Vistula Maersk

 The joint Maersk / CMA CGM North Atlantic service changed three of its ships in the spring of this year, and the "new" ships are now regular callers. I am sure I will have many opportunities for pictures, and in ideal conditions, but so far the ships are still novelties and I like to get pictures when ever I can.

Today July 23, it was the second visit of Vistula Maersk en route from Montreal back to Europe. I did not get an "underway" photo on its first visit one month ago. See Shipfax June 23 so I made a point of being on hand for this arrival.

The tug Atlantic Willow is about to come alongside as the ship approaches. A second tug, Atlantic Oak has already made up on the starboard side.

The 34,882 gt, 40,000 dwt ship was built in 2018 by COSCO (Zhoushan) Shipyard Co in Zhoushan, China and has a capacity of 3600 TEU including 600 reefers. Built for Baltic feeder service, it is an ice class vessel and became available when world events altered trade routes in the region.

As the ship approaches the southend terminal, the tugs are in position to turn the ship to berth starboard side to the pier.

The sister ship Vayenga Maersk and the CMA CGM Montreal join the EM Kea on the weekly service. CMA CGM calls the service "St-Laurent 1" and Maersk calls it "CAE" (Canada Atlantic Express). Port rotation is Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Montreal, Halifax and back to Bremerhaven. Halifax tends to be an optional port, depending on weather and demand, but the ships manage to keep up the weekly Saturday arrivals very consistently.

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