Afternoon Arrival - Afternoon Departure

 With the return to Standard Time it is touch and go for late afternoon ship photos, but today two ships moved in good time. One was a scheduled 1530 sailing and one a 1600 arrival. [Both times are the pilotage assignment times].

Sailing promptly from Autoport, the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Traviata rounded Ives Knoll when there was still lots of light.

The third of four Hero class ships in the Wallenius fleet, it appears to be the last ship delivered in the traditional white over green Wallenius hull colour. Subsequent Wallenius and Wilhelmsen ships have been painted in the teal and white colour scheme of the merged fleets.

Built in 2019 by Tianjin Xingang, in Tianjin, China it is a 73,358 gt, 23,889 dwt Large Car and Truck Carrier with a capacity of 7656 cars. Its last ports were Southampton November 4-5, Zeebrugge October 30 - November 2, Bremerhaven October 28-30, Zeebrugge October 24-26 - the typical Wallenius Wilhelmsen SVC1 route.  Its next scheduled port is Baltimore.

As Traviata sailed the container ship MSC Angela was arriving, and the ships arranged to meet in the Middle Ground area with MSC Angela taking the western, deep water channel. Its exhaust gas scrubber system was working overtime producing a steam plume like a vapour trail. Most ships try to reduce or eliminate the steam plume with a de-mister, but that costs money and does not contribute to pollution reduction, since steam is considred harmless.

MSC Angela is a 41,225 gt, 50,568 dwt ship with a capacity of 4254 TEU including 550 reefers. It was built in 2008 as a Panamax vessel by Zhejiang YangFan Shipbuilding Co Ltd in Ningbo. Sailing on MSC's Canada Express 2 service from Valencia and Barcelona, the ship has been anchored off Halifax waiting its turn to offload some containers at PSA Halifax. Once the ship reduces its draft to St.Lawrence River limits it will sail to Montreal, its terminal port. 

Ships on MSC's St.Lawrence services have become regular callers in Halifax either inbound to off load a few containers to meet draft restrictions, or outbound to top up containers for sea-going draft. The secondary benefit is to shave several days off the sea leg of the trip, and thus providing an "express" service when coupled with speedy train transport.

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