The wind is here. I’d thought it would be stronger. Above all it’s gusty. Gusts into the 40ies – but nothing like the storm that came through over Anholt in early June 2024. Back then the wind was screaming. Today the gusts press the boats over onto their side, but no more than that. Still, quite clearly not weather I’d want to be out in with a ten-metre sailing yacht.
None of this troubles the big ships. Strung out like beads on a necklace, they file through the Great Belt as if there were no wind at all. The DanPilot pilots leave the harbour here, open the throttle to the next big ship, a pilot climbs aboard and takes it through the Belt, where he’s picked up again.
The next one to pass, I look up on the AIS. A tanker by the name of Spartan, departed Paradip, India, on 2 June, expected to arrive on 6 July at its destination port of Primorsk, Russia. Shadow fleet. It sounds as though it happens in secret. And yet the ship shows on the AIS like any other, the pilots board as they do for any other. In broad daylight. It was just the same back in the summer of 2024.
