Big Arrivals

 A couple of big ships were among the arrivals in Halifax this morning, May 14. 

The container ship CMA CGM Marco Polo docked at PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway with the last of the morning's fog retreating. 

The ship is still the record holder as the largest container ship to call in Halifax, established May 17, 2021 on its first visit here.

Built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co Ltd, Okpo, the 176,546 gt, 187,625 dwt ship has a container rating of 16,020 TEU. Sister ships CMA CGM Jules Verne and CMA CGM Alexander von Humboldt have the same container capacity rating, but are listed at 186,470 dwt, making them slightly smaller (on paper at least).

On the other side of the harbour the heavy load carrier and semi-submersible ship GPO Grace arrived from Aviles, Spain and docked alongside the offshore installation ship Orion at the IEL dock in Woodside.

Often used to transport oil rigs, this time the GPO Grace is carrying wind farm tower components. Built by the CSBC Corp in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 2017, it is a 49,091 gt, 63,581 dwt ship with a large clear deck and the capability to submerge the deck 15 meters beow the sea surface.

The GPO Grace is one of four sister ships operated by the Norwegain copmany GPO Heavylift AS.

Also Norwegian operated, but at the other end of the size scale is another of this morning's arrivals. Viking Polaris is a Polar 6 class expedition type luxury cruise ship of 30,114 gt. Its passenger capacity of 378, with  256 crew, although small by cruise ship standards, makes it one of the larger cruise ships to visit Antarctic waters.

Already this year the ship has visited Lunenburg, Louisbourg, Magdalen Islands, Toronto, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Port Alfred, Sept-Iles and Charlottetown. It will continue making trips from New York to the Great Lakes (with many stops en route) until September when it sails for Ushuaia, Argentina for another Antarctic season. 

In December 2022 while on an antarctic cruise, the ship encountered a rogue wave and one passenger was killed by broken glass and four injured.

The ship's hull and superstructure was built at the VARD Shipyard in Tulcea, Romania and towed to Aalesund, Norway where it was completed by VARD Soviknes in 2021. 

 

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