Fog and Drizzle

 The fog and drizzle season is upon us (usually May and June). Today, May 21, is an example of what we may expect for the next few weeks as warm air meets cold seas. Although visibility may be reduced at times,it is usually not enough to cause delays to ship schedules. Among the more predictable schedules is THE Alliance's AL5 - Atlantic Loop, which operates from North Europe to both the east and west coasts of North and Central America via the Panama Canal.

There are twelve ships on the rotation, of which eight are NYK's Daedalus class, such as today's caller  NYK Rigel.

The NYK Rigel makes its way beneath the A. Murray MacKay bridge en route to PSA Fairview Cove. The tug Atlantic Cedar is alongside and Atlantic Fir has the long escort wire astern. 

(Atlantic Cedar is visiting Halifax again as the bigger tugs Atlantic Beaver and Atlantic Bear are needed in Saint John for the LNG tanker SM Bluebird due May 24.)

The NYK Rigel is typical of its class at 55,534 gt, 66,051 dwt with a capacity of 4922 TEU including 330 reefer plugs. It was built by Hyundai, Samho in 2009.

Why are the letters THE capitalized in the name of this shipping Alliance ? (CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming) As usual the shipping world loves acronyms and abbreviations, and THE is supposed to stand for Transport High Efficiency.

A harder question to answer is why the AL5 is called the Atlantic Loop. European ports are (in order) Southampton, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp. The first North American port is Halifax, followed by Port Everglades, Cartagena, Panama, Los Angeles / Long Beach,  Oakland, Tacoma and Vancouver. The return eastbound leg is then Oakland, LA/LB, Panama, Caucedo Dominican Republic, Halifax and Southampton. Saint John has recently been inserted in the eastbound, return leg.

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