Barkald: 2015 ship number one

The first ship to enter port in 2015 is Barkald, although it did not arrive at the pilot station until 1500hrs. Its destination is the National Gypsum pier in Bedford Basin, and it will arrive there just after 1700hrs, the end of the New Year's Day holiday.

Barkald has just rounded George's Island and catches the last blasts of sun at 1609 hrs. Two cm of fresh snow blankets Halifax - the first snow of this winter.

The ship has shown up on this blog many times, and is always a remarkable sight with its complex, above deck self-unloading system, consisting of cranes, clamshell grabs, hoppers, conveyor belts and a slewing boom. The ship's holds are thus kept completely clear and take full advantage of the available volume of the hull. Self-contained self-unloaders have Vee shaped holds, and conveyor tunnels which reduce available space for cargo, and thus payload.They make up for this loss by unloading speed. Barkald has the best of both worlds: relatively rapid unloading times and full cargo volume.

The 28924 grt, 49,463 dwt ship was built at Oshima, Japan in 2002 and is owned by the Torvald Klaveness Group of Oslo. Working under the Marshall Islands flag, it operates in the CSL International pool with ships of CSL Americas, Oldendorff Carriers, Marbulk Shipping Inc and Algoma Shipping Inc.

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Balder - revolutionary in more ways than one

1. Balder in the Narrows, headed for National Gypsum.

The self-discharging bulk carrier Balder arrived at National Gypsum this afternoon. Owned by the Torvald Klaveness Group of Norway, it operates in the CSL International pool of self-unloaders. Frequent callers in Nova Scotia ports, they bring coal to Point Tupper and Sydney, and load aggregates at Cape Porcupine and gypsum in the port of Halifax.
This particular ship is quite unlike the Canadian Seway type gravity fed hopper type self-unloaders on CSL, Algoma and some Oldendorff ships in the pool. Balder is has a Cargotec MacGregor bulk reclaimer system. Housed within a traveling structure on deck (which also serves to protect the cargo from weather and contain dust) the reclaimer feeds a conveyor and boom system which swings out to deliver the cargo to shore.
For more on this system see the following:


http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&sqi=2&ved=0CFIQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcargotec.picturepark.com%2FWebsite%2F%3FAction%3DdownloadAsset%26AssetId%3D46184&ei=Eu1hUbXePMTA0QH674GwAQ&usg=AFQjCNGWJQeNF6vqk_0AKAfVrvSlC_8gVQ&sig2=s98bgWfZ9czbdr8-gwX6ow&bvm=bv.44770516,d.dmQ&cad=rja

To add to the ship's distinctions it also has the first multi-stream exhaust gas cleaning system. Installed in 2012, the scrubber cleans all exhaust gases from heavy fuel to comply with new air quality regulations, as an alternative to burning low sulphur fuel. There is a video on the installation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY8fHgJJP7g
and a written description here:
http://www.motorship.com/news101/fuels-and-oils/bulker-receives-egcs-retrofit

2. Some of the covered conveyor system is visible wrapping around the ship's stern. The tug Atlantic Larch is just visible on the ship's starboard side ready assist in the turn to National Gypsum, now that the ship has entered Bedford Basin.