MSC Sagitta III - unusual diversion

 The container ship MSC Sagitta III made a diversion from its usual northbound route on MSC's Canada Gulf Bridge service from Mexico to Montreal, arrriving in Halifax April 2. Instead of berthing at PSA's Fairview Cove or Atlantic Hub container facilities it tied up at Pier 27-28 in the Ocean Terminals section of the port. Pier 27 is an open pier and Pier 28 is the grain export pier and has no means of handling container cargo.

The ship requires some repairs that may involve the main engine, and thus could not be made with the ship at anchor. (Ships must have their main engine available while at anchor in the Port.) 

This is not the ship's first call in Halifax. It was here in June 29, 2024 on its first inbound trip on the Gulf Bridge run, likely for Canadian Food Inspection Agency clearance. It was back again in November and December 2024 when it was one of two MSC ships granted coasting licenses to transfer containers from Halifax to Montreal. The boxes had been stranded in Halifax during the Montreal port workers strike earlier in the year*. The ship was in port from late November to mid-December while the coasting license application was in the works. 

December 16, 2024 photo
 

The ship is a rare European built container ship. Dating from 2010 the 36,519 gt, 42,614 dwt vessel was built by Nordseewerke, Emden to the Thyssen C3X design. It was delivered as Frisia Brussel but immediately renamed Sagitta. It became MSC Sagitta III in 2021. 

It is fitted with a prominent exhaust gas scrubber abaft the superstructure.

 

November 25, 2024 photo

 MSC's schedule shows the ship arriving in Corner Brook April 10 and Saint John April 13, but no longer shows an arrival date for Montreal.

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* Two MSC ships were granted coasting licenses to transfer stranded boxes from Halifax to Montreal.  The other is the ill-fated MSC Baltic III which was on the same Canada Gulf Express service. On February 15 it lost power and drifted aground on the west coast of Newfoundland while making for Corner Brook. 

The ship remains aground with its bottom holed. A laborious salvage operation has removed hazardous cargo, and is now working on removing fuel. It is in a precarious position with the risk of more damage if struck by bad weather. It is not clear if it will be possible to refloat the ship.

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ONE Apus and another bird

 The bird class of container ships, operated by Ocean Network Express (ONE) are regular callers in Halifax on the EC5 service, now operating as the Premier Alliance. They began to call under the previous THE Alliance which was renamed Premier Alliance after Hapag-Lloyd withdrew earlier this year.

There are fourteen ships in the 14000 TEU class, all built by Japan Marine United, in Kure between 2016 and 2019. Today's arrival ONE Apus was the thirteenth ship in the series. The first nine ships were given the prefix "NYK" but were renamed with "ONE" prefix when the three Japanese shipping companies NYK Line, K-Line and Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) joined together to form ONE in 2017. This ship is part of the NYK fleet and measures 146,694 gt, 138,611 dwt with a capacity of 14,052 TEU.

Some of the ship names are obscure as they use the Latin genus name. ONE Apus derives its name from the Common Swift Apus Apus, a fast flying bird found in Asia and Africa. (What Canadians know as a Chimney Swift is a different species but  similar in appearance and from the same avian family).

On arrival today the ONE Apus was met at the pilot station by the escort tugs Atlantic Ash and Atlantic Maple which each took a stern line. A third tug Atlantic Fir joined later off Herring Cove.

 Shortly after, an unusual rendez-vous took place as a Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140M Aurora aircraft made a low pass over the ship and flew in toward Halifax right over the main shipping channel.

 

 It must have turned somewhere around Bedford Basin and returned at low altitude, then passed astern of the ONE Apus. It made a graceful banking turn and headed east.

 

 

The Aurora is the Canadian CP-140 variant of the Lockheed P3 Orion dating from the 1980s. After a major overhaul, called the Aurora Incremental Modernisation Plan (AIMP) the aircraft were re-designated CP-140M. They were built for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), but as long distance craft they are also tasked with  intelligence surveillance (ISR), search and rescue (SAR) and overseas missions.

Another refurb (now completed), called the Aurora Life Extension Project (ASLEP) is expected to keep the planes flying until replacements start arriving in 2026. Those will be Boeing (oops) Poseidon P-8As which should be  full operation by 2033. East Coast based Auroras operate from Greenwood, Nova Scotia.

 

 As expected the ONE Apus was still carrying Hapag-Loyd containers. It will take some time before these boxes clear through the system, including perhaps empty re-delivery.

 

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Bring Back the Crow

 

With the current trade uncertainty due to tariffs on southbound Canadian crops and those headed to China, Shipfax takes a look back and offers a recommendation to both alleviate the pain for Canadian farmers and to make use of an underutilized asset of the Port of Halifax.

In 1897 the Canadian Government subsidized extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway from Southern Alberta to British Columbia using a route through the mountainous terrain by way of the Crow's Nest Pass. By artificially lowering the freight rates to transport grain to eastern ports by matching the rate through the Crow's Nest Pass, the government also promoted growth of industry in eastern Canada at the expense of western development. The program, known as the Crow Rate, was very unpopular in western Canada due to a perceived bias against western interests (what's new), and was eventually repealed in 1992. Grain exports through Halifax dropped away to near nil as a result. A new Western Grain Transportation Act was introduced in 1993 and promoted grain shipments southward by rail and by the Mississippi River system.

The backlogs to load grain at Vancouver was not improved despite government grain car programs. The railroads then discovered winter as a new excuse for slow westward grain movement.

Present day politicians (in election mode) are now funding renovation of the Port of Churchill, Manitoba, to ship more prairie grain via Hudson Bay to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. While that redevelopment may make sense on paper, it is just a way to pour more money down the throat of a white elephant that has failed to live up to its promise since the1930s. (Construction of the Port started in the early 1900s, was delayed by World War I, and the Great Depression, finally opening for business in 1931. It was also shut down during World War II and from 2016 to 2019 due to rail line washout.) Now privately owned, the port and rail line, apparently cannot fund its own maintenance.

Why spend tax payers' money on a port with shallow water, a short ice free navigation season of only four months or so (even with global warming and an open Northwest Passage it will still be only seasonal) and a rail line built on melting muskeg (global warming cuts both ways) when the Port of Halifax is the very opposite?  With deep water, ice free and a stable rail line (the Isthmus of Chignecto can be reinforced for a competitive cost) the Port of Halifax is all that Churchill is not. Not only that but Halifax has a huge grain elevator and grain handling facilities that are seriously underused.

 

The 365 silos in the Port of Halifax grain elevator can hold 5,152,000 bushels of grain and can load out 50,000 bushels per hour. The installation is a Halifax landmark.

 Shipfax is calling for a competitive rail system to move grain from the prairies to Halifax. The two so-called Canadian railways need to be reminded that they owe their existance to the Canadian government's largesse and promotion. Both have huge networks into the US, but should now be directing traffic, tariff free, through Halifax and on to the rest of the world.

 The grain importing facility at Pier 25-26 consists of a "grain leg" that can offload 500 tonnes per hour from ships. A bucket loop contraption, it is rarely used anymore as grain now arrives, usually from the Lakehead,  on self-unloaders. Most of that inbound grain is for local consumption.

 

The Nanticoke used the grain leg until a hopper was built to allow it to self-unload.

 

The hopper can receive 1,000 tonnes per hour from self-unloading ships, such as the Nanticoke (built in 1980, but since retired and scrapped in 2020 after ten years mostly carrying salt and re-named Salarium).

 Grain exporting galleries are now located at Pier 28, but once extended out from Pier 25 to the end of Pier 26, and presumably could be expanded again if the basin between piers A and A-1 is filled in.

In 1970 Elder Dempster's Dunkwa could load grain from spouts at pier 24 and, as shown, at Pier 26, but that section of the gallery was removed in the mid-1970s when the Pier 28 gallery was built.

Despite the look of the three-master Star of the Pacific , this photo was not taken in the age of sail, but also in 1970, showing a bit of the old grain export gallery at Pier 23 (right side of photo) and the old maze of conveyor systems. Who knew?
 

 The "new" export gallery at Pier 28 dates from the mid-1970s:

 An April Fool's Day event in ice-free Halifax harbour in 1987. Broken ice from the Gulf of St.Lawrence drifted down the coast and, driven by wind and tide, flowed into Halifax choking the harbour for a few days. The bulker Common Venture was loading grain at Pier 28, and suspended operations for a time. The event has not been repeated on subsequent April Firsts.

Nowadays the Pier 28 facility remains idle for months at a time, with only the occasional load of soy or wood pellets passing through the huge facility. It could be put to much more use if there were a present day equivalent subsidy or incentive, such as the infamous Crow Rate.

That's enough April 1 crowing. (Yes the gist of the above was inspired by April 1.)

 

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