Tugboats

Maddy and I went for a cycle along past the Hawes Inn today. We stopped and had a bit of a picnic while we were out. I was going to commission Mads to do a blip birthday card when we got home for my shot today but I figured that I've done so many indoor ones recently that I'd better not waste the opportunity of an outdoor one.

This is a shot of the three tugboats at Hounds Point. Hounds point is a loading station for Oil tankers. Oil is piped in to the station from the North Sea oil fields and tankers sail into the forth to be filled up with oil to transport round the world. Due to the depth of the Forth, in particular a channel on the North side of it called Mortimers deep, some of the biggest tankers in the world can fit in and the estuary provides a sheltered berth for them to fill up at. Supposedly the station can fill even the largest tankers in just 24 hours.

The three tugs shown here Hopetoun, Crammond and Dalmeny are obviously to help the tankers slow and turn in the confines of the Forth. According to the boat trip you can take from the Hawes Pier in Queensferry out to Inchcolm Island the Hopetoun (which is the tug on the left) is the most powerful tugboat in Europe.