Morning and Afternoon

 There were two first time ships in Halifax today (November 30). One arrived yesterday afternoon, and one this afternoon. The combination of short daylight hours and driving rain meant that I was not able to photograph yesterday's arrival until this morning. Appropriately for a morning photo, it was the EUKOR autocarrier Morning Lucy.

The ship docked initially at Pier 31 in Halifax to unload RoRo cargo, then moved first thing this morning to Autoport to unload cars. It is on a regular Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean transatlantic Europe to North America route. 

Morning Lucy was built in 2009 by Hyundai Samho in Mokpo, South Korea. A 68,701 gt, 28,080 dwt ship it has a capacity of 8,011 cars and can also carry substantial RoRo cargo. It is owned by the cryptically named S332 International SA of Panama. (S332 is the ship's hull number assigned by the  builder). The ship's technical manager is Wilhelmsen Ship Management (Korea) Ltd and its commercial manager is Eukor Car Carriers Inc (which is owned by the four car carier companies, Wallenius, Wilhelmsen, American RoRo Carrier and United European Car Carriers).

The second "new to Halifax" ship is MSC Silvana arriving this afternoon at PSA Halifax on the Indus 2 service. It is the seventh ship to arrive on that service since it was started last month. Built in 2006 by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co, Okpo, it is a 94,489 gt, 114,115 dwt ship with a capacity of 8400 TEU. 

As the ship came in, it passed Kotor Bay which is anchored offshore and is the next ship scheduled in the Indus 2 (weekly) service. MSC Silvana was initially due November 18, and has been hove to or drifting offshore since at least November 25. Presumably PSA must handle MSC Silvana's import and export cargo before working Kotor Bay which was due November 25 on the same Indus 2 service. 

Bad weather must account for at least some of the schedule slippage. I do note that one MSC ship, the MSC Leigh, was diverted from anchorage off Halifax yesterday to Saint John to lighten its draft before heading up the St.Lawrence. I assume this was done to prevent further delays and congestion in Halifax. 
With winter soon upon us, schedules will certainly be stretched and ships may be forced to bypass Halifax altogether. 

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