RoRo and PoPo updates

 There are some updates to yesterday's long post:

RoRo

The latest Roll On operation at Halifax Shipyard proceeded today, December 6, as scheduled. The sixth and last of the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels for the RCN was rolled onto the Boabarge 37. The ship, for now called AOPV 435, was carried aboard on a flotilla of SPMTs (Self Propelled Modular Transporters.)

The tug Atlantic Larch stood by alongside the barge to ensure that it stayed in position during the transfer. 

Once safely aboard the barge, the ship, on its cradles, was lowered down onto the barge deck. (The SPMTs show as a thin red line, and the cradles are gray.)

The barge will remain alongside Pier 6 overnight, then tomorrow it is due to move out to Bedford Basin where the barge will semi-submerge and the ship will be floated off. (So in this case I guess it is not a RoRo but a RoFo operation.)

Once the ship is completed it will be handed over to the RCN to be fitted out and will be commisisoned as HMCS Robert Hampton Gray.

While all this was going on ceremonies were underway on the high ground just behind the shipyard on Fort Needham. This was the annual commemoration of the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917 which leveled the north end of the city. An estimated 1,782 people died and 9,000 were injured. 

As part of the commemoration ceremony, bells on a memorial structure on Fort Needham rang shortly after 9 am and ships in the harbour sounded their horns for a prolonged period as they did in 1917. That futile warning could not prevent the massive eruption of high explosives on the ship Mont Blanc which caught fire after colliding with Norwegian ship IMO. The explosion took place where the Shipyard's Assembly Hall stands today.

Also during the Roll On operation the lead ship of the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel  program HMCS Harry DeWolf AOPV 430 transited the Narrows, returning to HMC Dockyard from exercising in Bedford Basin, with Dockyard tugs to assist in docking.

Built at Halifax Shipyard it was launched from the same barge on September 18, 2018 and was commissioned into the RCN on June 26, 2021. The ship has recently returned from a trip to the Great Lakes, including the ports of Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor. A similar trip last year had to be cut short due to a COVID-19 outbreak onboard.

The ship's namesake, Vice Admiral Henry George DeWolf CBE, DSO, DSC, CD , was born in 1903 in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and was a survivor and certainly a witness to the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1918 and rose through command appointments to Chief of the Naval Staff. One of his World War II commands was HMCS Haida which is preserved in Hamilton, ON, one of the ports the ship visited in October.

PoPo 1

On the other side of the harbour, and well to the south, the articulated tug / barge Leo A. McArthur / John J. Carrick resumed "Pumping Off" operations this morning at Eisner's Cove. The pair had moved out to harbour anchorage last night due to high winds. The mooring arrangement for the tug and barge consists of a small deck barge across the end of the Cherubini dock, which carries the piping ashore. Any breach in that connection could have very undesirable consequences, so no chances are taken when high winds are forecast. The barge's cargo of asphalt is pumped ashore to the General Liquids Canada tank storage facility.

 PoPo 2

An addition to the Pump On Pump Off category is yesterday evening's arrival at Imperial Oil. Seen only partially in the background is the YASA Pelikan. Built in 2019 by Hyundai Mipo, it is a typical LongRange1 size ship of 29,681 gt, 50,215 dwt. It appears to be owned by the Turkish company YASA Tankers, and operates in the Equinor tanker fleet. (Equinor ASA, formerly Statoil, is the Norwegian state owned petroleum giant.) It is unloading refined product from Antwerp at Imperial Oil's number 3 dock. It is worth noting that it did not move out to anchor due to winds, so the dock's new mooring arrangements seem to be doing the job.

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