The UK Club have received the attached circular from local correspondents Huatai, regarding vessels making contact with fishing nets in Ningde waters in China.

QUOTE

In the past 15 days, four similar incidents on contacting with fishing nets occurred in the Ningde waters where the foreign ship always chose to drop anchor to wait for berth of Ningde Port or Kement Port of Fujian Province. Two of the incidents were handled by our Xiamen office while the other two were not. These incidents caused the ship's propeller twined by the fishing net, some fishermen attended onboard irrationally and rejected to disembark before settlement.

As per our local resource, the above waters are not the regulated anchorage for the ship and it's not marked in the sea chart. But due to the local anchorage is small or occupied by the small ships, the big/foreign ship always has to choose to drop anchor at this area.

It's unusual that several similar incidents occurred in a short period consecutively and these incidents also give rise to the local port authorities' attention.

UNQUOTE

For more information please get in touch with your usual Club contact.