Seeing Red

 Amongst the activity in Halifax harbour today, February 28, were several red ships. Not pictured here was the arriving CCGS Jean Goodwill returning from SAR patrol east. There was no room at the Bedford Institute so the ship tucked in at Pier 9C. 

Also not pictured was the red hulled Oceanex Sanderling arriving from St.John's and anchoring in Bedford Basin instead of going directly to Autoport. Due to the delays at Autoport (see yesterday's post) the Wolfsburg was still tied up there. It sailed in the late afternoon and another auto carrier, Morning Peace, was given priority at the berth, and was alongside soon after.

Another red ship is the visiting research trawler CCGS Teleost which arrived yesterday from its home base in St.John's.

The Teleost occupied the berth usually used by the inshore patrol vessels, so the CCGS G. Peddle and CCGS Private Robertson VC have been moved to the C.O.V.E dock (former Cost Guard base). The Teleost - long overdue for replacement is instead going to drydock for another refit.

Another berth at the Bedford Institute was vacated this morning as the CCGS Kopit Hopson 1752 departed for sea trials. It first moved out into Bedford Basin, with the assistance of the navy tugs, CNAV Glenside and Merrickville. It later put out to sea, but didn't go very far. It went out as far as the harbour limit off Chebucto Head, then was back alongside at a different berth this afternoon.

The Kopit Hopson 1752 has been in Vessel Life Extension refit since 2021, and has been the topic of several posts here, most recently January 11, 2024. The latest estimate for completion of the work was March 2024.

Also seen in Bedford Basin today was the hydrographic researcn vessel John Cabot away from its home base of St.John's.

The 2672 gt vessel is the third of three ships built by Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards under the National Shipbuilding Strategy and was delivered to St. John's in February 2021. Sister ship CCGS Capt Jacques Cartier, based in Halifax, arrived at the BIO in March 2020. It is currently in drydock at Pictou, NS. The first ship in the series, CCGS Sir John Franklin (ironically) is based on the Pacific coast. (Ironically because he never saw the Pacific despite several tries.)
 

It was not all red in the harbour today, as one ship although showing a lot of red anti-fouling paint on the hull, was mostly black and white. The Fairwind Legion is of a familiar type, more usually seen with "Thorco" or "Fanbo" names. 

Built in 2015 by Honda Shipyard in Saiki, Japan, it was indeed named Thorco Legion until 2020. A 13,100 gt, 16,957 dwt ship it carries two 50 tonne SWL cranes to work its box shaped holds.

In tracing the ship's recent movements, it seems that the ship has sailed from Asia in ballast. It was reported in Batangas, Philppines anchorage January 5-6, then Taichung, Taiwan January 9-10, Hong Kong anchorage January 10-12, thenpassed Cape Town Febraury 6-7/

Tying up at Pier 9B, it seems the ship will be fitted out with fiber-optic cable racks as its sister ships have done many times in recent years.

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Scrap Parade

 

The sale of veteran Canadian ships continues apace. Most are being sold for scrap, but there is some life left in a few of them, so they may avoid the torch for a while longer.

CABOT

Latest to go is Cabot the Oceanex veteran which was finally retired at the beginning of this month. It had been retired twice before, but was brought back into service to fill in for Oceanex Connaigra  when its prop malfunctioned.

Cabot arrived in Halifax February 3, 2014 to be retired, for the second time, but was brought back into service from April until June.

I have recapped the history of the ship here before, but it ran out of Halifax to Newfoundland as Cavallo for predecessor companies Atlantic Searoute until 1987 when it went to the St.Lawrence. It occasionally filled in Halifax in subsequent years.

Built for Ellermans Wilson, but rejected, a Fednav company bought it in January 1981 and on its arrival in Halifax some of the hastily applied Fednav red had washed off, to show Ellerman's green. Fednav kept the traditional Ellerman name Cavallo, which survived into the successor company Atlantic SeaRoute Ltd. (Combining Newfoundland Container Line with Seaforth Fednav or Fednav).

 ASL operated the ship out of Halifax until 1988 when it was transferred to the St.Lawrence to work for Atlantic Container Express (ACE), a Clarke Company and it was renamed Cabot.  In 1990 ACE and ASL formed Oceanex, and in 1996 the ship was lengthened.


 The ship ran faithfully between Montreal and St.John's until September 2013 when replacement Oceanex Connaigra was delivered. Cabot was laid up in Montreal, but was pressed into service in November 2013. It came to Halifax to be laid up when Connaigra returned to service, but its problems recurred, and Cabot's sail for scrap was terminated when it went back into service again in April. By the end of June Connaigra was on its way back from Ireland, Oceanex Avlon was ready to come out of refit at Méchins, and Cabot was finally finished with engines for Oceanex.. 

Soon after tying up in St.John's it was reflagged to St. Kitts and Nevis and sailed almost immediately.The initial rumour that it was headed for scrap in Turkey, seems to have been premature. The ship has been renamed Cebu and is headed under its own power for the port of the same name in the Philippines. It is slow steaming across the Atlantic, at about 10 knots. It is due at Gibraltar in a day or two, and is giving an ETA for Cebu of August 8.

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JOHN CABOT

Another veteran former Canadian ship, that shared a name with the Oceanex ship is the cable layer CCGS John Cabot . On July 8 it was towed out of Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta by the tug Sea Patron en route to Aliaga, Turkey for scrap. It is due off the beach on July 13. The two ships are unlikely to cross paths in the Med, since the cable layer has a couple of days head start.

As the world's first icebreaking cable ship, CCGS John Cabot came into service when Canada was the world's leader in telecommunications. Canadian Vickers built the 5097 grt ship in 1965 and it was fitted with a capacity of 400 nautical miles of cable. It could do multi-tasking for the Coast Guard, but was primarily on standby for cable repair in the North Atlantic under the direction of the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corp (COTC). Trawlers were continually ripping up cable and John Cabot was there to repair. Eventually the ship pioneered use of a seaplow that trenched  for and buried the cable. Its diesel electric drive, powerful enough for icebreaking, was also ideal for the plowing operation.

It also did cable laying, notably the shore ends of CANTAT 2.
Among the various jobs it did was in ice infested waters off Thule Greenland for the US Navy. It also worked from Ireland, where it rescued two men from the semi-submersible PISCES III when it was disabled in 500 m of water in 1973. It also assisted in recovery operations following the 1985 Air India bombing.

When it was retired by the CCG in 1994 it went to work for Teleglobe, the privatised former COTC, and was based in Halifax, with the British company Cable+Wireless as managers. It also worked out of Baltimore, Cork Ireland and in the Caribbean.

In Teleglobe colours off white over light, light blue green, it carried sea plows and semi-submersibles aft, above a tiny umbilical sheave.

 In 1996 it was sold to McDermott Subsea, and after conversion back to a cable layer (as opposed to a cable repairer) it was resold to Elettra S.p.A. of Italy and renamed Certamen. It went to work
in the ice free Mediterranean, under the management of Italcable and based in Catania.

On June 25 it sailed to Valletta,  Malta. Its name was quickly changed to Certa and it was reflagged to Belize to for the tow to the breakers.

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