Marine Atlantic

 With news that the newest ship in the Marine Atlantic fleet has arrived in North Sydney, at least one of the long ago former ferries is en route to the scrap yard.

The new ship the Ala'Suini arrived in North Sydney April 20 fresh from the builders, CMJL, Weihai Shandong via Cape Town March 21-22 and Las Palmas April 7-13. The ship replaces the chartered  Atlantic Vision on the North Sydney - Argentia route (seasonally) and will work the North Sydney - Port-aux-Basques route as needed in winter. Atlantic Vision sailed from North Sydney, April 4 and arrived in Lindoe, Denmark April 17 where it will be reconditioned.

A former Marine Atlantic ship that served from 1975 to 1986 has been sold for scrap in Europe. Built by Rickmers, Bremerhaven in 1975, it was launched under the name Stena Atlantica but delivered as Marine Atlantica to Canadian investors for charter through Roylease, to CN Marine (predecessor to Marine Atlantic). 

 It operated year round on the North Sydney-Port aux Basques run as a passenger / car / truck ferry.

In 1986 the charter was terminated and as Marine Atlantic was formed as a crown coporation, the ship was old to Italian owners. It was renamed Corsica Vera in 1986, but was again renamed in 1987 as Sardinia Vera. In 1995 its gross tonnage was revised from  5441 gt to 12,107 gt. This was likely due to its car deck re-designated as a watertight deck under new regulations. Also sponsons were added to the hull, but above the water line. These would not be large enough to account for the entire tonnage increase, but may be related to buoyancy requirements.

It has now been reported sailing from Vado Liguri, April 26 and is due in Aliaga, Turkey May 2 where it will be scrapped.

Sister ship Marine Nautica, with a similar history, is also reported sold for scrap - details to follow in another post.

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Cruise, Cruise, Cruise and More

 Although it is still early in the season, there were three cruise ships in the Port of Halifax today, April 27: Viking Polaris, Volendam and Norwegian Pearl.

Viking Polaris was back for its second visit. After its first visit April 10 it has covered a lot of territory:  Trois-Rivières April 25, Montreal 16, Toronto 17-18, Montreal 20, Trois-Rivières 21, Quebec City 21, Port Alfred 22, Sept-Iles 23, and Charlottetown 25. It is now off to New York City and will not be back again until August 17.

The 30,114 gt ship, built in 2022 by Fincantieri carries 378 passengers and 256 crew. It sister ship Viking Octantis was here April 18 [qv] en route to a summer's cruising on the Great Lakes.

While in port, the ship discharged some refuse to a barge and exercised its Zodiacs. The workboat / landing craft Tidal Runner was doing tug duty with the barge.

 

Volendam

 A ship that will become a familiar sight in Halifax this year made its first ever call in Halifax today. Volendam, built in 1999 by Fincantieri, Marghera is a member of the Rotterdam class, measuring 60,906 gt with a capacity of 1432 passengers and 647 crew. It replaces sister ship Zaandam which had been calling in Halifax since 2019. The two ships have exchanged routes with Zaandam now doing Alaska tours.

Volendam will take up the east coast run out Boston to Portland, Halifax, Sydney, Charlottetown, Magdalen Islands, Quebec City, Montreal. The latter is a terminal port also. From there, with a new contingent of passengers the ship retraces its way back to Boston via the same ports including Halifax. In all it will make 20 calls in Halifax between now and October 15 when it will make a Mediterranean round trip from and to Fort Lauderdale, its winter base.

Norwegian Pearl was today's first arrival but I did not catch a glimpse of it until it was outbound and then as it was "going away."

 A 2006 product of Meyer Werft, Papenburg, it is a 93,350 gt ship carrying 2,394 passengers and 1,099 crew. (It was refurbed in 2017). Unusual for a cruise ship, it is eastbound transatlantic, sailing from New York April 25. After Halifax it is scheduled to stop in Reykjavik, Belfast, Cobh-Cork, Isle of Portland (Weymouth), Le Havre and finally Southampton May 9.

It was interesting to see how much smoke the two older ships made as they picked up speed outbound.  I don't know if either ship used shore power when they were in Halifax, but I hope they weren't making that much particulate when in port.

And More 

There was other activity in the port today too:

At Autoport the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean auto carrier Tijuca arrived from Southampton and sailed for New York.

Dewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co Ltd built the ship in 2008 at Okpo. A 71,673 gt, 30,089 dwt ship, it can carry 7620 RT43 cars and is equipped with a 320 tonne capacity stern ramp and a small side ramp. It has the usual rounded superstructure forward, but its bridge structure is elevated three decks above the weather deck, which is at least one deck, if not two decks, higher than most autocarriers. While this must improve forward visibility, it is not a feature taken up on newer ships.

Both container terminals were working today. At the South End Container Terminal it was EM Kea on the Maersk / CMA CGM St.Lawrence route from Montreal for Bremerhaven.

 At Fairview Cove it was an 0900 hrs departure for the overnight caller Delphinus C, the former NYK Delphinus. A Dedalus class ship of 55,487 gt, 65,950 dwt, it has a capacity of 4922 TEU. 

One of several sister ships on THE Alliance's AL5 service it arrived yesterday afternoon from Saint John, NB after its usual string of calls from Port Everglades, Panama, Los Angeles, Oakland and back to Panama, Cartagena and Saint John.

 

The tug Atlantic Bear worked the ship all the way through the Narrows as stern tethered escort, ready to pull or brake if needed

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Grand and Great

 Ships' names can be an interesting topic for speculation, particularly as to what is behind certain names.

This morning, April 25, the tanker Great Thita arrived from Antwerp for Imperial Oil. 

 "Thita" seems to be an alternative spelling for "Theta" the eighth letter in the Greek alphabet, but that is about as far as I can go. The ship is owned by a single ship company of the same name, and managed by TB Marine Management of Hamburg, operator of forty plus tankers, bulkers and container ships.

The ship's blue hull colour was not apparent when it arrived, due to backlighting, but its figure 8 design on the funnel was visible. That may be tied to the placement of "theta" in the alphabet. The funnel also appears to be large enough to accommodate an exhaust gas scrubber system.

 The Great Thita was built by New Times Shipbuilding Co in Jingjiang, China in 2020. It is a 30,237 gt, 49,276 dwt MidRange 2 type chemical/product tanker.

A mid-morning arrival was the auto carrier Grand Sapphire from Southampton on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen North Atlantic service.

The ship made its way inbound to Bedford Basin, where it turned and proceeded to Pier 9C, starboard side to the dock.

The ship was built in 2007 by Toyohashi Shipbuilding in Japan and measures 52,197 gt, 18,099 dwt and has a capacity of 6400 CEU.

Owner is listed as Dynamic Attractive Shipping SA, with management by Cido Shipping Korea Co Ltd. Cido is Hong Kong based with offices in Tokyo and Busan and has 65 ships under management. Another autocarrier company, Grimaldi uses the "Grande" prefix in its ship's names, but the two companies are unrelated.

After unloading RoRo cargo at Pier 9C the ship moved to Autoport to unload cars.

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Orion - big crane in demand

 The crane ship Orion, a familiar caller in Halifax last year, made a "non-working" visit today.

Its 5,000 tonne capacity main crane dominates the skyline, even when the boom is secured in the down position. 

When the ship was here last year it loaded monopiles then installed them at the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusets. The ship then returned to Vlissingen, Netherlands where it made preparations for another monopile installation project off Scotland. Working out of Invergordon, it installed twenty-nine monopiles, each weighing 2,000 tonnes over a two month period on the Moray West project.

Its arrival in Halifax early this morning was for a crew change, which was accomplished in an hour or so, with boat(s) from Dominion Diving.  The ship did not anchor, but used its Dynamic Positioning system, to remain motionless. On completion of the transfer, the ship spun round on its own axis and headed for sea.

The ship is destined for Norfolk, VA where it will work to install 176 foundations for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project for Dominion Energy. (Installation work for the Vineyard project is now being done by the ship Sea Installer working out of Sydney, NS.)

The Orion was built in 2019 by COSCO Qidong, China. It is a 58,203 gt, 60,575 dwt ship with a payload capacityof 30,000 tonnes. In addition to the 5,000 tonne capacity crane it also carries a 1,500 tonne capacity auxiliary crane. It has an accommodation capacity for 160 persons, expandable to 239 persons.

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Partings

 Normally I avoid "going away" photos - particularly if I have decent photos of the ships already. However today, April 23, was a day for departures as far as my camera was concerned, and as there was something noteworthy about the ships, I clicked away. 

First off was the tanker CB Pacific which made a very brief call at Irving Oil's Woodside terminal. It arrived in the evening of April 22 and sailed at noon today, the 23rd, after a stay of just over twelve hours, giving the destination of Montreal.

 It was an unusually short stay in port, and as the ship sailed it appeared to be lightly loaded.

The ship was here previously March 21 to 22 unloading at Irving Oil, then went to anchor until March 25. I noted the ship has a "turtle back" over the fore deck, an unusual feature for a tanker. Since that visit the ship has been to Boston, New Haven, Albany and New York.

When the ship was here in March, its covered covered fore deck was noted.

Departing from Autoport the Wolfsburg is destined for Davisville, RI. This was the ship's second trip to Halifax since it was delivered in November 2023 by Guangzhou Shipyard International. The 69,470 gt, 19,203 dwt ship has capacity of 7,000 Car Equivalent Units on thirteen decks. Unusually for a newer auto carrier, it is fitted with a side ramp.

 On charter from SFL to Volkswagen it is a dual fuel ship, capable of burning LNG or conventional fuel. Unlike its sister ship Emden that was here last week, it did not emit plumes of black smoke. The ship arrived yesterday (April 22, photo below) from Volkswagen's export facility in Emden, Germany.

Also sailing today, April 23. from PSA Haifax Atlantic Hub, ONE Cygnus on THE Alliance's EC5 service, took two escort tugs, Atlantic Oak and Atlantic Bear.

ONE Cygnus was built by Japan Marine United in 2019 and is the last of the ten ships of the bird class. All but ONE Cygnus and ONE Wren were built with NYK prefixes, but they have now been renamed with "ONE", as they are all working for the Ocean Network Express, the joint venture of the principal Japanese container lines (NYK, K-Line and MOL). [As an aside it is interesting to note that there was already a "Swan" in the group - NYK Swan built in 2017 and renamed ONE Swan in 2020; cygnus being the Latinized Greek name for the swan: cygnus atratus.]

The 146,694 gt, 138,611 dwt ship is rated at 14,026 TEU. Its last port was Colombo, Sri Lanka, and it apparently sailed non-stop via the Cape of Good Hope.

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First Grain - Algoma Mariner

 The self-unloading bulk carrier Algoma Mariner arrived in Halifax April 19 with the first load of grain from the Lakehead this year. Starting from Montreal where it spent a brief maintenance period from March 13-30, the ship made its way up the St.Lawrence Seaway and arrived in Goderich April 3 presumably for a cargo of salt. It then proceeded to Thunder Bay where it offloaded then took on the grain load for Halifax.

On arrival in Halifax the ship tied up at Pier 26 where it discharged, using its own machinery, into the hopper connected by conveyors to the grain elevator.

On sailing today April 21 the ship gave a destination of Lower Cove, NL. There it will load limestone, an ingredient in steel making, and will return to the Great Lakes, likely to Hamilton, ON.

Atlantic Bear assists the Algoma Mariner off the dock April 21 and in the background the tanker Wicky Spirit (see yesterday's post) unloads at Imperial Oil.

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Wicky Spirit - next in line

 A first time tanker caller in Halifax anchored in the lower harbour today to wait its turn at Imperial Oil. The Wicky Spirit is a member of the McKeil Tankers Ltd fleet that usually serves the Great Lakes and St.Lawrence region.

 

Better known for its tugs and barges, McKeil Marine has expanded into dry cargo and tankers in recent years. The company, based in Burlington, ON was founded by a Nova Scotian, Evans McKeil, and passed to his son Blair McKeil. In 2016, the venture capital firm TorQuest Partners made a major investment in the company allowing it to broaden its interests. In November 2023 the Greenwich, CT based Astatine Investment Partners added McKeil Marine to its portfolio with the intention of making further expansion.

The Wicky Spirit is a 8,660 gt, 13,947 dwt chemical /product tanker built in 2008 by Gisan Gemi in Istanbul. An ABS Ice Class 1A twin screw ship it can carry clean or dirty product and carries its own nitrogen generator for inerting, and deck mounted tanks for tank washing slops. It was built under the name Turqoise-T and was renamed Turquoise I  for a time in 2019 before it was sold to McKeil and renamed.

    The Wicky Spirit is named for Robert Wickens an NTT Indycar racer sponsored by Petro-Canada Lubricants. McKeil has a sister ship named Hinch Spirit (ex Topaz-I, ex Topaz-T) , named for another NTT Indycar racer, James Hinchcliffe. McKeil Tankers carries Petro-Canada product and thus promotes its relationship with Petro-Canada.

The Wicky Spirit was in Europe from October 2023 to March 2024 at the Gryfia Shipyard in Szczecin, Poland and on return to Canada loaded in Nanticoke, ON and Sarnia, ON then headed for Halifax.

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