Another double and more RoRo

 The Mediterranean Shipping Company had two ships in Halifax today April 26 - one for each container terminal.

First in was MSC Soraya on the Turkey-Greece service - usually these ships use the PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway, south end terminal, but for whatever reason the ship headed north through the Narrows and berthed at PSA Fairview Cove. Ships on this service stop in Sines, Portugal making for an unpublicized seven day transatlantic express from MSC's south Europe hub.

 The 66,399 gt, 73,262 dwt ship has a capacity of 5762 TEU. It was built in 2008 by Samsung, Geoje, South Korea. (In the Narrows it passed the auto carrier Grand Pavo at Pier 9C - see below)

The second MSC ship arrived in late afternoon at the South end terminal. MSC Manzanillo is a regular caller on the CANEX 2 service, and is arriving from Montreal to "top up" containers to ocean draft.

Built in 2005 by Hanjin Heavy Industries + Construction Co, the forepart came from the Busan yard and the after section from the Ulsan yard. It was originally named Juliette Rickmers but was renamed on delivery as Maersk Davao. In 2012 it reverted to Juliette Rickmers until 2017 when it received the charming moniker MP The Gronk. It was mercifully renamed MSC Manzanillo in 2021. [One time owner Mangrove Partners used football player nicknames for their ships, while buying low and selling high and making a tidy fortune in the process.]

The 54,758 gt, 68,168 dwt ship has a capacity of 5060 TEU including 454 reefers. The ship will be sailing for Spain and Italy.

At Pier 9C it was another large consignment of RoRo, this tme on the Grand Pavo. Built in 2005 by Toyohashi Shipbuilding in Japan, the 59,217 gt, 18,376 dwt ship has a capacity for 6400 cars. That would be significantly reduced with the large quantity of other RoRo cargo.

Some of its cargo of cars had to be off loaded temporarily before the non-car cargo could be unloaded. The latter consisted of the usual construction and agriculture machinery. The ship will move to Autoport tomorrow to unload cars, so some of the cars that were moved today will have an extra fraction of a kilometer on them when they are delievered.