Unusual preparations

 Hurricane Philippe, downgraded to a post tropical cyclone, inexoribly making its way toward Nova Scotia, and weakening as it does so, has shipping making various preparations for diversions, reroutings, and in the case of ferries, outright cancellations of some crossings.

For the cruise ship industry ships generally prefer to sail as far away from disturbances as possible, and do not like to be in port during major storms. Late this afternoon (October 7) however there was an exception for the small (by cruising standards) Star Pride (ex Seabourn Pride) arriving in Halifax from Eastport, ME.

The ship was in Halifax September 30 and was covered in this blog. The difference this time is that the ship did not tie up at a pier, but instead headed directly for Bedford Basin and went to anchor. 

The unusual sight of a cruise ship in the Narrows and passing beneath the harbour bridges is only possible because the ship is small, and thus has a relatively low air draft.

Some passengers took in the unique experience by crowding onto the open observation bridge above the navigation bridge.

 While the ship was entering the Bedford Basin, the container ship ZIM Virginia was getting underway from PSA Fairview Cove, and held up long enough for the Star Pride to clear.

Hyundai Heavy Industries built the ZIM Virginia in the Ulsan shipyard in 2002. The 53,453 gt, 66,686 dwt ship has a capacity of 4839 TEU, and it flies the Israeli flag.The ship is bound for New York, so may be able to skirt the storm's path by sailing south and keeping to the east.

Bedford Basin is not exceptionallly good holding ground for ships with high windage to anchor, but is is a sufficiently large body of water (8 km x 5 km) that a little dragging in high winds can be tolerated. It does mean that a ship may have to steam ahead on its anchor during sustained winds. Constant monitoring is necessary while at anchor. Both the ship's bridge watch and Halifax VTS have auto alrms as well as human radar monitoring to detect dragging.

Likely due to the downgrade for Philippe another cruise ship, the Seabourn Quest elected to stay in port, tied up at Pier 23. The camber is relatively sheltered, but I would not be surprised to see some waves sloshing in if there is any storm surge. Again the ship will heve to remain vigilant during the night when the highest winds are expected.

The cargo ship Augusta Luna (centre in photo below) in port from Cuba for Nirint Shipping also opted to remain in port, tied up at Pier 27.

The Articulated Tug / Barge (ATB) Leo A. McArthur / John J.Carrick arriving from the Great Lakes with a cargo asphalt (leftmost in photo above) will remain at the McAsphalt jetty in Eastern Passage over night. It will likely have to suspend unloading operations when the wind picks up, because the mooring is partially secured to buoys.

Eastern Passage is relativeley well sheltered, so sea conditions will likely not be too severe, but there will still be high winds and strong gusts.

The heavy load ship GPO Emerald is due to move back out to anchor this evening. It has been berthed alongside the crane ship Orion (with the barge Atlantic Swordfish between them). 

It is due to move back alongside tomorrow to continue the transfer of six monopiles (in sections) and other gear for the Vineyard wind project offshore Massachusetts. Once loaded the Orion will return to the Vineyard project site and use its 5,000 tonne capacity crane to install the monopiles.

Two other ships that remained in port over night last night sailed today, having given the storm time to move away from their tracks. (Both ships were covered here yesterday)

Balmoral may be able to skirt the storm to the east and south on its way to Portland, ME but there may still be rough seas to contend with.

  CMA CGM Andromeda will likely be following a similar route, but heading farther south for New York.

The Volga Maersk, which arrived from Montreal this morning sailed early this evening for Bremerhaven, so will probably be ahead or well to the east of the storm.

Permanent residents of the port are accustomed to rough weahter by now, so are likely well buttoned down for the night, and will wait to see what the morning llight reveals.

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All the News

 There was so much action in Halifax harbour today (October 6) that no one title could summarize it adequately. This what I saw, in order of ship type.

I was particularly interested to see the first time caller SH Vega which is billed as a "five star, elegant, scandi-design boutique ship". With a promo like that it was bound to be underwhelming, but it was nevertheless an interesting "little" cruise ship.

Its small size was accentuated when it tied up at Pier 24 (able to accommodate only the smallest of ships) with the behemoth 4,266 passenger Norwegian Escape in the background.

The SH Vega was built in 2022 by Helsinki Shipyard, for Swan Hellenic Cruises and is a 10,617 gt, PC5 ice-strengthened ship that caters to 152 guests with 120 crew. It arrived from Nuuk and Sisimut, Greenland having previously called in Pond Inlet, NU September 10-11 after departing from Reykjavik, Iceland August 26.

The SH Vega is headed for Bridgetown, Barbados, but will be sailing into some inclement weather as the post tropical cyclone Philippe is bearing down on Bermuda. By the time it reaches Nova Scotia on Sunday it will be further downgraded to port tropical,  but will still bring high winds and heavy rain.

From new ship to veteran, the Fred.Olsen Cruise Lines Balmoral made an afternoon arrival. Built in 1988 by Meyerwerft, Papenburg as Crown Odyssey it was renamed Norwegian Crown in 1996, then reverted to Crown Odyssey in 2000 andNorwegian Crown again from 2003 to 2008. 

When Olsens acquired the ship in 2007 they sent it to Blohm and Voss in Hamburg where a new 30 meter section was inserted. The new portion, built by Schichau Seebeckwerft in Bremerhaven, was floated up the river Elbe to Hamburg. Consisting of 186 passenger cabins and 53 crew cabins, it increased the ship's gross tonnage from 34,242 to 43,357 and passenger capacity from 1230 to 1325. It was then renamed Balmoral after the Scottish residence of the British royal family.

 The "new" section, which matched the existing ship in terms of appearance, is still identifiable due to the awkward gap between lifeboat/tenders at midships. 

PSA Halifax Atlantic Hub was busy all day with three ships alongside for much of the time. In addition to the weekly St-Pierre et Miquelon and Argentia coastal container/RoRo  Nolhanava, there was Eimskip's Bakkafoss en route from Portland, ME to Argentia, NL.

The 1025 TEU (including 231 reefers) ship joined the Eimskip rota in June and is one of four ships that maintain the weekly Green Line service from/to Iceland. 

See details for Bakkafoss in the June 24, 2023 post. (N.B. it has also been lengthened - but by only 10.2 meters).

The Ultra sized ONE Owl took up the rest of the space at berths 41 and into 42 when it arrived yesterday afternoon and sailed late this afternoon. With two other ships at the pier using one crane each, it pointed out the need for more cranes - see yesterday's post.

Japan Marine United Shipyard in Kure built the ship in 2017 as NYK Owl. The 146,412 gt, 139,335 dwt vessel has a capacity of 14,026 TEU and is one of several sister ships on THE Alliance's EC5 service. The ship represents Ocean Network Express Holdings Ltd, the amalgam of the primary Japanese container lines: NYK, K-Line and MOL, formed in 2016. The ship was renamed ONE Owl in 2021 and adopted ONE's unique magenta colour scheme.

 As the ONE Owl makes its way outbound the tour boat Silva heads for the Northwest Arm on a regular tour. A tug is standing by off McNab's Cove for the next arrival.

Allowing the ONE Owl lots of room to get underway, and to use the main channel, the next Ultra size container ship CMA CGM Andromeda held off outside the pilot station for a time, before making its way inbound to the same berth.

With three tugs in attendance, the CMA CGM Andromeda slows before turing to back in alongside. Silva* has emerged from the Northwest Arm with sails set and is making its way back to its base.

Dating from 2009 when it was built by Hyundai Ulsan, the 131,332 gt, 131,263 dwt ship has a carrrying capacity of 11,200 TEU, and is a first time caller for the Ocean Alliance from Asia. Its last port was Colombo, Sri Lanka.

 * Caution Rant to follow:

 The three-masted schooner's official name is Silva of Halifax, in the Swedish manner, recognizing the country where it was built in 1939 as an auxiliary cargo vessel (motorized but still being rigged to use sail, and thus not totally reliant on an engine.) 

 It is now marketed in Halifax as the "Tall Ship Silva" which creates an unfortunate misaprehension. In my opinion it is far from being a tall ship. It is not fitted with topmasts, which might have given it a bit of a claim to the word. In my mind, a tall ship must have topmasts and some square sails. Why not call the Silva a schooner? - bald headed though it might be in sailor parlance, without topmasts - it really is a schooner. Aside from the fact that "tall ship" is a poetic term, not a nautical one, I think it should be reserved for somewhat more impressive vessels.

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CMA CGM Andromeda

 Another first caller for the Port of Halifax arrived this morning, February 19. CMA CGM Andromeda is a 131,332 gt, 131,236 dwt ship with a capacity of 11,200 TEU (some sources say 11,300) and was built in 2009 by Hyundai Ulsan. Unusual for a ship of its size, it does not have the split superstructure with bridge and some accommodation isolated forward. Instead it has the wheelhouse aft in the conventional arrangement found on smaller ships.

The ship appears to be on the Ocean Alliance Columbus JAX service (CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen, OOCL) but has varied from the usual port calls. Ships on this Asia / North America east coast service usually sail directly from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Halifax. However this ship's last Asian port of call was Port Klang, Malaysia. It skipped Colombo, but stopped last at Tanger Med, Morocco. 

The ship is expected to call next at New York, Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah before returning to Asia via Suez. 

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DOUBLE HEADER, TRIPLE HEADER

 Two of the facilities in Halifax harbour were busy today. Gold Bond Gypsum (formerly National Gypsum) had one ship alongside and one waiting and PSA Halifax (operators of the southend container terminal) had two ships alongside and a third waiting.

Gold Bond had been accumulating a large stockpile of material for the last several weeks:

The raw gypsum ore is transported from the open pit mine at Milford by CN rail in dedicated unit trains. Cars dump their loads in the white building at left, where the material is conveyed under ground to the large stacker/crane. It is conveyed again (white structures to left of centre) to the mobile ship loader on the pier (dark structure in centre, in front of the stacker crane).

Arriving this morning, August 29, Algoma Integrity began to load immediately, and by late afternoon had reduced the stockpile noticeably. It has raised its self-unloader boom to allow the mobile ship loader to access all the ship's hatches. The loader is at about midships position in this photo, and appears to be loading the ship from aft to forward - perhaps in one pass.

Also arriving today, Thunder Bay anchored nearby and will move in as soon as the Integrity is finished.

At PSA Halifax (formerly Halterm) there were two ships alongside. CMA CGM Andromeda is new to Halifax. A 131,332 gt, 131,236 dwt ship, it was built by Hyundai Ulsan in 2009 and has a container capacity of 11,200 TEU. It is sailing on the Columbus JAX service.

Also alongside was Maersk Penang on the east bound leg of its transatlantic regular run. Returning from Montreal its next scheduled port is Bremerhaven.

Once both ships are clear, it will be time for the long awaited Zim Yokohama to berth, now scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The ship has been in quarantine anchorage off Halifax since August 6 due to COVID cases among the crew. 

The only other commercial activity in the harbour today was at Pier 30-31 where another regular caller, Augusta Luna, was tied up.

The ship arrived yesterday with another load of nickel sulfides from Cuba. The ship sails for the Dutch company Nirint Shipping BV. Cuba's economy is in paralysis, since the shut down of tourism due to COVID. One of the country's few sources of foreign revenue is the sale of nickel - although it is believed rum is still doing well. (See the container tanks on deck forward.)

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