With my usual observation position unavailable today June 1, (see yesterday's post - Point Pleasant Park is closed due to fire hazard) I positioned myself instead on the Halifax waterfront boardwalk at the foot of Salter Street. From there I was able to see most of this morning's activities in the port.
The ConRo Oceanex Sanderling arrived last evening on its weekly trip from St.John's and anchored in the inner harbour.
As soon as ONE Hawk cleared the berth at Pier 41 this morning, the Oceanex Sanderling moved in to use the stern ramp.
The shipping press has commented recently on the dearth of new ConRo ships these days. Ships built being either LoLo CONtainer ships or RoRo for wheeled freight and containers on chassis. Despite being built in 1977, the Oceanex Sanderling is good for years to come, and with its St.Lawrence River fleet mate Oceanex Connaigra (built in 2013 and also a ConRo) continue to be highly useful.
At anchor nearby was the bulk / cargo Thorco Liva. The ship has been here several times before to load steel frames to carry fibreoptic cable. In 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, after loading the frames, it sailed for Portsmouth, NH to load the cable. This time however the ship is coming back from that direction having recently also been in Baltimore (home port to many cable ships), Portsmouth and Boston. There has been a major transatlantic cable project in Boston harbour.
Built in 2012 by the little known Honda Heavy Industries of Saiki, Japan, the 13,110 grt, 16,901 dwt, the Thorco Liva is a two hold ship with a pair of 50 tonne SWL cranes. It carried the name St.Nicholas briefly between 2021 and 2022. Thorco Projects of Hellerup, Denmark had seven "L" class ships in its fleet, all from the same yard, and all with typically Japanese fine-lined hulls and austere superstructures.
On earlier visits, the Thorco Liva displayed the copmany name on the hull, but that has now been painted over.
It was announced last week that Thorco Projects and its 44 ship fleet has been acquired by the fellow Danish "blue chip" company NORDEN, which operates 542 ships. Among NORDEN's interests is the Norient product tanker pool, operated jointly with Interorient Navigation Co Ltd. Both NORDEN (formerly D/S Norden) and Thorco are following the current trend of being "asset light". In other words they actually own few if any ships, and instead charter in the tonnage they might need.
There was one sailing this morning from the IEL Dock, and that was the "fall pipe" ship Flintstone which arrived during the night. The ship is operated by DEME, the same operators as the crane ship Orion that dominated the skyline last week.
Built in 2011 by Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore the 21,710 gt, 19,558 dwt ship is used to bury pipelines and carries out other seabottom chores using a fall pipe to drop aggregates in precise locations using dynamic positioning. It has recently been shuttling between Bayside, NB, where it loaded gravel, and the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts. It deposited the 3 inch to 5 inch diameter gravel as a filter layer on the sea floor in preparation for the placement of wind turbine towers. With its part of the work completed the ship sailed at noon for El Ferrol, Spain.
The IEL dock in Dartmouth is the staging area for some of the wind tower work. See previous posts for more on that work. Blades for the turbines are under construction in Gaspé, QC and the ship Rolldock Sky is currently in port there loading the first of the vanes.
As the Flintstone sailed it met the incoming tanker Minerva Oceania, which was bound for an anchorage. The tanker came in west of George's Island, giving the Flintstone a wide berth. Some pleasure craft in the harbour made way for the tanker.
The Minerva Oceania, the former Sapphire Express to 2015, dates from 2009 when delivered by Onomichi Zosen, Onomichi, Japan. The 26,934 gt, 47,402 dwt ship has refined petroleum product from Amsterdam for Irving Oil. It will wait to unload until the company's Canadian flag tanker East Coast, which is due today, delivers its cargo.
As the Minerva Oceania passed George's Island, a large contingent of school children set up an ear splitting unison holler from the shore. The sound actually echoed off the hull of the ship. As school kids from time immemorial have arm-signaled for truck drivers to honk their air horns, this was a similar, but vocal, gesture. The obliging harbour pilot or ship's captain, replied with a good 5 second or more response on the ship's horn. I have never observed a similar incident in Halifax harbour. "Captain's salutes" are common on the Great Lakes and along the St.Lawrence Seaway where ships are often very close to shore.
Footnote:
As explained in yesterday's post, the slight hazy look to today's photos is due to smoke from forest fires. The onshore wind has pushed most of the smoke away, but some still persists.
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