The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior returned to the River Thames on Friday 20th November and Wavecrest Ltd were once again asked to asked to look after the port agency arrangements during her stay in the port of London.

The Rainbow Warrior had sailed up from Spain in atrocious weather (gale force ten and heavy swell) and the multi-national crew were happy to catch up on some well earned sleep!

Over the weekend of 21st/22nd November the Rainbow Warrior was open to the public in West India Dock, London.

On 25th November she will be heading to Leith (Edinburgh), Scotland and will again be open to the public during the forthcoming weekend.

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Two more unsual visitors to the River Thames

Rainbow Warrior visit to Thames and Medway 2008

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This month has seen another two unusual visitors to the River Thames, or to be more accurate West India Dock, London.

West India Dock has not been used for handling cargo since the 1980’s and is now used for the mooring of historic vessels, visiting warships and other non commercial vessels.

As an example of the type of vessels calling at West India Dock, Wavecrest Ltd recently handled the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior.

The first of the two recent visitors pictured above is the Logos Hope.  She was originally built in Rendsburg, Germany in 1973 as the passenger car ferry Gustav Vasa and used to operate a regular service from Malmo in Sweden to Travemuende in Germany.

Later she was sold to owners in the Faroe Islands and renamed Norrona. She operated regular ferry services between ports in the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. She was  renamed Norrona I when her owners purchased a newer replacement vessel.

The current operators of the Logos Hope, Operation Mobilisation (OM), a Christian Missionary organisation purchased the vessel in 2004 and spent nearly five years converting her into the world’s largest floating bookshop.

The bookshop sells a very good selection of books for all ages and tastes at competitive prices.

OM estimate that more than one million people around the world visit the Logos Hope and her sister vessel the Doulos each year.

The Logos Hope will be open to visitors this weekend (27th/28th June) before sailing on Monday for her next port of call Kingstown, St Vincent.

For further information about the Logos Hope please click here.

The second of the two visiting ships could not be more different! It is the Royal Australian Navy Adelaide Class guided missile frigate HMAS Sydney.

She was commissioned in 1983 and is currently on a six month deployment with the HMAS Ballarat showing the flag around the world.

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We are saddened to hear the recent news that one of our competitors, Eggar Forrester Agency Ltd, a well established and respected port agency company operating in the Port of London has become the latest casualty of the recession.

Eggar Forrester Agency Ltd was part of the Eggar Forrester Group which can trace it’s origins back over 100 years.

The agency division based at Tilbury had been operating since the early 1980’s and was mainly involved with handling shipments of forest products from North America.

Wavecrest Ltd  provides a 24 hours, 365 days a year agency services for vessels calling at the port of Tilbury and other berths on the River Thames as well as support for offshore wind farm and construction projects in the Thames Estuary.

Please contact us for further information or assistance. E-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk or Tel: 0870 720 1130

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On the 18th October, Greenpeace’s iconic flagship vessel the ” Rainbow Warrior ” arrived at West India Dock in the port of London for the start of an eventfull two and a half week visit to the UK as part of the  ” Give Coal the Boot ! ” campaign.

Wavecrest Ltd has provided port agency services for Greenpeace vessels making courtesy visits to the port of London for a number of years.

Our work involves a wide variety of support activities including booking of pilotage, customs clearance of the vessel, liaison with the UK Border Agency (Immigration), assistance with crew travel arrangements, co-ordination of stores deliveries, arranging repairs to the vessel etc.

During her stay in the UK, the ” Rainbow Warrior ” was open to the public at West India Dock, London and Southend Pier and despite typically inclement British weather, attracted several thousand visitors.

Greenpeace’s ” Give Coal the Boot ! ” campaign hopes to prevent the construction of new coal fired power stations around the world and to promote more environmentally friendly energy solutions such as the Kentish Flats and London Array wind farms in the Thames Estuary.

To this end, the ” Rainbow Warrior ” undertook a peaceful ” invasion ” of the Kingsnorth Power Station jetty on the River Medway. The owners of Kingsnorth Power Station (EON) are proposing to build a new coal fired power station which, if it goes ahead, will open in 2015.

The Captain of the ” Rainbow Warrior “, Mike, writes an interesting regular blog detailing the ship’s latest activities - http://mikemate.wordpress.com

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One current visitor is the motor tug ” Danasund ” registered in Svendborg, Denmark. 

The ” Danasund ” arrived at Denton Wharf, Gravesend on the River Thames from Le Havre towing a jack up rig called ” Skate 3 ” (pictured above).

The ” Danasund ” and ” Skate 3 ” will be working for several weeks at the construction site of the new London Gateway container terminal at the former Shellhaven oil refinery in the Thames Estuary.

Wavecrest Ltd has many year’s experience of handling vessels involved in offshore projects such as the Kentish Flats wind farm and is ideally located for future developments such as the London Array wind farm.

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