It was a big day in the Port today, October 6, with three cruise ships and some more usual and unusual traffic.
The three cruise ships were the Zuiderdam, Queen Mary 2 and Brilliant Lady. In order to accommodate all three at one time the Brilliant Lady anchored and ferried passengers ashore by tender while the other two ships took up the entire length of the Sea Wall (Piers 20 to 22).
The Brilliant Lady, anchored in the lower harbour, used its port side tenders, (I saw numbers 10 (shown below), 11 and 12) to transfer passengers to and from the landing stage at Pier 24.
Also arriving in the morning was the tug Atlantic Fir towing the semi-submersible heavy load barge Boa Barge
As the tow was shortening up off the Shipyard a McNally Marine crew boat sped past on its way to the Shipyard construction site of the new Pier 6.
The barge is used to transfer components from Woodside fabrication site to the Shipyard, but more notably as the launch platform for new ships. The first of two Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel variants for the Canadian Coast Guard is in an advanced state of construction, and for the first time, has been assembled entirely indoors. (The naval AOP Vessels were built in blocks and the three mega blocks were joined outdoors.)
When the newest ship, to be named CCGS Donjek Glacier is rolled out it will be loaded onto the Boa Barge 38 and floated off in Bedford Basin. The barge was moved to Sydney Harbour last year to provide space for construction of the new Pier 6 at the Shipyard.
It was quiet in the harbour until late in the afternoon, when there were four departures and one arrival in quick succession.
The first departure was the Zuiderdam on its way to Sydney. It is a near weekly caller during the cruise season.
Next along was the auto carrier Morning Lily arriving for Autoport.
Built by Hyundai, Ulsan in 2011 it is a large PCTC of 70,687 gt, 27,283 dwt and has a capacity of 8,011 CEU. In a carefully arranged meet in the main channel, it made a starboard to starboard pass with the outbound Queen Mary 2.
The camera lens made the ships look closer that they probably were, but even so it was unusual to see two such large ships so close together in the same channel (and making some odd overlaps).
Next along was the coastal tanker Algoscotia en route to Sydney, NS. It arrived October 4 at Imperial Oil, then yesterday, October 5, it moved to Pier 9B, likely for some maintenance work that could not be done at the oil dock.
Next away was the MSC Sena clearing the PSA Atlantic Hub, Pier 42 for Montreal on MSC's Canada Express service from Western Europe.
The ship arrived off Halifax yesterday and was due to take a pilot at 1530 hrs. Tugs were standing by in the harbour, but seemingly at the last minute, the ship put back to an offshore anchorage. It did take a pilot at 2330 hrs and docked after midnight.
Built in 1996 by Halla Inchon, and completed by Halla Samho (now Hyundai Samho), it started life as the ZIM Sydney, and was renamed Rhein in 2000, E.T.Albany in 2002, CMA CGM Egypt in 2004, MacAndrews America in 2006, E.R.Albany again in 2007 and finally settled on MSC Sena in 2013. It is a 30,280 gt, 44,215 dwt ship with a capacity variously reported as 28111 to 2825 TEU.
The ship is headed for Montreal, and although I did not see the ship yesterday, it apparently off loaded enough cargo to reduce draft significantly. The St.Lawrence River has very low water levels this year, due to the severe drought in the region. The ship's after deck, usually used primarily for empties, is completely bare.
There was other harbour activity, which I may be able to catch up on tomorrow.
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