Tannhäuser

 The Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean autocarrier Tannhäuser had a mostly uneventful stay in Halifax yesterday to today (August 5-6). It arrived first thing yesterday morning and docked at Autoport to unload cars. Then in the early evening it moved to Pier 9C to unload RoRo cargo.

By late morning today it had disgorged a vast array of the usual farm / forest / mine / construction machinery. There was still some machinery left from the previous Pier 9C caller, Don Pasquale on August 3, but most of the gear was offloaded today.

The Tannhäuser was built in 2020 by Tianjin Xingang in Tianjin, China and is one of the Hero class of 73,358 gt, 24,155 dwt of large car and truck carriers (LCTC) with a 320 tonne SWL stern ramp and a capacity of 7656 CEU (RT43 cars). Based on the amount of machinery it unloaded here, it was carrying far less than the maximum number of cars on the usual transatlantic route, from Zeebrugge, Bremerhaven and Southampton. As a new ship it made its first North American call here in Halifax April 9, 2021 [see Shipfax post from that date.]

The Tannhäuser is operated by the Wallenius half of the partnership, whose ships are named after operatic characters (in this case a legendary Germanic underworld poet from the Richard Wagner opera of the same name.) Wilhelmsen ships also have names beginning with the letter "T", but those are typically place names.

On completion of work early this afternoon the ship sailed for New York and made its way through the usual "recreational" traffic in the harbour. Once clear of the lower harbour, it made for the western deep water channel to allow the inbound tanker East Coast to use the main (eastern) channel.

 

Both ships used their horns to warn small craft to stay clear, but despite repeated short blasts and one very long blast (10 seconds or more) from the Tannhäuser, one stubborn small craft refused to give way and sailed blithely on toward the Northwest Arm, straight across the path of the ship.

 

I don't know if the ship initiated stopping procedures, but it may have done. From my position at Ferguson's Cove, it was difficult to tell as I was seeing the ship from almost bow on.

 

 

It is nothing short of amazing that the boater, who was out on deck steering, was seemingly not aware that a ship was bearing down on him and that he was putting himself and the ship at risk by his actions. Not only was he endangering his own life by being run down, but he was potentially putting the ship in danger too:

- small craft (even if under sail) must give way to larger ships because the small craft are more agile, and thus easier to move quickly. Also as they are of much lighter draft, they can proceed to shallower water if needed. (The old saw that sailing vessels have the right of way has been a myth for a century.) Of course this boat was not under sail at all. It was apparently motoring under ignorance, indifference, bravado, intoxicants (or all of the preceeding.)

- big ships cannot steer effectively at slow speed. (That's one reason they use tugs in the harbour - doh). If they have to slow down, or even reverse, it takes a long time for the ship to "lose way" (meaning to slow down to a stop) and the ship could well wander out of the channel and run aground because its rudder is ineffective if the ship is going too slowly.

- big ships often have "no where to go" - they may be in a narrow channel, can't stop or reverse quickly or move out of the way. Small boats in the same area will have none of those restrictions.

In today's incident , there was the added factor of the incoming tanker, meaning the Tannhäuser could not move to the other channel - it was already committed to the western channel.

- a "crash stop" which is the last resort for a big ship to avoid a collision, can cause serious damage to the ship's engine. If the damage is serious enough the ship may then loose engine power completely and wander out of the channel into other traffic, run aground, etc.,

I hope someone reading this is able to identify the small boat in question and offer a few words of advice to its operator - perhaps in writing, because his hearing is impaired (mine nearly was as I was almost in direct line of the ship's horn). If he belongs to a yacht club, it is time for another reminder to its members that the "rules of the road" apply to them.

 

The boat should be easy to identify - it has a light robin's egg blue deck and cabin, and a prominently displayed six digit number on the hull below the cockpit. It was also flying a Nova Scotia flag and appeared to have only one person aboard (who did not have a shirt). Although it hoisted sail a few minutes later it was under power with an inboard engine at the tme of this incident and was heading in the direction of the Northwest Arm. (Can't blame Dartmouth or Bedford for this one.)

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