Morning Pilot

 Today, Sunday, September 15, the car carrier Morning Pilot followed the now familiar routine of docking first at Autoport to offload automobiles then moving to Pier 9C to unload RoRo cargo. This is the second such caller in recent days with Wallenius Wilhelmsen's Tiranna docking at Autoport and Pier 9C on Thursday September 12.

By the time I arrived back in Halifax on September 12 the Tirranna had already tied up at Pier 9C so I did not get a photo of the ship underway. It was in the process of discharging the usual variety of wheeled vehicles for construction and forestry work, and one unusual "vehicle" - a shrink wrapped helicopter on a MAFI trailer.

I was more fortunate this evening and was able to catch the Morning Pilot northbound in the Narrows, turning in Bedford Basin and southbound back to Pier 9C to dock starboard side to the pier.

The tugs Atlantic Oak and Atlantic Maple (operating in reverse mode) shepherded the ship through the Narrows northbound.

 

With the sun rapidly sinking behind the Bedford Hills, the tugs squared up to slow and then to turn the ship.

Once turned and headed south, the ship passed CSL's Baie St.Paul loading gypsum at the Gold Bond dock in Burnside.

 

 As the ship clears the A. Murray MacKay bridge it is apparent why this movement is necessary. The stern ramp is skewed to starbaord and not adjustable, so the ship must tie up starboard side to the dock. The side ramp may not be large enough to accommodate the RoRo cargo.

The Morning Pilot was built in 2014 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Ulsan, registering 65,276 gt and 22,675 dwt and has a capacity of 7627 CEU*. It is managed by Wilhelmsen Ship Management (Korea) Ltd and is running on Wallenius Wilhelmsen's transatlantic route.

The Tirranna dates from 2009 and was built by Daewoo Shipbuilding + Marine Enginerring Co in Okpo. The 71,659 gt, 30,089 dwt ship can carry 7620 autos of RT43* size and is fitted with a 320 tonne stern ramp.

* The term CEU for Car Equivalent Units and RT43 are used by RoRo carriers to represent the standard size of an automobile. Dating back to the first dedicated car carrier, the unit represents a  1966 Toyota Carolla of 4 x 1.5 meter size. All cars and other RoRo cargo are thus rated as a percentage of CEU or RT43 for cargo stowage planning purposes, so a very small Sub-compact may be a 90% CEU or RT43 and a large car such as a HUMVEE may be 150% of a CEU or RT43. The term is thus a useful one to compare the capacity of different ships, but may not represent the total number of cars on board on any given voyage. When the ship is carrying large sized RoRo cargo, the figure may be even less representative. In those cases the ship's capacity may be quoted in "lane meters" or "lanes in meters" (LIMS) which may also account for variation in lane widths between ships.

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