Pax and Box

 The two main "commodities" in the port of Halifax in the autumn of the year are passengers (Pax) and containers (Boxes).  The cruise lines try to avoid the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean by sailing north to New England and eastern Canada. September and October are usually the busiest months, but the lines seem to be getting off to an early start this year, after two years of shut down.

Container lines usually see an increase in traffic in the early autumn too as retailers stock up for the Christmas buying spree.

Today, August 30, was another "two cruise ship day" with the now familiar Nieuw Statendam arriving from Boston, Portland, ME and Saint John, NB.

The 99,902 gt ship, built in 2017 by Fincantieri, Marghera, can carry 2,666 PAX and 1,053 crew. The Pinnnacle class ship has 1,339 passenger cabins and 589 crew cabins, so sharing is required for a "maximum persons onboard" total of 4,173 souls.

The Nieuw Statendam picked up its pilot at about 0900 hrs, giving the first passenger ship arrival, at 0630 hrs, the Norwegian Pearl, time to tie up, get clearance for passengers to disembark, and to clear the parking areas of a lot of the first armada of buses and taxis. 

Departure times were similarly synchronised with Norwegian Pearl sailing at 1630 for Portland, Maine and Nieuw Statendam sailing at 1930 for Corner Brook, NL.

 The Norwegian Pearl 's cruise also originated in Boston. It then proceeded via Charlottetown, PE and Sydney, NS to Halifax. The 93,530 gt ship was built by Meyer Werft, Papenburg in 2006 and carries 2,394 passengers and 1,099 crew.

As far as the box commodity is concerened much of the activity was concentrated at the southend terminal, PSA Halifax's Atlantic Gateway.

ZIM Monaco embarked its pilot at 0600 hrs and tied up at Pier 42 shortly after 0700. The ship is on ZIM's ZCA (Atlantic) run from the Mediterranean.

It is a 40,030 gt, 50,775 dwt ship built in 2009 by Samsung, Koje, with a capacity of 4,253 TEU.

Pier 41 (the northern portion of Pier C, and with the largest cranes) was left vacant for this afternoon's arrival MOL Charisma a 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt ship with a capacity of 9060 TEU including 630 reefer plugs. 

Working for THE Alliance's EC5 service, and eastbound, the ship would normally have docked at Fairview Cove. However with the two terminals now under common PSA management, the operators have the option of  berthing ships at the most convenient location. It is possible that the ship's air draft exceeded the harbour bridge clearance requirements, since it did appear lightly loaded (by draft).

It was widely speculated that when PSA took over the operation of Fairview Cove that it would shuffle  the lines with the larger ships to the Southend and those with smaller ships to Fairview Cove. Aside from the occassional "one-of" shifts such as this one, no permanent moves have been detected yet.

MOL Charisma was launched by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki in 2007. It was delivered as APL France and operated with that name until 2010 when it reverted to its orginal name.

Footnote

The Eimskip charter Vantage did indeed sail late this morning after working containers at Pier 42. The ship arrived from Reykjavik on Friday, August 26, ostensibly on the Green Line route to Portland, ME. However the ship moved to Pier 36 where it was idle until this morning. Meanwhile Eimskip's regularly scheduled Green Line ship Skogafoss arrived yesterday, and seems to have picked up some of  Vantage's cargo before sailing to Portland. [See previous posts]

(File photo from Jume 11, 2022)

Eimskip's schedule shows the ship on Green Line service, arriving in Thorshavn, Faroes Islands on September 7, then shifting to the Purple Line service running between the Faroes and Scrabster, in the north of Scotland.

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