More from pier 9c

With Onego St.Petersburg looking very tiny in the vast new pier9 extension, it nevertheless went to work today to unload its gantry components.

Looking south on a cloudy morning, it was possible to see the extent of the new pier area, without the glare of the sun.

With the sun out this afternoon Onego St.Petersburg was busy offloading the gantry crane beams onto waiting trucks,

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Pier 9C open for business

The newly extended pier 9C is now open for business and welcomed its first ship this evening.

Onego St.Petersburg arrived with the components for overhead cranes to be installed in the new Halifax Shipyard building.

Built in 2011, the ship measures 5425 grt, 8215 dwt, and carries two 40 tonne cranes that can work in tandem. It is typical of the new breed of multi-purpose carriers with full width hatches, box shaped holds and pontoon type hatch covers, strengthened for heavy cargoes.Most visible from shore as it arrived were the orange beams for 100 tonne Kone overhead rolling cranes. Shipped in short sections, they will be bolted in place on site.

The new pier 9C extension (which used to be called pier 9D) was estimated to cost $73 mn, including a new concrete pier face, consisting of concrete cells and cope walls, asphalt surfacing for heavy loads, rail tracks,  a refurbished and extended storage shed with railroad loading doors, electric lighting and the usual equipment such as bollards and fenders.
The new facility will ease the pressure on the south end piers and bring back the Richmond Terminals (piers 9 , 9A, 9B and 9C) as a busy part of the port. Some advantages are the access to roads without going through downtown traffic and a quicker access to the rail yards in Rockingham.

In the pre container era, Richmond Terminals was a busy spot. At pier 9 the Volvo assembly plant was busy off loading crated car bodies, frames engines and other components.

Pier 9

Pier 9 also had a tanker facility, which still exists, connecting to tanks on Barrington Street.

Piers 9 A, B and C were almost always busy with the "Sun" ships of Saguenay Terminals

Pier 9A

Built as a corvette, but converted to a cargo ship, Bedford II operated from Pier 9A to St.John's for Newfoundland Canada Steamships - a precursor to Oceanex.

The jog in the rail just below the ship's name is the division between Pier 9A and Pier 9B.

On the right is one of the covered sideloading ramps which CSL used for only one year as a pallet load service to Newfoundland. Forklifts transferred the palletized cargo from the pier 9A shed to the ship, unaffected by weather.

The Newfoundland coastal schooner Delray at Pier 9A, handballing cargo from a CN boxcar. The jog in the pier face is just ahead of the schooner. There is no traffic on the MacKay bridge, which was brand new but had not opened officially when this photo was taken.

 

Pier 9A and B were equipped with a rail line and freight sheds, and their own population of pigeons.

Pier 9C handled a variety of ships for breakbulk cargo such as packaged timber. The piers were well served by rail lines.

Pier 9D had no seawall, only a roughly filled shoreline, and when it wasn't in use for parking truck trailers, it could be used to unload and store coal as it did several times over a period of years.

The new facility is quite splendid:

 Looking south, there is a huge open area for laydown. Note the Power plant as three stacks now (but only one in 1970)

Looking north, a portion of the new Pier 9C shed extension on the left. A line of  rubber fenders on the pier had not been installed yet when these photos were taken September 28. The pier now extends almost to the foot of the MacKay bridge west tower.

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Halifax Dodges Sandy

The destructive force of Hurricane/Tropical Depression Sandy bypassed to the west of Halifax, with only high winds and rain felt in the port. At high tide this morning there did not appear to be any significant storm surge, although there will certainly have been minor damage to some wharves due to waves.
Several ship arrivals were delayed, and some ships remained in port.

1. Work on the Richmond Terminal extension continued unabated. Water was just lapping the top of the new caissons, but filling operations were not delayed. The tug Whitby works with the dredge Canadian Argosy at the old "knuckle" of Pier 9C as breakers remove the old pier face and remove old fill material.

The cruise ship Norwegian Dawn remained in port all night and sailed this morning and Kobe Express also sailed this morning at first light, without incident.

2. Chebucto Pilot kicks up some spray inbound after working outbounds and an inbound. The outbounds had remained in port overnight. 

3. By the time the autocarrier Turandot was inbound, the highest gusts had abated but there was still a stiff easterly  wind and some waves in the harbour.

Western Nova Scotia received much heavier winds , heavier rain and higher seas, and the Saint John-Digby ferry service was cancelled for the day.

Pier 9C-Pier 9D

1. The dredge Cranemaster lifts a bucket load of muck from the Narrows.

Work has started on the new seawall at pier 9 D. It is interesting that work has started this week, which marks the 94th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, which was caused by the collision of two ships in the Narrows, a few hundred yards away.

The Halifax Port Authority has informed local residents that the work will be going on 24/7, and will involve dredging and construction of concrete cribs by slip forming.

It is all part of a $75 mn upgrade of the Richmond Terminals area, known as pier 9, 9A, 9B, 9C and 9D. Some of these pier faces date back 100 years according to the Port.

Once the home of a sugar refinery, a Dosco coal pier, a cement import terminal, the Volvo car assembly plant and Encana's supply base for offshore exploration, Richmond Terminals has been underutilized in recent years. The drilling mud storage tanks operated by MI-Swaco are still operational, and there is activity in several of the sheds, including Marener Industries' boat building operation and International Telecom.

Work to reinforce the faces of the existing concrete piers was completed this fall. The structure was being undermined, and it was a major job to pin the faces back and drive new sheet piles and build new cope walls. Work is also well advanced on rebuilding the internal roadway system within the terminal area. There have also been improvements to the sheds.

The Pier 9C extension (as the Port calls it) is really the installation of whole new pier face to the Pier 9D area, which up until now has just been fill. The work will allow ships to tie up there for break bulk and RoRo cargo, and the Port hopes to attract processing, transloading and distribution operations for export.

One would be free to wonder why, with low utilization of the deep water terminals, this work is needed. It seems to me that there are other plans for the deepwater terminals, and we just haven't heard what they might be - yet.

Use of this area would also remove truck activity from downtown streets - a real plus when it comes to large items such as windmill blades (but that is import work) or utility poles (for export.)

Today's activity involves the dredge Cranemaster, tug Swellmaster and mud scow HD8, operated by Harbour Development Ltd. They are forming a level base and removing loose material, so that a gravel mat can be installed. The new cribs will sit on that base to form the new cope wall. Filling behind the new wall will proceed once the area is tight.

It will be interesting to watch the progress of this work in the Narrows.

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