The swings and roundabouts

The tanker BW Raven may be glad to see the last of Halifax after an extended visit. The ship is due to sail early this afternoon after several moves to anchorage, Imperial Oil and pier 31. Back at anchor this morning it was swinging round with the tide as harbour traffic goes about its business.

At number 5 anchorage in the lower harbour the ship has the former Coast Guard base, now called The Cove, as a backdrop.

The tug Mister Joe with the split hull hopper barge Pitts No.12 heads southbound with another load of fill for the pier 42 extension.

Standing by off the BW Raven Dominion Diving's Roseway appears to be waiting to disembark someone from the tanker.

At the Cove the suppliers Trinity Sea and Burin Sea await an uncertain fate. Trinity Sea has been laid up since August and Burin Sea arrived this week. The two former Russian suppliers, rebuilt by Secunda Marine may be looking at permanent retirement.

Also alongside the Cove is the research vessel LeeWay Odyssey. It is the former CGS Cape Harrison and Louis M. Lauzier and now calls The Cove its home base. See also:
http://shipfax.blogspot.com/search?q=leeway+odyssey

Both photos taken through window glass, hence the somewhat foggy appearance.

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Business as Usual

As the cruise season winds down, today was the last big day, with four ships in port.

It was pretty much wall to wall ships at the seawall and finger piers.

From south to north (left to right in the picture above):
pier 31: Caribbean Princess
pier 23: Silver Whisper
pier 22: Regal Princess
pier 20: AIDAdiva

Regal Princess was last to leave this afternoon and sounded its mournful "Love Boat" goodbye whistle several times. If you haven't heard it go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWQlAglh9NI
It does sound somewhat more tuneful in reality, and much louder up close.

Still at pier 28 HC Svea-Kim (blue hull) resumed  unloading rails, but the tanker BW Raven had to vacate pier 31 and went back out to anchor (again).

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When Puze sailed, giving Rotterdam as its next port,

it was back to number 3 oil dock for BW Raven.

Clearly there was some sort of problem with the ship or its cargo to make it move within the port so many times.

There was also activity at both container terminals.

Atlantic Sun called at Cerescorp Fairview Cove on the westbound leg of its trip and Halterm had Pengalia for Eimskip, eastbound from US ports for Iceland via Argentia, NL.

Built in 2008 by the Sainty (Jiangdu) Corp in Jiangdu* (formerly shown as Yangzhou) it is a 7545 gt, 8268 dwt vessel with a capacity of 698 TEU (incluing 120 reefers). Eimskip also charters the Skogafoss, built by the same yard in 2008 with the same gt, but a dwt of 8210 tonnes. It has the same container capacity, but is fitted with two 60 tonne cranes.

Pengalia flies the Cyprus flag and is managed by Marlow. Skogafoss built as Ice Bird has just recently been purchased by Ernst Russ (part of Zeaborn) and will continue its charter to Eimskip, with management shifting from Briese to Zeaborn.

The builders of these ships, Sainty Marine, part of Jiangsu* Guoxin Group, a state owned company, claimed the distinction of being the first publicly listed Chinese company to declare bankruptcy. It has since been liquidated and its former president was sentenced to 18 years in prison for fraud.

* Jiangdu is a district within Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, in central eastern China.

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All in a (Sun)day's work.

There were four ships occupying berths in the deepwater general cargo piers today. At pier 24 the small cruise ship Victory II (ex Cape Cod Light) arrived yesterday to mark the end of another season of St.Lawrence River and Great Lakes cruising. With sister ship Victory I (ex Cape May Light), Victory Cruise Lines seems to have found the formula for operating a pair of ships that at one time seemed to be unemployable. Due to the cramped location and extra vigilant security I did not attempt a photo.

At pier 28 the container and general cargo ship Augusta Sun was positioned at the grain spouts and the dryers were working at the grain elevator, but the ship did not appear to be loading today. The Nirint ship, on its return from Cuba, completed unloading its nickel cargo at pier 31 and moved to pier 28 to fill at least one box shaped hold with "hog fuel" for Rotterdam.

One photo will have to do for the ships at pier 28 (left) and 27 (right) where a gap between truck trailers allowed only a partial view of each.

At pier 27 a newcomer, HC Svea-Kim was also not working, taking a break from unloading its cargo of train rails from Poland for CNR. These regular shipments are often carried on Onego vessels. This one however is operated by Zeaborn Chartering, and still carries "HC Chartering" in large letters on its hull.  Zeaborn took over HC Chartering in 2016 and in 2017 acquired Rickmers Line and later Rickmers Ship Management . In 2018 it acquired ER Schiffahrts (Ernst Russ). Now along with its majority interest in Intermarine and co-operation with Carisbrooke it has widespread management , chartering and liner operations.

Built in 2000, the hull was fabricated by Damen's Galati, Romania yard, and the ship was completed at the home yard Damen Hoogezand in Foxhol. Originally named Katja it was renamed MSC Apapa in 2001 and reverted to Katja in 2002. It took its rather odd current name in 2013. The 6382 gt, 8961 dwt ship is equipped with two cranes of 60 tonnes capacity.

Zeaborn has a very complete spec sheet on the ship, which may make up for the lack of photo:

http://zeaborn.com/fileadmin/documents/datasheets/vessel-data-sheet-hc-9-000.pdf

Across the camber at pier 31 was the unusual sight of a tanker alongside. The BW Raven has been shuttled all around the harbour since it arrived October 17 for Imperial Oil (and subject of previous posts). It was anchored in Bedford Basin for time, due to weather, returned to Imperial Oil to finish unloading then yesterday moved to anchor in the lower harbour to make room for another ship. [see below].

Well and truly unloaded this time, BW Raven waited in number 1 anchorage yesterday until space was available at pier 31.

The ship's appearance at pier 31 may be in order to take on bunkers (it was originally scheduled to go the pier 9 for bunkers, but in the end did not do so.) However engine repairs (which preclude it from remaining at anchor) or hot work could be other explanations.

A gap in the first fence allowed for an unusual "stern on" view of the BW Raven, only partly screened by the second fence. 

Halterm has taken over the pier 29 area (once the site of fish plant - see September 27 post) and
until recently were stacking containers there. Now they seem to be using the space to park truck trailers. Photos of ships in the area are therefore hit and miss.

Although the deepwater piers are rarely used so intensively, one has to wonder what will happen when the camber is filled in for Halterm expansion.

The MidRange tanker Puze arrived at Imperial Oil #3 dock from Antwerp with another load of refined product.   Despite its Marshall Islands registry, the ship is owned by the Latvian Shipping Company JSC and named for a sparsely populated parish or administrative district and village in the Ventspils area.

Built in 2006 by the 3 Maj Brodogradiliste in Rijeka, Croatia, it is a 30,641 gt, 52,679 dwt ship. Comparing with the similar sized BW Raven the ship has a much different and wider navigation bridge structure, projecting forward beyond the accommodation block.

There was also container ship activity today with another of the MOL "P" class ships, MOL Partner, arriving for THE Alliance. Sister ship MOL Paramount arrived October 19 and has exactly the same tonnages of 71,902 gt, 72,968 dwt, capacity of 6350 TEUs, including 500 reefers and also came from Koyo Dockyard in 2005.

MOL Partner passes pier 9C inbound for Fairview Cove.

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BW Raven makes a move

The BW Raven finally got to move from anchorage in Bedford Basin this morning. Weather conditions had kept the ship in the Basin since Sunday October 20 when it left Imperial Oil dock #3.
See also: http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/10/basin-for-orders.html

The ship had so little of its cargo left on board at the time, it appeared to be in ballast. There must be a few drops left to unload yet, so it was back to the oil dock today.

The tug Spitfire III escorts BW Raven back to Imperial Oil from Bedford Basin.

BW Tankers (Word-Wide Shipping) appears to be transitioning to a new colour scheme. The funnel marking has been changed from solid  blue with white "BW" to a white band with a stylized globe.

The crude oil tanker BW Columbia, at anchor on the St.Lawrence River, displayed the older BW funnel mark and colour scheme.

Also the blue diagonal blue bands with BW initials painted forward on the hull have been painted over.

The difficult to remain green hull colour will apparently be kept.

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