A bit of everything

As usual the Port of Halifax provides something for everybody, with a wide range of shipping activity. Today, March 10, had an unusual variety.

At PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway, Tropical Shipping's Tropic Lissette was alongside Pier 42. Its sister ship Tropic Hope did not call last Monday on the weekly service - perhaps avoiding bad weather on the US east coast by staying in Freeport, Bahamas, so there may be more cargo to work today. 

At Pier 41 it was the CMA CGM Paranagua on the joint Maerk CMA CGM service from Montreal. Again the ship is not on the usual Saturday call, so may have been delayed due to St.Lawrence ice or other factors. The Vistula Maersk, on the same service, was just here March 8-9.

 

Imperial Oil was taking a delivery of refined product from Antwerp on the unusually named CL Toni Morrison. A 30,259 gt, 49,352 dwt Long Range tanker, it was built in 2024 by New Times Shipbuilding Co Ltd and delivered to Chinese owners associated with the China Development Bank, just a year ago.

The ship is named for the Nobel prize winning American author, teacher and editor (1931-2019), but I do not know what "CL" stands for. Other ships in the fleet, managed by Synergy Denmark A/S, are also named for female authors and have the CI prefix.

The unusual angle for the preceeding photos was due to my outlook from the Shearwater Married Quarters park where I positioned myself to photograph the arrival of an unusual naval visitor.

 FS Tourville S637 is a Suffren class nuclear attack submarine of the French navy. It is also quite new, and was commissioned November 16, 2024. (Construction started in 2011).

The boat (subs are called boats) was met by an entourage of two Glen and two Ville class tugs and several small craft.  

The Royal Canadian Navy will be in the market for submarines soon, and let's hope they can avoid the controversy the Australians had when they cancelled plans to buy French subs and paid a monetary penalty. Canada already abandonded an earlier scheme to buy French non-nuclear subs.

The good news for the RCN, Irving Shipbuilding and Halifax in general, is the announcement that an $8 billion deal has been signed for the first six years of construction of the new RCN River class destroyers. Halifax Shipyard will build an initial tranche of three destroyers at an estimated cost of $22.2 billion (all in with taxes, equipment, and even ammunition), with the remaining ships to be delivered by 2039. (Total dollar numbers and even dates at this stage must be considered wildly optimistic at best in my opinion.)

Work is well under way on the new berth at the Shipyard. McNally Construction has been dredging, preparing seabottom and building caissons for the new pier and launch facility.

The Shipyard will employ more than 5,000 people, ensuring that Halifax's boom times continue as the remaining twelve ships (fifteen ships in total) are built at the yard. 

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Montreal Strike Fall out

 The large quantities of containers stranded in Halifax due to the recent port workers strike and lockout in Montreal is diminishing somewhat, but by most reports there are still hundreds if not thousands of containers waiting for transport westbound. (There may have been as many as 5,000 containers off loaded here.) The terminals, and CN Rail, are coping with the extra boxes while still serving their regular customers and have pretty much maxed out the ability to move the containers any faster. The limited number of Halifax longshore workers has also been maxed out according to some reports. Fleets of trucks have been brought from Quebec, but each moving one container at a time is a slow go.

MSC has applied for a coasting license to use two foreign flag ships to carry some of the stranded boxes from Halifax to Montreal. (See November 20 post.) Both ships were en route to Halifax and had extra capacity.

MSC Sagitta III moved in to Fairview Cove Saturday, November 23 in hopes of a speedy Ministerial approval of its coasting license application, which may happen today. However when I passed the area late this morning there was no activity on the ship.

MSC Sagitta III alongside as in the background HMCS Ville de Quebec sails into Bedford Basin. (The Port of Quebec City has no container pier and has labour issues of its own.)

The second ship, MSC Baltic III has been standing by offshore since at least November 21 awaiting its turn for a license. There is no ETA in Halifax for it yet.

CMA CGM operates a four ship transatlantic service from Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp to Montreal called St Laurent 1, jointly with Maersk. Because there are draft restrictions on the St.Lawrence River, ships often call in Halifax on the return eastbound leg from Montreal to top off their loads to oceangoing draft. They rarely if ever call in Halifax westbound.

CMA CGM also operates a joint service with Hapag-Lloyd from Mediteranean ports to Montreal called MEDCAN, using seven ships. 

During the recent port workers strike and lockout in Montreal, CMA CGM diverted one of the Medcan ships, the Barcelona Express to the Port of Saint John, NB where it offloaded containers bound for Montreal.

CMA CGM then applied for a coasting license to use one of the St-Laurent I ships, the EM Kea, on its westbound leg, to pickup the boxes in Saint John and take them to Montreal. Some of the boxes were temperature controlled and there was a risk of spoilage if they were deayed too long.

In the end, the New Brunswick Southern and CPKC railways were able to move the 143 containers and the coasting license application was withdrawn.

Meanwhile in Halifax today, November 25, the CMA CGM Paranagua arrived on the eastbound leg of the St-Laurent 1 service to top off.  CMA CGM Paranagua is very similar in appearance to the 2007 built EM Kea, but is two years older, dating from 2005. The ships were built, in series of a dozen or more sister ships, by Stocznia Szczecinska Nowa in Poland over period of several years. The are readily identifiable by the sloped fairing on the after side of the superstructure.

 

It is a 35,881 gt, 41,801 dwt ship with a capacity of 3091 TEU with 500 reefer plugs. Unlike its younger sister however, it is equipped with three cargo cranes.

Originally named Cosima by the Peter Doehle organization, it was renamed Norasia Atlas in 2005, and Letavia briefly during 2006 becoming Emirates Freedom to 2009 when it was again named Letavia until 2021. CMA CGM then acquired the ship and it took its present name, and placed it under the management of NSB Niederelbe.

Paranguá is a major port in the south of Brazil, and its name comes from the indigenous Tupi language, and means "great round sea".

The other ships on the CMA CGM /Maersk St.Laurent 1 service do not seem to have been held up very much by the Montreal strike, which lasted from October 31 to November 14:

 EM Kea had sailed from Montreal before the strike and called Halifax October 30. It is now en route from Antwerp (November 15) and is due in Montreal November 25. 

The Volga Maersk was in Halifax eastbound October 19 and is now due in Montreal again November 24. It appears to have been slow steaming for a time since it left Antwerp November 9.

Vistula Maersk sailed from Montreal November 1 and was in Halifax eastbound on November 5. It sailed from Antwerp November 22 and is due in Montreal December 6, possibly slow steaming for a time.

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Storm Delays

 The latest storm to pass through the Atlantic region has resulted in numerous delays to shipping including Halifax. On Sunday (March 10) into Monday (March 11) high winds and driving rain brought arrivals and departures to a halt as swells built in and created a significant storm surge. Rough conditions prevailed through Monday and pilotage operations were suspended.

The Mauger's Beach spit was awash for much of the day with surf also breaking over Thrumcap and other shoals.

At time of writing, late Monday afternoon, the Atlantic Pilotage Authority informed that conditions would be reviewed on Tuesday morning March 12 at 0600 hrs ADT, and pilotage operaitons would not be resumed before then.

The bulk carrier CSL Tacoma, inbound for Gold Bond Gypsum, met the pilot boat at the pilot station at 0800 hrs ADT on Monday March 11, but did not embark a pilot, and put back to sea. It will now try for Tuesday morning to enter port if conditions permit.

The container ship CMA CGM Paranagua arrived earlier and was able to board a pilot and made its way in to Pier 42. Due to high wind cargo operations were slow during the day, and it was still loading late afternoon. The ship will remain alongside over night.

 

CMA CGM Paranagua at Pier 42 has its own cranes swung out to permit shore crane acces.

The ship is sailing on the joint CMA CGM / Maersk North Atlantic service, CAE / SL1, and is on the eastbound leg en route from Montreal to Bremerhaven. It is a 35,881 gt, 41,801 dwt ship with a capacity of 3108 TEU, including 500 reefers and is equipped with three 45 tonne SWL cargo cranes. It was built by Szczecinska Nowa in  Szczecin, Poland in 2005 and has the stylish superstructure featured by ships from that shipyard.

Originally named Cosima by the Peter Doehle organization, it was renamed Norasia Atlas in 2005, and Letavia briefly during 2006 becoming Emirates Freedom to 2009 when it was again named Letavia until 2021. CMA CGM then acquired the ship and it took its present name, and was placed under the management of NSB Niederelbe.

Yesterday's arrival ONE Grus appears to have completed cargo work -the cranes are up-  and was scheduled to sail over night but will also have to remain in port until pilots are able to disembark safely. 

 

Yes there is a ship under that pile of containers. ONE Grus appears to be loaded to near capacity of 16,026 TEU. The 146,694 gt, 138,611 dwt ship was built by Japan Marine United in Kure in 2019.

Ships subject to windage because of high freeboard or deck cargo, such as Ultra size container ships and auto carriers are particularly difficult to manage in high winds. One auto carrier, Höegh Transporter, will remain offshore until tomorrow as will the container ship Erving. More details on them when they arrive.

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Morning Christina and yes winter must be here

 The Eukor car carrier Morning Christina made a late morning arrival today, January 3, and docked directly at Autoport. I believe this is the ship's first call in Halifax, so it is worth a little extra note.

It was close to noon when the ship came into view, but because of heavy cloud cover onshore and clearing offshore it looked more like sunrise.

Imabari Shipbuilding constructed the ship at their Marugame shipyard in 2010. The 59,601 gt, 18,703 dwt ship has a reported capacity of 6,142 CEU. This is the typical size for Eukor ships, but is smaller than the usual such ships we see here. Those larger ships of up to 8,000 CEU usually belong to Wallenius Wilhelmsen - the parent of Eukor (Hyundai and Kia own 20% of Eukor.) The Eukor fleet now consists of about 80 ships. Some pooling of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean's ships and Eukor's ships has always existed - allowing ships to be reassigned as needed.

The size of the ship's funnel suggests that it is equipped with an exhaust gas scrubber system installed in an enclosed structure adjacent to the regular funnel casing.

Such is the demand for auto carriers in Asia than many of the larger ships have been assisgned to Asia routes, and slightly smaller ships such as Morning Christina will be seen on European and North Atlantic routes in additIon to their usual transPacific journies.

As an example of the world wide scope of these ships it is interesting to trace the Morning Christina's position over the past couple of months. It unloaded at Vancouver's Annacis Island October 20, 2023 then called in Nagoya and Toyohashi, Japan en route to the Suez Canal for November 29. It then proceeded to Sagunto (Valencia's auto port), Spain, December 4, Avonmouth (Royal Portbury Dock), UK December 9 and Zeebrugge December 11 to 15. It then followed the usual transatlantic path of Bremerhaven December 17-20 and Goteborg December 21-22.

And now for the other news:

Halifax boasts that it is an ice free port - and that is mostly true, however very thin ice does form from time to time in the shallow corners around Bedford Basin and has little if any effect on shipping. Where there is somewhat lower salinity, and very little wind and no ship traffic to disturb the water - and of course below freezing temperatures - ice does form. It was interesting to see today with a falling tide running in the Narrows that a very thin sheet of shorefast ice had broken free and was heading outbound. As the Navy tug Glenside made its way past the BIO and Pier 9C, there was the tinkling sound of ice cubes. There has been very little snow in Halifax, so the ice was as clear as mirror glass.

Also in port today, at PSA Halifax, Pier 42, was the CMA CGM Paranagua from Montreal on the joint CMA CGM /Maersk  transatlantic run. Ships on this service usually call in Halifax on the weekend outbound from Montreal for Bremerhaven, and run year round. This ship's schedule may have been disrupted by the holidays.

The Port of Montreal still observes the tradition of recognizing the first ship of the calendar year to arrive without stopping at an intermediate port. The event used to take place in the spring when the ice had broken out and it was safe to try for Montreal. The first arrival was often as late as May, but starting in the mid 1950s the first arrival came earlier and earlier until winter navigation became a reality on the St.Lawrence.  

The Helga Dan with its icebreaking bow and ice spotter's crows nest, was the pioneer of winter navigation on the St.Lawrence River. In 1964 it was the first ship ever to reach Montreal in January.It also called in Halifax from time to time with cargo from Sweden for the Volvo assembly plant.

Nowadays the first ship of the year usually arrives in Montreal on January first and the Port presents the master of that ship with a gold headed cane.  (This year it was the Helena G on January 2.)

Winter navigation certainly changed the way the Port of Halifax worked, as it had long been one of the "Winter Ports" (with Saint John, NB and Portland, Maine) that handled the Quebec City and Montreal ships for three to four months of the year. In the pre-container days this meant that a huge workforce of several hundred longshoremen was needed to load and unload ships. Passenger ships were also diverted to Halifax for the winter

Winter navigation on the St.Lawrence, coupled with the opening of the St.Lawrence Seaway was then followed by containerisation but none proved to be the death knell for Halifax. Interestingly Halifax and Montreal maintain a symbiotic relationship to this day, but are still rivals for transatlantic and other cargoes, but now year round. 

 

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CMA CGM Paranagua

Another new to Halifax container ship showed up today on the CMA CGM / Maersk St-Laurent 1 / CAE (Canada Atlantic Express) service. CMA CGM Paranagua is very similar in appearance to another ship on the service, the 2007 built EM Kea, but is two years older, dating from 2005. The ships were built, in series of a dozen or more sister ships, by Stocznia Szczecinska Nowa in Poland over period of several years. The are readily identifiable by the sloped fairing on the after side of the superstructure.

It is a 35,881 gt, 41,801 dwt ship with a capacity of 3091 TEU. Unlike its younger sister however, it is equipped with three cargo cranes.

Originally named Cosima by the Peter Doehle organization, it was renamed Norasia Atlas in 2005, and Letavia briefly during 2006 becoming Emirates Freedom to 2009 when it was again named Letavia until 2021. CMA CGM then acquired the ship and it took its present name, and placed it iunder the mamagement of NSB Niederelbe.

Paranguá is a major port in the south of Brazil, and its name comes from the indigenous Tupi language, and means "great round sea".

The joint CMA CGM and Maersk service has been using the EM Kea since 2015 and since earlier this year three "V" class Maersk ships, Volga Maersk, Vistula Maersk and Viyenga Maersk which were displaced from a Baltic / Russia service. The latter of these now appears to have returned to the Baltic and its place taken by the CMA CGM Paranagua.

The route taken by these ships is Bremerhaven / Rotterdam / Antwerp / Montreal / Halifax (optional) / Bremerhaven.

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Morning Lynn, EM Kea

 Autoport hosted the auto carrier Morning Lynn today (May 26) on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Europe / North America route. It called in Bremerhaven, Goteborg, Zebrugge and Southampton en route to Halifax and sailed this afternoon for Manzanillo, Panama.

The ship was built in 2009 by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industry Co Ltd and is registered at 68,701 gt, 28,092 dwt with a capacity of 8,011 CEU. Eukor is the former car carrier divison of Hyundai Merchant Marine acquired by Wallenius Wilhelmsen to gain control of Korean auto exports (and fend off thew Japanese car carriers). It is still a South Korean company, but is now jointly owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen, American Roll-on-Roll-off Carriers (ARRC) and United European Car Carriers. Ships of Eukor and ARRC are integrated into Wallenius Wilhelmsen trade routes and can often be seen in Halifax.

EM Kea arrived from Montreal on the jointly operated CMA CGM, Maersk St-Laurent 1 route to Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp.The ship has been on the route since 2015, and is a regular in Halifax on the weekly service. (Halifax is an optional port, so ships do not always call here every week). Oddly there were two ships this week, with CMA CGM Louga in port yesterday.

EM Kea was built in 2007  by Stocznia Szczecinska Nowa in Poland and measures 35,824 gt, 41,859 dwt with a capacity of 3108 (or 3091) TEU with 500 reefer plugs.

The roster of ships on the St-Laurent 1 service is flux with yesterday's visitor being dropped in favour of CMA CGM Paranagua a 2005 near sister of the EM Kea, but equipped with a pair of 45 tonne SWL cranes. It is expected to call in Halifax in early August. Vistula Maersk and Volga Maersk are expected to remain on the roster with Vayenga Maersk also possibly reassigned (It appears to be in drydock in Setubal.)

CMA CGM Louga was well concealed yesterday when it was tied up at mid-berth Pier 41-42. It has onlty been on the St-Laurent 1 service for a short time, making its first call in Halifax March 15. It also called April 21. CMA CGM Louga was built by Jinhai Heavy Industry Co in Daishan, China in 2018. It is a 29,316 gt, 34,694 dwt ship with a capacity variously quoted as 2462 TEU or 2487 TEU including 747 reefer plugs. It is a Baltic 1A ice class vessel.

The ship sailed in daylight April 21, but on its last call in Halifax it sailed at 0330hrs this morning May 26.
 

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