Busy Day

 Today, July 28, was a busy day in the harbour with both civilian and military shipping activity. Among the arrivals were a US Coast Guard cutter and a Danish frigate.

USCGC Bear WMEC-901 is a Famous class, medium endurance cutter, based in Portsmouth, VA.

Sun angles and the tug Atlantic Willow conspired to prevent a clear view of  the arriving USCGC Bear.

The famous previous vessel after which it is named had a Halifax conneciton. The US Revenue cutter Bear was a "wooden wall" built in 1874 as a sail/steam sealer, that served in Alaska for many years.It then worked for Admiral Richard Byrd in Antarctica and for the US Navy in Greenland during World War II. After the war it was acquired by Shaw Steamships of Halifax for use as a sealer. In 1963 "Pop" Shaw sold the ship to a restauranteur from Philadephia. It departed Halifax March 16, 1963 in tow of (the first) Irving Birch but sank 90 miles south of Cape Sable after the tow line parted and the ship wallowed out of control.

The current USCGC Bear, fitted with sophisticated sidescan sonar, located the wreck in 2019 and it has since been confirmed and exensively mapped and photographed from an ROV in 2021. (Sea History Issue 178, Spring 2022 has more detailed information.) Since the wreck is in Canadian territorial waters discussions are underway between Canada and the US on how to protect it.

His Danish Majesty's Ship Triton F358 arrived in the early afternoon at HMC Dockyard.

 

The 3500 ton displacement vessel was launched in 1990 by Svendborg Shipyard and commissioned in  1991. It is a Thetis class frigate, one of four in the RDN, tasked with "maintenance of sovereignty, search and rescue, fishery inspection and support to local (mainly Greenlandic) authorities. The operation areas are normally Greenland and the Faroe Islands, but the vessels also operate near Iceland on transit between Greenland and the Faroe Islands, and near Denmark". [quoted from Wikipedia]

 

A third naval vessel movement involved the submarine HMCS Windsor which had been occupying the sound range anchorage below York Redoubt for the last day or two. This morning navy tugs Glenevis, Listerville and Merrickville assisted the sub in getting underway.

 

As the sub got underway, it was clear enough to see the containership One Hangzhou Bay  in an offshore anchorage.

There were two much larger ships in port today - both in the 140,000 gross tons range, and both in excess of 300 meters in overall length.

First in was the Royal Caribbean Cruises ship Adventure of the Seas with a calculated gross tonnage of  138,193 tons and an overall legth of 311 meters. To cater to its 3,807 passsengers and to operate the ship, there is a crew of 1,185. The ship was built by Kvaerner Masa in Turku, Finland and delivered in late 2001.

The topmost of the ship's fourteen decks tower over the Pier 21-22 buildings.

On sailing this evening, the ship made an impressive sight even though there were no nearby objects to give a sense of scale.

 

The other large ship was the late afternoon arriving CMA CGM T. Roosevelt arriving directly from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

 Tugs alongside are usually a nuisance to photographers, but the ship is so huge, they hardly matter. The stern tug is "putting on the brakes."

 

The truly large ship of 140,872 gt, 148,992 dwt and 366.96 m overall length, has a capacity of 14,414 TEU. It was built in 2017 by Hyundai, Ulsan, and is one of six sister ships operating for the Ocean Alliance of CMA CGM, COSCO, Evegreen and OOCL from Asia to North America via the Suez Canal. CMA CGM acquired Neptune Orient Lines, owners of American President Lines, in 2016. They have retained the presidential naming scheme and still operate a US branch now called APL with US flag ships.

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