GPO Emerald

 Another heavy load ship arrived today, August 22, with six more wind turbine towers. The GPO Emerald tied up at the Woodside dock where its sister ship GPO Grace had been tied up. The latter ship moved out to anchorage yesterday after off loading some smaller components.

GPO Emerald approaches the dock, and looms over the ferry Viola Desmond as it leaves the adjacent dock. 

The GPO Emerald is the newest of the four GPO heavy load sister ships. It was delivered in October 2021, but its hull paint looks freshly applied. Those draft marks are displayed to boat deck level, because the ship has semi-submersible capability and can submerge its cargo deck to 15 meters below the surface.

Sister ship GPO Grace has been in port since July 5 awaiting the return of the offshore installation vessel Orion to transfer its six wind tower components. With two ships in at the same time again  - it can only mean that installation off Massachusetts must be very slow.

GPO Grace waiting patiently at anchor, was built in 2017, and is the "oldest" of the four GPO ships.

All four ships were built by the China Shipbuilding Corp in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and have a deadweight capacity of 63,581 tonnes. The GPO Sapphire, also built in 2017 was here in June. The fourth sister, GPO Amethyst (built in 2018), has not been in Halifax, however it was in Providence, RI from July 25 to August 4, possibly in connection to the same Vineyard Wind project.

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