ZIM feeder, Melfi and Autoport

 ZIM

 A new ship on ZIM's CGX feeder service arrived and sailed today for Kingston, Jamaica. This is a little unusual as another of ZIM's CGX feeders was in port yesterday.

Today's visitor was the Seamaster a 23,239 gt, 24,129 dwt ship built in 2013 by SPP Shipbuilding Co in Sacheon, South Korea.

The ship has a capacity of 1756 TEU with  very high count of 350 reefer plugs. It also has three 40 tonne capacity cranes, one of which serves the after deck.

Yesterday's caller the Contship Leo has been a regular caller since 2021.[see yesterday's post]. It also sailed for Kingston. Contship Leo was built in 2008 by China Commerce Group Kouan Shipbuilding as Vega Saturn. It became CFS Paceno in 2016 and took on its current name in 2020. The 9957 gt, 13,803 dwt ship has a container capacity of 1118 TEU had carries two 45 tonne cranes.

 Melfi

Melfi Marine Corp, running Melfi Lines from Spain to Cuba,  has been using the BF Fortaleza since late last year. As reported in my November 28, 2023 post: BF Fortaleza was built by the famed, but now defunct, J.J.Sietas shipyard in Nuenfeld, Germany in 1996. It was launched as Partnership but renamed Yvette on delivery. It became Partnership again from 2003 to 2004 then City of Lisbon until 2005, Carla until 2009 and WEC Rubens until 2011.  The 6362 gt, 7202 dwt ship has a capacity of 700 TEU, and unusual for Melfi, it is gearless.

The ship also has a large section of the hull open to the elements with no hatch cover. This was a design developed by Sietas, as reported in my January 28 post of this year. At that time I did not have a clear photo of this feature. Today, April 9, I did get a better picture.

 
The protective dam between hold number one (which does have hatches) and the open hold is clearly visible. There are high bulwarks around the open section. The step down secton aft of the open hold marks the engine room below deck,but with container stacking over.

Autoport

Spring is usually a busy time for automobile imports, and this year has been no exception. Despite a five week strike (which ended last week) the facility has been handling large numbers of cars, and a small amount of RoRo machinery. (Ships with large amounts of non-auto RoRo go to Pier 9C.)

The Morning Lady arrived today from Southampton on the usual Wallenius Wilhelmsen transatlantic route. The ship's recent itineray includes a departure from Shangai February 8, then, presumably via the Cape of Good Hope, arriving Zeebrugge March 18, Bremerhaven March 23, Goteborg March 28 and Southampton March 30.

It is a large ship of 70,853 gt, 27,343 dwt with a capacity of 8100 CEU. It was built in 2010 by Hyundai Ulsan. Overall length is 232.4 m (762.47 ft) which is well within the limits of the Panama Canal (289.56m / 965 ft).

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Two months to the day

 It has been two months to the day since the container ship BF Fortaleza made its last last call in Halifax for Melfi Lines. On November 28, 2023 I was unable to get an underway photo and annoyingly that was the case again today January 28, 2024. 

However the photo I was able to get today as it was working at PSA Atlantic Gateway Pier 42 showed an important feature of the ship in slightly more detail.

The ship was built by the now regrettably defunct J.J.Sietas Schiffswerft in Nuenfeld, Germany in 1996. It was launched as Partnership but renamed Yvette on delivery. It became Partnership again from 2003 to 2004 then City of Lisbon until 2005, Carla until 2009 and WEC Rubens until 2011.  The 6362 gt, 7202 dwt ship has a capacity of 700 TEU, including 100 reefers and it is gearless.

The ship's most interesting feature however is that most of the cargo space is open, without hatchcovers. The forward part of the ship, which would be number one hold, has operable hinged covers. There is then a large breakwater with the open hold extending aft as far as the engine room bulkhead, with a high coaming along its length. There is a solid cargo carrying deck over the engine space, of about one 40 foot container length immediately forward of the accommodation block. 

The hatchless hold space is equipped with cellular guides for container stowage. The guides project above the level of the coaming which would allow containers to be stowed to the height of the top of the breakwater or possibly higher.

The J.J.Seitas yard perfected the hatchless configuration and built several ships of the type including the much larger 14,639 gt 1004 TEU Oceanex Avalon which operates between St.John's, and Montreal.

Since freight containers are relatively weather proof and are often stowed on the open deck, it makes very little difference if they are stowed in hatchless holds. Containers that require special treatment can be stowed in nunber one hold where they are protected from the elements. The main concern is the amount of water than can be allowed to accumulate in the hold either from weather or from seas. Presumably the latter is minimized by the breakwater and high coaming, and what does accumulate can be pumped out long before it effects the cargo or the stability of the ship.

The BF Fortaleza sailed late in the afternoon (in failing light and snow) for the warmer climes of Mariel, Cuba on Melfi's regular MEDCAN service from the Mediterranean. 

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East Meets West and All Around the Circle

 The variety of traffic in Halifax Harbour today (November 28) was not unusual, and so is a reminder of how vital the port is to a number of aspects of the Canadian economy. The amount of traffic was due in part to yesterday's stormy weather which caused the suspension of pilotage operations until early this morning when traffic began to arrive in a ,bunch.

HMCS Fredericton was outbound this morning and met the inbound CSL Tacoma in the Middle Ground area off Point Pleasant. The Canadian frigate is named for the capital city of New Brunswick and was built in Saint John, New Brunswick by Saint John Shipbuilding Ltd. It was commissioned in 1994 and is based in Halifax.

CSL Tacoma operates for CSL Americas and was named for the sister city to Seattle, WA, which occupies the southernmost reaches of Puget Sound. CSL operates ships on the Pacific coast also, often carrying aggregates from Canadian quarries to US cities such as Tacoma. Oddly there is a Tacoma Drive in Dartmouth, NS. How it acquired that name is not known to me, but it is in the Westphal area, which in itself is named for a pair of brother Royal Navy admirals, originally from Nova Scotia. One of the brothers, Sir George Augustus Alexander Westphal, served with Nelson (and was also wounded) on HMS Victory, and was the last surviving RN officer from the batle of Trafalgar when he died at age 90 in 1875.)

CSL Tacoma is a Trillium class self-unloading ocean bulker of 43,691 gt, 71,552 dwt, built in 2013 by Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China. It will load a cargo of gypsum at the Gold Bond Gypsum facility in Bedford Basin.

Also arriving to load gypsum was Algoma Integrity, also a self-unloader, built in 2009 by EISA-Ilha in Rio de Janeiro. It was built for the United States Gypsum Company's Gypsum Transportation Ltd, and named Gypsum Integrity, Designed to serve their Hantsport and Little Narrows, Nova Scotia export facilities, it measured 33,047 gt, 47,761 dwt. When USG's Canadian subsidury Canadian Gypsum Corp (CGC) closed the Hantsport facility in 2011 the ship was chartered out and in 2015 was sold to Algoma and renamed Algoma Integrity. CGC closed the Little Narrows mine in 2016, but earlier this year announced the re-opening, although it will be some time before they ship any product.

Algoma Integrity will remain at anchor in Bedford Basin until the CSL Tacoma sails.

Lingering waves from yesterday's storm brought out some hardy surfers off Point Pleasant as ship traffic made its way inbound.

Another of those early arrivals was the container ship BF Fortaleza for the first time for Melfi Shipping of Cuba. The ship stood by off Halifax most of yesterday and boarded its pilot for 0700 hrs AST this morning.

It tied up at Pier 42 and so had a view of a lobster boat working just off the pier. The lobster season in this region opened a day early, on Sunday November 26, in view of the predicted weather for the usual opening day - the last Monday in November. I was surprised to see the boat however as there is a newly imposed ban this year on lobstering in many areas of Halifax harbour close to industrial and port facilities.

BF Fortaleza was built by the famed, but now defunct, J.J.Sietas shipyard in Nuenfeld, Germany in 1996. It was launched as Partnership but renamed Yvette on delivery. It became Partnership again from 2003 to 2004 then City of Lisbon until 2005, Carla until 2009 and WEC Rubens until 2011.  The 6362 gt, 7202 dwt ship has a capacity of 700 TEU, and unusual for Melfi, it is gearless.

Another ship that spent yesterday standing by off Halifax arrived this morning for Imperial Oil. The oddly named Silver Ginny is an otherwise typical Mid-Range tanker of 29,460 gt, 49,746 dwt, built in 2014 by Hyundai Mipo, Ulsan.

The ship is arriving from Good Hope -Norco, Louisiana, an area upstream of New Orelans on the Mississippi River, and home to two large refineries. Shell Oil's Norco refinery produces 250,000 bbl per day and Valero's St. Charles refinery produces 340,000 bbl per day. Both also produce a variety of chemicals. Since Shell and Valero are competitors of Imperial (Exxon Mobil) today's cargo is likely part of an elaborate trade off mechanism to meet a specific need.

The ship is owned by Sinokor Petrochemical Co Ltd which has several ships named "silver + woman's name".

Rounding off the arrivals was the westbound Atlantic Sky from Liverpool, UK.

Once again the weakness of Transatlantic trade is evident with the very light deck load. Most Atlantic ports are showing a decline in traffic after a few years of dependably steady traffic or slight growth. Halifax and Montreal are no excepetions to this trend. The Port of Halifax saw a 12.9% decline in container traffic in the third quarter of 2023 over last year. That gives a year to date total of 409,000 TEU versus the 2022 YTD of 448,000 TEU. The year 2022 saw a record 601,700 TEU throughput (import + export). This year's projection may be be in the range of an 8% to 10% decline.

There were some small craft at work in the harbour too. The Halifax Port Corporation's own workboat Maintainer I was spotted at Pier 23 working on the removal of inflatable fenders for the winter. The fenders, commonly called Yokohama fenders (which is a trade name of the Yokohma Rubber Co) are deployed at cruise ship berths to protect visiting ships from impact with the piers. The resilient surfaces sometimes attract marine growth which is removed before they are set out again in the spring.

Built by A.F.Theriualt + Sons Ltd in Meteghan River, NS in 1995 it is a 12 gt vessel with a 210 bhp engine driving a single screw. It is equipped with a substantial Palfinger knuckle boom crane with a lifting capacity of up to 3.3 tonnes.

Nearby was the Canadian Coast Guard boat Point Caveau a 31.9 gt aluminum hulled work boat built in 2003 by ABCO in Lunenburg, NS. The 14.6m (47.9 ft) vessel has reputed top speed of 30 knots.

I think the Pointe Caveau was displaced from its usual inside berth at the Bedford Institute by construction of the new section of dock. Also displaced from BIO was CCGS Jean Goodwill which has been tied up at Pier 9C for the last couple of days. (November 27 photo)

The ship took on stores today and sailed on SAR patrol as CCGS Sir William Alexander arrived.

With lobster season now underway from in Areas 33 and 34, from Halifax down the southwest shore and around the western end of the province to Digby, Coast Guard SAR patrols are stepped up due to the hundreds of small craft in coastal waters.

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