Pijlgracht delivers - part 1 - UPDATED

 The Dutch flagged heavy lift cargo ship Pijlgracht tied up at Pier 9C first thing this morning (July 25) and within a couple of hours had offloaded a shrink wrapped mystery package from its number one hold.

Instead of landing the object on the pier, it was instead placed on a small flat deck Royal Canadian Navy barge on the ship's offshore (starboard) side. (All the nachinery on the pier is from previous ships, including last week's Morning Concert.)

 

  The barge, YC 601 was then hustled away to HMC Dockyard by the tug Glenbrook with the assistance of the Pup tugs Granville and Listerville.

The Pijlgracht's movements over the past month give little clue as to the nature of the package. The ship transited the Panama Canal May 26 and was next reported in the Chalmette and New Orleans area July 11-14, before reaching Jacksonville July 18 to19.

The Pijlgracht is an unusual Spliethoff ship, because it was not orginally built for the company to its own proprietary design.  Instead it was built in 2011 by Hudong Zhonghua in Shanghai as the Beluga Progression. The Beluga company failed amid corruption charges and the ship was accquired by Hansa Heavy-Lift (HHL) the same year, and renamed HHL Lagos. 

Spliethoff acquired the assets of HHL in 2019 when that company also failed, They named the ship for one of the many canals in their home port of Amsterdam. Spiethoff has seven sister ships of the same design, built in 2010 and 2011 and called their P14 type.

The ship measures 17,644 gt, 19,379 dwt and carries three cranes. The one 180 tonne SWL crane is fitted forward on the starboard side. The other two, each rated at 700 tonnes, can work in combination for a 1400 tonne lift, and are mounted on the port side (hence the 14 in the type name).

The ship has two holds with full length folding hatch covers and portable tween decks. The smaller forward hatch opening is 22.94 m long and the large number two hatch opening is 82.4m long, unobstructed. The ship is built to carry heavy loads and is also rated for 912 TEU. Spliethoff and partner company BigLift have become not only heavy lift specialists but also "special cargo" specialists, catering to unusual or delicate cargoes such as humidity controlled materials, luxury yachts, and wind farm components.

The ship will remain in port over night, and may have more cargo to unload tomorrow - if so Part 2 will have more details. 

Update #1

The mystery cargo was a bow sonar array for a submarine - thanks to a reader for passing along this info.

Update #2

The Pijlgracht moved out to anchor in Bedford Basin on the evening of July 26 to make way for the RoRo / Auto Carrier Tarifa to land its cargo July 28.

The Pijlgracht passes through the shadow of the A. Murray MacKay bridge en route from Pier 9c to Bedford Basin anchorage.

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