Still more bulk and container swap

Bulkers

 There was another bulk carrier arrival this morning, January 13, but this one was more typical for Halifax than yesterday's bulkers [see previous post]. The Algoma Integrity is in from Jacksonville for Gold Bond to load gypsum.

The Algoma Integrity is passing the A. Murray MacKay bridge inbound to the Gold Bond dock in Bedford Basin with a tethered stern escort tug, the Atlantic Fir.

 The Algoma Integrity was built in 2009 by EISA- Ilha in Rio de Janeiro for Gypsum Transportation as the Gypsum Integrity. The 33,047 gt, 47,761 dwt ship was meant to service the export facilities in Hantsport and Little Narrows, NS. When parent company United States Gypsum shut down their Canadian mining operations in 2010 the ship and its sister Gypsum Centennial worked globally for Beltship Management. Algoma Central Corp acquired and renamed the Gypsum Integrity in 2015 while CSL acquired the Gypsum Centennial in 2015 and renamed it CSL Frontier. Both ships went to work in the CSL Americas self-unloader pool.

The gravity fed self-unloader system on the ship discharges gypsum at a rate of 2500 metric tonnes per hour, and uses a boom with a 61 meter outreach at 90 degrees from the ship to position the cargo on shore.

As Algoma Integrity made its way to the dock, a more traditional gearless bulk carrier lay at anchor in Bedford Basin. The JY Lake arrived from the Mississippi River grain port of Romeville, LA, yesterday afternoon (January 12).

A very thin skim of ice has formed along the Rockingham shore where the water is calm and is approximately fresh. A small CCG boat did some unofficial high speed icebreaking but the rest of the ice will be gone by tomorrow as a wind and rain storm passes through tonight, with temperatures well above zero C.

The JY Lake dates from 2019 when it was completed by the Changxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China. The gearless ship measures 45,968 gt 81,146 dwt. It is en route to Rotterdam, and is expected to sail over night. 

No particular reason was given for the ship's visit, but a launch did visit the ship, possibly with a repair technician.

 Container Swap

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd operates two services from Halifax. Its "big ship" service is called ZCA: ZIM Container Atlantic and its "small ship" feeder service is CGX: Central America Gulf Express.

One of the ships serving the ZCA is the familiarly named ZIM Iberia (the second of the name in ZIM's history. The first, built in 1997, was scrapped in 2015 - see post dated November 23, 2015).

Zim Iberia in the Narrows with the tethered escort Atlantic Cedar. 

(The tug Atlantic Cedar is usually based in Saint John, with the Atlantic Larch, but both are exchanging places temporarily as Atlantic Bear and Atlantic Beaver are working in Saint John.)

The current Zim Iberia acquired the name in 2022, but was built in 2009 by Jiangsu New Yangzijiang in Jiangyin. It was delivered as Rudolf Schepers and in 2017 became the Arkas Afrika then in 2018 Als Juno. The 40,541 gt, 50,300 dwt ship has a capacity of 4253 TEU including 698 reefers. Its Mediterranean / East Coast North America service calls in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece Italy and Spain en route to Halifax. It then calls at New York, Norfolk, and Savannah before heading eastbound again.

 Today at the PSA Fairview Cove terminal, the ZIM Iberia joined the Pacific Trader one of five ships (along with the Annie B and Contship Leo, Contship Pep and Contship Art) on the CGX - Central America Gulf Express feeder service. The Pacific Trader began calling in Halifax November 17, 2023 on the newly revised CGX, which includes the former CFX - Canada Feeder Express.

The CGX links Halifax with New York, Kingston, Jamaica, Houston and Caribbean ports of Altamira, Mexico, Santo Tomas De Castilla, Guatemala and Puerto Cortes, Honduras.

ZIM does a substantial reefer business on both routes, and their white boxes are much in evidence on the Pacific Trader and on the dock. Hapag-Lloyd has a "slot charter" or other such arrangement with ZIM for space on the ZCA route, and orange H-L boxes are easy to see on the ZIM Iberia.

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Bulk and More Bulk

 Aside from the regular stream of bulk carriers that load gypsum in Halifax, other bulk cargoes are realtively rare. At one time the port handled huge quantities of export grain from the Canadian prairies. When the federal railway subsidy called the Crow Rate [Wikipedia reference] was abolished that commodity dried up, with other ports closer to the source handling the commodity. Halifax's grain elevator was largely idle except for local demand.

In recent years the grain elevator has found alternate products such as wood pellets (exported to Europe as bio fuel) and lately soybeans. There seems to be more demand this year for the soybeans, with a large cargo outbound today on the bulk carrier Athina III [see post from January 2]

The 39,037 gt / 73, 305 dwt ship arrived January 2, and began loading soon after. It spent some time spent at anchor (January 6 - 7) to allow another ship to use the pier.[see previous post]

Its destination on sailing today is Bandar Khomeini, Iran.

The next bulker to load is the Norse Ijmuiden which arrived over night January 9-10 from Philadelphia and anchored Bedford Basin. It is due to move to the grain gallery spouts at Pier 28 tonight (January 12) to begin loading in the morning.

 Built in 2012 by Tsuneishi Heavy Industries (Cebu) Inc, Balamban, Philippines, it is a 26,272 gt, 42,469 dwt ship fitted with four cranes. It also has stanchions to support deck cargoes such as timber. It seems to me a likely candidate to load wood pellets.

Another bulker the JY Lake arrived this evening and anchored in Beford Basin. It is a 45,958 gt, 81,146 dwt ship built in 2019 by Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin. Its last port was Romeville, Mississippi, well upstream from New Orleans, which normally handles grain transfers from barges to ships.

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Kopit Hopson 1752 - follow up

 It appears that even after the Vessel Life Extension for the CCGS Kopit Hopson 1752 there is still work to do, and it may not be completed until March. The original VLE, which was awarded in 2020, was to have been completed (by my reckoning) during fiscal year 2022 and in fact the ship was handed back to the Canadian Coast Guard in December 2022 after sea trials. However as reported here there were more sea trials in April 2023. Its recent "cold" move by tugs was covered here December 28, 2023.

CCGS Kopit Hopson 1752 alongside BIO July 25, 2023.

CBC News reported today, January 11, that there have been delays in delivery of replacement through hull valves and welding repairs are underway to sea chest (s). Supply chain issues have plagued most industries in the past few years, and it should not come as surprise that specialty items have long delivery dates. Vessel Life Extension programs for ships as old as this one (it was built in 1981) are bound to turn up more issues than anticipated. 

All that aside the CBC quotes the CCG that the ship has been operational for 117 of 284 days since April 1, 2023 (this fiscal year). 

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Slow boat to Montreal MSC Leandra V

 A ship that called in Halifax last week, en route to Montreal has not arrived there yet. Ironically, once (and maybe still), the fastest containership in the world, it is still more or less en route after five days.

 

MSC Leandra V arrived in Halifax January 4 to reduce its draft to transit the St.Lawrence River. [I gave the ship's particulars in the January 4 post, including its 30 knot designed cruising speed.] When it sailed late that evening it gave the unusual destination of Sept-Iles, QC. That port is primarily known for handling huge quantities of iron ore but not containers. 

On arrival in Sept-Iles yesterday (January 8) it anchored in the large bay and on the port's website was shown to be in for "réparations". What those repairs might have been and why they could not have been accomplished in Halifax is not known. [One possible explanation is that ships at anchor in Halifax must have engines in operating order. If not, they must have tug(s) along side. Also anchorages are at a premium in Halifax .]

The ship sailed from Sept-Iles January 8 and picked up its pilot off Escoumins. After proceeding up river just less than 100 miles it came about and sailed back down river to the Rasades anchorage off the Escoumins pilot station. 

Thanks to a social media post, I learned that the ship is now awaiting a suitable tide to proceed upstream. The ship's air draft is such that it needs a low tide to clear the Quebec Bridges. The clearance under those bridges is 151 feet at high water. However the tidal range at Quebec at this time of the year is 10 to 15 feet, so timing will be critical. [The ship would not be able clear the Halifax bridges no matter the state of the tide. The generally accepted clearance number is 154 feet with a tidal range of four to eight feet.]

 

Not only is the ship's superstructure very tall, it had to sacrifice a bay of container capacity to install the free standing exhaust gas scrubber tower.

As noted from my photos of the ship's arrival here, it has a very high superstructure. Combined with the reduced (water) draft, its air draft is apparently very close to the maximum allowable under those bridges. With the number of ships in the MSC fleet, surely they could find one that would not have to contend with this issue.

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Pier 9C - a useful spot

 The Port of Halifax accomodates ships for reasons in addition to the usual loading and unloading of cargo. Today January 8 there were two ships at Pier 9C that fitted that miscellaneous category.

The self-unloading bulk carrier Shiela Ann arrived initially at the Gold Bond dock on January 6 and took on a load of gypsum. That process would normally have taken 24 hours or less, but the ship remained alongside until this morning when it moved to Pier 9C.

 On arriving at the Pier there were at least three trucks with semi-trailers loaded with crates, and a crane set up on the brow. The contents of the crates were unknowable, however there were reels, which may be replacement conveyor belting. 

The Shiela Ann was built by Jingnan, Shanghai in 1999 for CSL International and assigned to their self-unloader pool. Two other ships of the same design, the Sophie Oldendorff and CSL Spirit were built by the same yard also for use in the pool in 2000 and 2001 respectively. (When Oldendorff Carriers withdrew from the CSL pool, Algoma purchased the Sophie Oldendorff and renamed it Algoma Vistory in 2019.)

Most of the ports where the Shiela Ann calls are long jetties without truck access or are relatively remote from the source of parts and supplies. Recent ports for the ship include Puerto Drummond in Colombia where it loaded coal November 2-7 for Rio Haina, Dominican Republic (November 11-13) then again loading at Puerto Drummond November 15-17 for Puerto Quetzal Guatemala December 10-11, reached via the Panama Canal December 5-7.  It then returned to Panama December 14, presumably in ballast, and queued up for the Canal, finally locking through December 28 en route for Halifax.

The Shiela Ann is expected to sail early this evening for Tampa, FL.

Just to the south, at the same long pier was the coastal tanker Kivalliq W. It arrived January 6 from Nanticoke, ON and after discharging petroleum product at Imperial Oil, moved to Pier 9C last night. As mentioned in the previous post, the ship normally flags out for the winter. If it will be doing that during its current stay at Pier 9C it will not be difficult to obscure the ship's current port of registry (St.John's) - it has the smallest size lettering I have ever seen! [Barely visible between the ship's name and its IMO number].

 There was also a truck alongside with a refuse skip, which suggests that the ship may be in for a period of maintenance before resuming work under its foreign flag. Since 2017 the flag of choice has been the Marshall Islands, but from December 2022 to June 2023 it was the Portuguese offshore flag of Madeira.

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The last of the summer fuel and make way for nickel

 1. Last of the Summer Fuel

 The Imperial Oil Dock #3 is the busiest spot in the harbour as the last shipments of fuel arrive from the Great Lakes. With the St.Lawrence Seaway now closed for the winter, Imperial will no longer have tanker access to its refineries in Sarnia and Nanticoke, ON, so has been stockpiling product. Three last tankers arriving in quick succesion are:

The Qikiqtaaluk W. which sailed from Nanticoke December 30 and made its way downbound in the St.Lawrence Seaway January 1, arriving in Halifax yesterday afternoon (January 5). Built in 2011 by Icdas, Bigas, Turkey it operated as Icdas 11 and carried that name until acquired by Coastal Shipping Ltd of Happy Valley - Goose Bay, NL in 2018. It is a 13,097 gt, 19,198 dwt. chemical and product tanker. (The ship was named for the huge eastern portion of Nunavut, formerly known as the Baffin region of Canada's Arctic.)

It was in port for less than 24 hours and sailed late this afternoon (January 6) in ballast for St.John's.

Every year since 2018 and from roughly January 1 the ship has been flagged out to operate internationally. Depending on contracts for delivering fuel to the arctic, the ship has returned to Canadian flag from as early as April 1 to as late as July 1 the following year. At the end of the northern shipping season it has participated in the stockpiling of fuel here in Halifax, and I expect it to flag out again this year.

While outbound this afternoon the Qikiqtaaluk W. met its fleetmate Kivalliq W. inbound also with product from Nanticoke. It sailed from that port January 1 and was downbound in the Seaway the next day. It was followed closely later the same day by the Algoberta, also bound for Halifax, and which will anchor when it arrives tonight.

The Kivalliq W. usually flags out for the winter too, so was likely given prioity at the dock. Algoberta will join fleetmate Algoscotia distributing product around the region this winter.

2. Make Way for Nickel 

The big bulker Athina III (see January 4 post) has been loading soybeans at Pier 27 since January 5 but halted operations at midnight last night and moved out to anchorage number 1 in the lower harbour. This was to make way for the Augusta Luna with the latest load of nickel sulfides from Cuba. Sailing for Nirint Shipping BV, it is on a regular run between European ports and Cuba. [See December 25, 2022 ]. On the return leg it unloads bagged nickel sulfides directly to rail cars or to storage at Pier 28. There is not room enough for both ships at Pier 27-28 at the same time, and no other pier is available for the nickel cargo or for bulk grains. Expansion of the South End Container Terminal (operated by PSA) displaced the nickel operation from Pier 31 where there was open pier space, a rail siding and a transit shed. The shed has been demolished and the open pier space is now devoted to container storage and construction activity. There is now only one trasit shed in the deepwater piers area of the port. The Richmond Terminal in the north end has transit sheds but they are all occupied with other business, and in any event rail access is not as convenient.

 The Athina III is due to move back to Pier 28 tonight when the Augusta Luna sails. It appears to be about half loaded, so will be in port for a few more days.

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An antique by any other name

 The Mediterranean Shipping Co MSC is well known for operating older ships. Today (January 4) their MSC Leandra V arrived in Halifax and lived up to that reputation but not in the usual way. At seventeen years of age it is not old by MSC standards. Some of the line's recent callers are approaching thirty. Instead it is the ship's appearance that makes it look much older.

Ships with engines and superstructure amidships must be in the dinosaur category nowadays. In the early days of steam, where engines and bunkers required large amounts of space, they were installed amidhips. As propulsion systems shifted to oil fired then to internal combustion less space was required. Ship designers also maximized cargo capacity by using the widest part of the hull for cargo. Moving the engines aft meant that the long shaft tunnel, which used up valuable cargo space, could also be eliminated.

With the evolution of bulk carriers and container ships came the development of smaller engines and more efficient engines and reduced ship speed. Some early container ships were built for speed and had cruising velocities in the high 20 knots range.

MSC Leandra V was built by Volkswerft in Stralsund, Germany to their VW5000 design and launched in 2007 for the A.P.Moller-Maersk British subsidiary Maersk Co Ltd as Maersk but was renamed on delivery as Maersk Buffalo. In 2011 it became the Buffalo but in 2012 was renamed Maersk Buffalo, then was briefly named Seago Istanbul before becoming MSC Leandra also in 2012.  In June 2023 the Roman numeral "V" was added to the name to denote a nominal container capacity up to 5,000 TEU.

The ship measures 49,477 gt and 53,701 dwt with a current capacity of 4170 TEU or 4504 TEU (depending on the source). The most startling statistic however is its cruising speed rating of 29.2 knots (55 kph) (versus 24 knots for previous high speed container ships). Even more startling was the maximum speed of 37 knots (69 kph)- a speed rarely exceeded even by warships. Express speeds for container ships were often specified for ships that were designated for potential military use, but Maersk was not forthcoming on that possibility. 

The ship was part of the seven ship Maersk B class that were the world's fastest container ships intended to maintain a high speed service between China and the United States. They proved uneconomical immediately and with the economic downturn of the time, the ships were laid up on delivery. None of the ships ever operated on the intended service. When they did enter service, between Asia and Europe, reducing speed to 12 knots also reduced feul consumption dramatically - from a reported 300 tonnes per day to 50 tonnes per day. (All figures are approximate and are an average of numbers from various sources,)

 In order to produce that 29 knots, the ship needed the world's largest marine diesel engine. The Wartsila-Sulzer 12 cylinder unit develops 93,360 hp (68,640 kW) and had to be installed amidships as the lines at the stern were so fine that there was no room. (A subsequent 14 cylinder version of the engine is now the world's largest, but also powers ships twice the size of this one.)

The ship's fine lines were evident today as the ship arrived from Mediterranean ports via Sines, Portgual on the CANEX1 service. (It was also here December 3, but wasn't seen in the dark and was not mentioned on this blog.) Its recorded average speed on this trip was 13.8 knots with a maximum of 18.3 knots. After dropping off a few containers here to reduce draft it will be on its way to Montreal.

Just to put age in perspective the truly venerable Oceanex Sanderling also arrived this morning.

Many lines operate ships in the 15 to 20 year old range but Oceanex maintains the Oceanex Sanderling, now age 47, on the weekly Halifax / St.John's service. The ship is virtually irreplaceable due to its costly container and RoRo (CONRO) configuration, an increasingly rare type of ship.

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