in a number of larger vessels but not much else of note among the regular visitors across the remainder of the year.
The SHIP OF TOLERANCE art-work did spend over a month in various parts of the Royals.
London did not host a specific Tall Ship event in 2019 but the Thames saw a few interesting sail visitors, notably the Argentinian Navy’s ARA Libertad.
A few vessel statistics for 2019 (some vessels visited more than once):
- Bulk cargo ships visiting Thames Refinery – 25 (24 Import / 1 Export)
- Naval vessels – 31 (of which 8 attended DSEI)
- Cruise ships – 24 (several making multiple visits)
- Sailing ships – 18
- Luxury Yachts – 15 (including two carrying helicopters)
- Visitors to KGV Lock – 250 (many of these were multiple visitors and i might have missed a few!!)
In conclusion 2019 had a number of interesting first time visitors across a number of different classes of vessel. 2020 promises a few new events in the #dlr_blog area and it will be interesting to see what these bring in vessel movement terms.
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