WEC Majorelle

1. WEC Majorelle conducts a compass swing in number one anchorage area Friday.

The story ends here for American Feeder Lines, with the sailing Friday of WEC Majorelle.  First seen here as AFL New England, the ship was to be the first in a fleet of coastal container ships providing a feeder service between major ports on the east coast of Canada and the US.
Unable to generate enough cargo out of Halifax, and even less return cargo from Boston and Portland, the service was finally terminated in April. With mountains of debt surrounding the operation the ship was finally impounded and sold at auction.
The new owners renamed the ship WEC Majorelle and she sailed on Friday September 14 for Casablanca. That port is a hub for West European Container Lines BV, a Dutch firm, formed in 2009, but with roots going back to 1978. It has expanded dramatically from short sea routes to incoporate about 20 different lines covering Spain/ Portugal, the West Indies, North and East Africa.
See more at http://www.weclines.com/
Most of their fleet appear to be small hatchless container ships similar to WEC Majorelle.

2. The launch Captain Jim comes alongside to disembark the compass adjustor, as the ship heads for sea.

AFL New England to be sold

1. AFL New England has been detained at pier 33 pending sale.

A legal notice appeared in the Halifax newspaper on Saturday advertising the sale of AFL New England by order of the Federal Court. The terms of the sale indicate that sale will take place prior to August 30 and the ship must be removed from pier 33 no later than September 15. Gibson & Canadian Global Inc of Montreal are acting Sheriff for the sale.
The sale is the result of the failure of AFL and the subsequent arrest of the ship for debts of the company.

2. The ship was anchored in Bedford Basin for some time until seized by AFL's creditors. 

AFL New England - sad story continued

June 14 marks the first anniversary of the arrival of AFL New England in Halifax for the start of a new feeder line to the US east coast. Unfortunately no one is celebrating. The saga of American Feeder Lines and the ship AFL New England reached a turning point while I was away. According to newspaper reports the likelihood that the ship's crew would run out of food hastened the Halifax Port Authority's decision to order the ship alongside pier 33. It had been anchored in Bedford Basin since AFL terminated its service, and I understand that numerous maritime liens were placed on the ship by various unpaid creditors.

1. AFL New England anchored in Bedford Basin in April - stormy times were ahead.

Since tying up the crew has been repatriated, although I do not think they have received all their back wages. The Halifax Port Authority has taken possession and is providing security/watchman services.
The owner of the ship is a single ship company and its only asset is the ship, so it will end up being sold to satisfy creditors. The company behind the shipowner would like to have the ship back and put it back in service, but is unwilling/unable to satisfy the liens and unable/unwilling to post a bond to cover them, and is therefore presumably willing to forfeit the ship. Whether he is eligible to purchase the ship by marshal's sale is a matter of legal interpretation.
The ship was bareboat chartered to AFL, and the owner probably does not feel responsible for any of the resulting mess. The judicial sale prpocess may take many months, and so for the time being the ship remains tied up at pier 33.
The unfortunate history of feeder lines running from Halifax has had some bright spots over the years, but there has always been the issue of finding enough traffic to make the service pay.  Most operations were discontinued because they could not generate enough business.
Here is a sampling of some of the earlier ships:

2. Bergfalck as it was then called, began a Halifax/ US East Coast feeder service in 1973 for Maritime Coastal Container Line. It ran for a few years, but the ship was renamed Berglind in 1977 and took up a charter with Saguenay Shipping, and the next year worked out of Iceland. It sank off Glace Bay in 1980 after a collision with the Danish cargo ship Charm.

3. Zim Container Lines started its own feeder service in 1977 with Zim Atlantic It ran between Halifax, Boston, Baltimore and Norfolk.

4. Zim Northland took over the service in 1978 and ran until about 1983.

5. The most successful feeder service was operated by Hapag-Lloyd using the Yankee Clipper, Starting in January 1980. It ran between Halifax, Portsmouth and Boston

6. Later repainted blue, the ship made its last trip in October 1993.

A strange theme runs through all these ships - every one of those pictured (except Zim Atlantic) was built by the J.J.Sietas shipyard in Germany.

Another short-lived operation was Searoad, operated by a Gloucester MA company, using the ship Grey Master in 1974. It was to provide a RoRo, truck trailer service between Halifax and Gloucester. The ship could carry 60 semi-trailers or 75 cars, but its initial thrice weekly service was cut back and eventually discontinued. 

7. Grey Master was a lovely ship, and could even carry 12 passengers.

8. Searoad  did not attract enough business and was gone in a matter of months.

AFL New England - paper does some homework-but more to do

1. AFL New England - not stranded but detained.

Following my mini rant the other day, a local newspaper did some more homework and spoke to both the International Transport Workers Federation inspector and the Mission to Seafarers (as I suggested) and confirmed that the crew had been paid.
Nevertheless the paper insists on using the word stranded. Well you can't win 'em all.
However there is more homework that I might suggest. I hear that there are maritime liens against the ship placed by a crown agency and a pier operator. This means that the ship is effectively detained in Halifax until the liens are lifted. They could be lifted by paying outstanding bills or posting a bond to cover eventual settlement.
This sounds to me as if the operators (but not the ship's owners) have not been paying their bills, and the only recourse by debtors is to lien the ship. So the question remains, what is the status of American Feeder Lines? Are they in creditor protection, bankrupt or what? Do they owe money to others as well. If so, that would useful information in the Business section of a newspaper.
This could turn nasty for all if the operators turn out to have shallow pockets and no assets. The ship might get caught in the middle.

AFL New England Stranded. Says Who?

Crew members over the side and over the bow painting AFL New England this morning- hardly the sign of a "stranded" ship or crew.

An overly dramatic headline in a local newspaper today (which was picked up and broadcast around the world) claims that the AFL New England and its crew are stranded in Bedford Basin. Not only was the headline misleading but it is inaccurate.
Despite quotes from the owners of American Feeder Lines and the Port Authority the paper persisted in stating that the ship is stranded, with no evidence to prove that it is.
Stranded by the way, means either one of two things in maritime circles.
1. The ship is aground and cannot free itself.
2. The ship and its crew have been abandoned, unpaid, by the ship's owners or operators.
Since the ship is clearly afloat, the writer must have meant the latter, but he gives no evidence.
The idled ship and its crew have not been abandoned by its owners. If they had been, it would be unlikely that the crew would be out on bos'ns chairs painting ship as they were today (see picture above.)
The writer also gave no evidence of any research into AFL's business except an interview with AFL. Due diligence would have been to discover if AFL was in creditor protection, or bankrupt or in voluntary liquidation. There was also no statement from the ship's owners. Have they been bankrupted by AFL's closure? Have they been paying the crew? A quick call to the local inspector of the International Transport Worker's Federation or the Mission to Seafarers would answer this basic question.
Certainly since AFL has ceased trading the question of the ship's charter and who is paying would be an issue. Most charters run for a term and until it is resolved that the charterer is in default, the ship owner would be most unwise to bail out and remove the ship.
Also, until a new charter is arranged, what is the ship supposed to do? It has nowhere to go, so it might as well stay where it is. That hardly means it is stranded.
And finally the article does mention in passing that there is still cargo aboard the ship. If that is so, then the cargo will have to be unloaded or delivered at someone's expense. I hardly expect the ship owner to cough up that cost without some arrangement for compensation. In fact the ship owner may have the upper hand here, since he has possession of the cargo. In which case it is best for the ship to remain exactly where it is.
If the charter has been breached then the shipowner has a large claim against AFL which may well take time to resolve.
So in conclusion it was a particularly sloppy bit of journalism, regrettably all too frequent  in the local press over the years. A lack of knowledge on shipping matters and lazy research (two phone calls) is a pretty low standard for a paper in a major port.

  

American Feeder Line pulls the plug

American Feeder Line has packed it in, and will stop its Halifax/Portland/Boston service, due to lack of sufficient cargo.
The feeder line was set up to move Halifax containers to New England in competition with road and rail. Like several other lines that attempted to do this before, they were not able to generate enough traffic to make it pay. A promise of a loan from the Province of Nova Scotia was not enough to deepen the line's pockets (the loan was never used) and AFL states that potential investors have backed out.

The ship AFL New England remains at anchor in Bedford Basin. Its future is in doubt, and it will likely be returned to its owners- maybe with some debt load.

AFL still looking for cargo?

1. AFL New England arriving June 14.

The feeder ship AFL New England arrived June 14 and has been sitting at anchor ever since. This morning the ship moved in to pier 25-26, but not to load cargo. That pier is usually used by ships to make repars, take on fresh water, or to lay up for engine repairs.

For the second week in a row, apparently no cargo has been on offer for the Boston/Portland area. The scheduled load day for Ceres, Wednesday/Thursday, has come and gone. The load day for Halterm is Friday/Saturday, so will there be cargo there?

One has to wonder how long a service can hold out until cargo arrives. Also there has apparently been no outbound cargo from Boston or Portland.

Interestingly, the owners have made no public announcements, and their web site is silent on any news.

American Feeder Lines, Voyage #1

1. AFL New England, freshly painted and newly renamed, strides into Halifax for the first time this afternoon.

2. The ship's distinctive looks are at least in part due to the open hold design.

American Feeder Lines is now in business, with its first arrival in Halifax today. The line has been established under a US government mandate to get trucks off the roads and to parallel the main US Interstate highways with sea lanes.

The company will eventually build ships in the US for services up and down the east coast, but in the meantime they have chartered the German owned AFL New England.

Built at the [sadly now defunct]* J.J.Sietas yard in Hamburg in 1996, the ship was originally called Hohebank, but has carried the following names: 1996: Pentland, 1997: Susan Borchard, 2001: Hohebank, 2003: Hohesand. It was renamed AFL New England in May especially for this service. * [Sorry, the yard was apparently rescued by new management in 2010 after being in the hands of the Sietas family since 1653.]

The ship is an interesting one, built with a hatchless main hold. The forward end of the ship has conventional hatches, and the deck is raised. There is then a large dam to protect the open hold, and to form a frame for container carrying cells. There is then a third hold with hatches. The superstructure is perched on the stern to maximize deck space, but the engine is located forward of the superstructure. She is a similar configuration to Ocean Avalon, built in the same yard in 2004, but it is a much larger ship. The principal of the open hold design is that it speeds loading and unloading. Most containers do not need weather protection, and can happily stack on top of each other without the need of hatch covers to support part of the load. Removal and stowage of hatches takes time and space, which can delay timely turnarounds. The open hold is designed so that it can be drained of rain or incoming seawater by pumping, and the ship has inherent stability in case of pump failure.

This ship measures 6362 gross tons and has a capacity of 700 TEU, of which 100 may be refrigerated.

AFL will operate a weekly service out of Halifax to Portland, Maine and Boston initially for Hapag-Lloyd, but also for other lines such as Zim. The ship is painted blue, the same colour as a previous feeder ship, Yankee Clipper, which maintained a similar service from 1980 to 1993. AFL New England will feed containers to and from New England, and reduce congestion and truck traffic into US ports such as New York.

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