Port of Hailfax on weather watch-day 2, and more

 1. Seas roll in with Chebucto Head in the background.

For a second day the Port of Halifax saw no piloted arrivals or departures due to dangerous sea conditions at the pilot station. Stiff winds for the last several days have built up seas that would make it unsafe to embark or disembark pilots.

 2. Devil's Island is almost awash at times.

Yesterday's sole departure was the Oceanex Sanderling which does not require a pilot since her master has a pilotage certificate for Halifax.
One intended departure, Zim Barcelona, left pier 42 Halterm yesterday morning and went out to anchorage west of number 1 anchorage. Surely a rare sight to see a containership anchored there, but since there are no arrivals or departures scheduled it is not in the way. Also the St-Pierre RoRo Fusion moved to anchorage yesterday afternoon.

3. The pilot boat Capt. Alwin G. Soppitt returns to port after checking on conditions off Chebucto Head. Zim Barcelona will have to wait at least until morning.

Meanwhile the containerships Zim Rio Grande and OOCL Shanghai (both due March 8) and the bulker  Wadi Alarab (due March 7) are cooling their heels well offshore until tomorrow morning when conditions may permit their safe arrival.
Things are deceptively calm within the harbour, allowing repairs to continue on Nordpol Friday, with the ship taking bunkers today while workers take the day off.

4. Nordpol is ballasted down by the bow for stern repairs, but takes bunkers anyway. Panamax ships have Panamax size gangways.

Speaking of repairs, it appears that CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent is receiving less than a full scale repair job after her collision off Sydney. From the looks of the work going on right now, she is being patched up to go back to sea, with more extensive repairs to be done later, if at all.

On Monday (upper photo)  a section of damaged rail has been cut out, and some distorted deck too. By this morning (lower photo) new plate has been welded in, and stanchions are back in place. There has been some patching work around the anchor pocket but, it appears to follow the line of the dent. Further aft, where damage appears to be somewhat less severe, no exterior work is evident..

Another Shipbuilding Announcement

There was another shipbuilding announcement in Halifax today. Despite the supposed "depoliticization" of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy for major Canadian ships, the event was another opportunity for the government. The first word in the title of the Press Release is "Harper", so you will understand how little it really had of any substance in it. In fact it was an outline of a process that, similar to the one on the west coast, was short of detail. 
If read in its entirety : http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?mthd=tp&crtr.page=1&nid=724329&crtr.tp1D=1
it states that the first two of seven work packages of the Definition Contract have been awarded. These packages are for managing the contract and the first of three engineering design packages for the Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels.
The announcement was quite free of any detail on how many ships will be built and who will be designing them. We understand that the designers are to be Odense of Denmark.
Reference was also made to the $300mn upgrades to Halifax Shipyard, which will be carried out at no cost to Canadian taxpayers. That work has already started as the proliferation of construction cranes at pier 6 will attest. The arrival on the weekend of the dredge Cranemaster and dump scow HD 7 and workboat Atlantic Tamerack also signals a start to the dredging component of the work. The tug Swellmaster brought in the dredge and returned again to Saint John.

Nordpol - tangled with ice

The bulker Nordpol arrived this morning in very light condition and tied up at pier 31. The ship had discharged a cargo of bauxite at La Baie, on the icy Saguenay River, and proceeded directly to Halifax where it was met by divers. They were soon at work on the stern of the ship, hinting at rudder or propeller damage, incurred in the ice.
The ship was built in 2002 by Kanasashi Heavy Industries in Toyohashi, Japan, and is a bulk carrier of 40,066 gross tons, 77,195 deadweight tonnes, of the Panamax type. It is part of a large fleet operated by the Danish company Norden http://www.ds-norden.com/
The company operates more than sixty Panamaxes and numerous other ships of varying sizes. Most are gearless, but this ship carries four 30 tonne cranes with grab buckets for loading or unloading bulk cargoes.

OOCL Hong Kong - weather worn

OOCL Hong Kong arrived this afternoon looking well worn. Winter conditions are tough on paint and that is certainly so with this ship. The OOCL ships are normally well kept up, but this one certainly will need a paint job come spring.
Built in 1995 the post-Panamax ship was sold in mid-2012 to Allseas Marine SA of Athens, Greece, and chartered back to Orient Overseas Container Lines (OOCL). The ship retains its Hong Kong port of registry.

HMCS Windsor to the Basin with Sea Kings

HMCS Windsor made a jaunt to the Bedford Basin Friday afternoon to work with a pair of Sea Kings.

She has hoisted a white pennant about 6 feet long, with a red maple leaf on it, superior to the Canadian flag.

As one Sea King makes a closer approach a second flies around in a holding pattern.

Pier 6 - no sentimentality expected

I did not expect Irving Shipbuilding to show much sentimentality when they started work on the pier 6 side launch facility. The incredible mobilization of cranes is certainly notable, and work is gearing up rapidly.
Little known perhaps are a few artefacts that will be worth watching.
First is this old orange peel grab:

1. Old grab stands ten to twelve feet high.

Left over from the coal operation which Dosco carried out at pier 6, the grab has been there as long as I can remember. When Irving Shipbuilding took over Halifax Shipyard, the grab was given a coat of paint, and largely ignored ever since. It is a large piece of old technology and would be a shame to lose.

Next is Shovelmaster's shovel:

 2. Obsolete shovel will certainly be going to the scrap yard.

Harbour Developments Ltd lost the dredge Shovelmaster off southern Nova Scotia in 2008, but I believe this shovel was formerly part of its gear. There are no dredges of this type working in eastern Canada any more - they are all clamshell dredges now,  so this artefact is perhaps unique.

Last and most intriguing to me, they started this week to cut down the derrick scow Channelmaster. 

 3. Work has started cutting up the deck house.

Harbour Development have been the owners of this unit since about 1988 when they acquired it from Sceptre-Riedel-Dawson, successors to Scetpre Dredging, a company that tried to pick up the pieces after the collapse of J.P.Porter and Co in 1977. It was Porter that  had no less than Canadian Vickers of Montreal built the craft as Hamilton 56 in 1956. Fitted with a 6 cubic yard clamshell crane ( very likely steam powered) it was built for some important work in Hamilton, ON, but scandal surrounded awarding of the contract  and continued on and off to dog Porter until the end.
In 1977 when Porter's fleet was laid up I photographed Hamilton 56 at their base.

 4. In 1977 the scow was still in serviceable condition.

It was towed out when Sceptre took it over and eventually worked in the Magdalen Islands and Dalhousie, NB, but returned to Halifax in August 31, 1993, towed in by Irving Hemlock.(now Swellmaster)
At that point Harbour Development removed the ancient crane and it was renamed Channelmaster.

 4., 5., 6. By 1993 the old crane was ready for scrap.  Alongside in the lower photo is Mighty Master ex  DPW  No.16 dredge, de-registered in 1998, sunk in Hurricane Juan in 2003 but still in existence at pier 6, as a landing platform. Channelmaster continues to carry the graceful davits for a lifeboat.

Since then it has carried a couple of different crawler and truck cranes, and has had some quite large spuds (the new spudding winches came from the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent). It has worked around Halifax Harbour, but also in Saint John from 2005-2006.
Perhaps remarkably the original "builder's plate" can still be seen on the after house. Had it been bronze it would have disappeared long ago, but as a crude piece of welder's art it has survived - but for how much longer?

 

7. In 1977 the builder's plate was still quite legible.

 8. The builder's plate is midships, on the yellow background, just below the white.

I will continue to watch as this work unfolds.

Atlantic Tramp - bunker call

The bulker Atlantic Tramp made a call for bunkers today, and was on her way again after a few hours. The ship certainly appears to be deeply laden for a winter Atlantic crossing, but with her low profile (her deck house is a least one deck lower than many ships her size) and full width bridge, were obviously intended for this kind of work.
Built in 2010 by Daoda Heavy Industries in Qidong. China, the ship operates for Korkyra Shipping of Korcula, Croatia. It measures 22,064 gross tons and 33,200 deadweight tonnes and is registered in the Marshall Islands.
Its last port of call was Saint John.