Until next year … 2024, Another Big Shipping Year!

Well, that was quick. One minute I was looking through my lens at the new DP World crane at the very end of 2023; the next I’m taking pictures of the last cruise ship in Freo for 2024. Where has the year gone?

I’ve been looking back over the past 12 months and marvelling at our wide and varied coverage of ships here in the Shipping News. Ships from all over the world. From Japan to Norway, China to Croatia, Sydney to Singapore, we’ve criss-crossed the world, and didn’t forget our local pilots and tugs.

Queen Mary 2, Fremantle 2024, credit Jean Hudson

We’ve reported on all 32 Cruise Ships that visited Fremantle during the year. We had Royal visits – Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth, Island Princess and Crown Princess and Virgin’s adult’s only Resilient Lady maiden voyage left Fremantle stirred not shaken. AIDAsol’s smiling face is always a crowd pleaser. Several cruise ships had maiden voyages to Fremantle and we farewelled the Pacific Explorer and P&O cruises from Australia.

Shirase, Fremantle 2024, credit Fremantle Shipping News

We’ve welcomed several Chinese and Japanese icebreakers and research vessels from the southpole and other places on our beautiful planet—
Umitaka Maru, the orange coloured Shirase, the red Xue Long and 7 Ocean.

We kept you up to speed on the sheep ships stuck in port; the South Mole closure and reopening and the whole campervan free-camping debacle. There was dredging and dolphins; and the plummeting Parry St pedestrian overpass.

CMA CGM Volga, Fremantle 2024, credit Les Moyle

The usual fleets of commercial vessels came and went. We welcomed CMA CGM Volga, the largest container ship by TEU volume, 300m long. Lots of Ro-Ros, painted every colour of the rainbow and other supply vessels.

STS Leeuwin, Fremantle 2024, credit Jean Hudson

In August we brought the heart breaking news that the STS Leeuwin had been demasted and significantly damaged.

ARM Cuauhtemo, Fremantle, 2024, credit Deanna Shanahan

A stunning Mexican tallship, the ARM Cuauhtemo stole the show, her crew dressed the yardarms like nothing we had seen before, well not for a few years anyway!

I hope you enjoyed reading about these wonderful ships as much as we enjoyed taking pictures and putting articles together– but it’s more than that – it’s the human connection that these ships give us; meeting the crew and the passengers and learning where they have come from.

Happy holidays, Shipees!

Keep safe on the sea over the holiday period.

Over and out for 2024!

* By Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey. Jean is our Shipping Correspondent and also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* If you’d like to COMMENT on this or any of our stories, don’t hesitate to email our Editor.

** WHILE YOU’RE HERE –