Grand and Great

 Ships' names can be an interesting topic for speculation, particularly as to what is behind certain names.

This morning, April 25, the tanker Great Thita arrived from Antwerp for Imperial Oil. 

 "Thita" seems to be an alternative spelling for "Theta" the eighth letter in the Greek alphabet, but that is about as far as I can go. The ship is owned by a single ship company of the same name, and managed by TB Marine Management of Hamburg, operator of forty plus tankers, bulkers and container ships.

The ship's blue hull colour was not apparent when it arrived, due to backlighting, but its figure 8 design on the funnel was visible. That may be tied to the placement of "theta" in the alphabet. The funnel also appears to be large enough to accommodate an exhaust gas scrubber system.

 The Great Thita was built by New Times Shipbuilding Co in Jingjiang, China in 2020. It is a 30,237 gt, 49,276 dwt MidRange 2 type chemical/product tanker.

A mid-morning arrival was the auto carrier Grand Sapphire from Southampton on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen North Atlantic service.

The ship made its way inbound to Bedford Basin, where it turned and proceeded to Pier 9C, starboard side to the dock.

The ship was built in 2007 by Toyohashi Shipbuilding in Japan and measures 52,197 gt, 18,099 dwt and has a capacity of 6400 CEU.

Owner is listed as Dynamic Attractive Shipping SA, with management by Cido Shipping Korea Co Ltd. Cido is Hong Kong based with offices in Tokyo and Busan and has 65 ships under management. Another autocarrier company, Grimaldi uses the "Grande" prefix in its ship's names, but the two companies are unrelated.

After unloading RoRo cargo at Pier 9C the ship moved to Autoport to unload cars.

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