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> Tall ships back
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   Oxford and
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The largest cargo vessel ever to call at the Port of Tilbury docked at the end of October 2013.

Koutalianos arrived to collect 50,000 tonnes of barley destined for Saudi Arabia, sourced in the South of England.

The massive shipment came as part of the contract the Port of Tilbury has with Glencore Grain UK Ltd.

Boasting a 37 metres' beam, weighing in at 93,000 tonnes and measuring 230 metres in length – the size of two football pitches laid end-to-end
– the Koutalianos is the largest vessel
in deadweight terms that Tilbury has ever handled.

...and London Gateway its largest container ship

The new London Gateway Port welcomed the largest container ship ever to enter the Thames at the beginning of January. The 366-metre long Gudrun Maersk arrived with goods from the Far East.

It's 7am, and the Yasam Rose departs from Gravesend carrying 1,200 tonnes of sand. This is equivalent to 50 lorry loads that would otherwise be clogging up this London roads causing havoc and delays.

Instead, the cargo vessel sails through the middle of London and arrives at its Battersea destination in just 3.5 hours. No queues, no traffic, no hold-ups. This is the everyday story of the UK's busiest inland waterway for freight.

"Using the river is a much more economic and efficient way of moving bulk material," said John Lovett of building materials company, J.Clubb Ltd. "Three million tonnes of goods were moved throughout 2012 – that's the equivalent of 175,000 lorry journeys!"