Third Bird and Silver Birds (to be)

Magenta Bird (not pink)

The "Bird" class ship ONE Eagle arrived this afternoon, May 15, on  the EC5 service of THE Alliance.  It is the third ship of its class to be introduced to the line which is operated by Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Yang Ming.

The ONE Eagle was built in 2016 as the NYK Eagle a 145, 251 gt, 139,335 dwt vessel with a capacity of 14,026 TEU. The ship was renamed in 2019 when it was chartered by NYK to ONE. It was built at the Kure Shipyard in Japan, which at the time was operated by Japan Marine United Corp (a result of the 2013 merger of Universal Shipbuilding Corp and IHI Marine United. Further mergers in the Japanese Shipbuilding industry saw JMU (49%) merge with Imabari (51%) in 2021 to form Nihon Shipyard.)

The ship docked at PSA Halifax, Atlantic Gateway. Its magenta colour was adopted by ONE and signifies the colour of cherry blossoms, one of the national symbols of Japan. Sister ship ONE Stork which was here April 26 [qv] was the first ship to be painted in the magenta colour scheme in 2018.

People have asked why one tug is "going backwards"? The tug near the bow (Atlantic Bear) is in position to push or pull  as it is made fast to the flat side of the ship as far forward as possible. The tug Atlantic Oak has a line up to the ship's stern to act as a brake to slow the ship, and will shift around to the side to push on the ship when it turns round to back in to the pier. The third tug, alongside, near the stern, the Atlantic Fir, is made up with a line as close to the stern as possible to get maximum leverage when pulling or pushing. However if it got too close to the ship's stern it could be caught under the overhang, so it positions itself with its bow at the farthest aft flat portion of the hull. In the meantime it can assist in braking (as can the forward tug) by pulling on its line. The tugs have almost equal power whether going ahead or going astern, and they always work their lines over the bow while doing ship assist work such as this. The lines are fed from a large winch which is mounted just forward of the deck house.

People also ask why do they turn the ships on arrival so that they almost invariably dock starboard (right hand) side alongside? This has to do with the directional rotation of ships' propellors, which makes it difficult, if not impossible for a single screw ship to back up in a straight line and makes the ship want to vear to port when going ahead and to starboard when going astern. Also, ship's rudders are quite ineffective at slow speed (one reason why they need tugs to dock), and so they cannot correct the ship's tendency to wander with the rudder alone. Therefore if the ship is moored "starboard side to", it is much easier for the ship to work its way off the pier when it is time to sail. Even with tug assist it makes sense to lessen the degree of difficulty if possible.

Silver Birds

At Pier 9C the ship BBC Arizona which arrived last night, May 14, unloaded oversize cargo, including several aircraft components, loaded in Belfast. 

Cargo on the dock includes two tail components, fuselages, and some non-aircraft items. The huge spreader is being lowered into the hold to offload another fuselage. (There is also other cargo on the dock from a previous ship.)

 The BBC Arizona is a multi-purpose, heavy lift, heavy load ship of 9618 gt, 12,747 dwt, fitted with two 150 tonne SWL cranes that can lift up to 300 tonnes in tandem. It has a container capacity of 665 TEU (528 at 14 tonnes) and has 50 reefer plugs.

Built in 2010 by Jiangdong Shipyard in Wuhu, China, it was originally named BBC Arizona. It was renamed Industrial Sailor in 2014, Arizona in 2015 and reverted to BBC Arizona in 2015.

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