Dee4 Dogwood

The unusually named Dee4 Dogwood arrived in Halifax this morning, November 21 from Amsterdam. The ship anchored for a few hours until the Acadian sailed from Irving Oil's Woodside terminal, then it moved in to unload.

A MidRange tanker of 26,900 gt, 47,399 dwt, the ship was built in 2008 by Onomichi Zosen in Japan. Its tanks are coated in epoxy and it has stainless steel heating coils, allowing it to carry a variety of chemicals in addition to refined petroleum products. It started life as the Nord Organizer, and took its present name in 2020 when it was acquired by the Danish Dee4 Vessel Co 4 K/S. 

Dee4 Capital Partners is a Copenhagen-based investment fund manager with thirteen ships in its portfolio, each owned by a single ship company and each named for a species of tree. Management of the ships has been entrusted to the mammoth company Hafnia Tankers (part of the BW Group) , also Danish, which operates more than 200 tankers. Parent BWGroup in turn claims more than 400 ships (including Hafnia) under its management.

 A stylized Danish flag forms part of the funnel mark of the ship, which is registered in Denmark under the Danish International Register.

Once the ship was brought up at anchor the launch Dominion Pursuit went out with an agent or inspector. The usual Dominion Diving launch, Dominion Bearcat was working with a barge in Dartmouth Cove.

Dominion Pursuit outbound from Dartmouth Cove passes fleetmate Dominion Bearcat which has the barge Dominion Mercury doing some crane work off the C.O.V.E dock where a new jetty is under construction.

Alongside  the C.O.V.E. dock (Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship, the former Coast Guard base) are the Ocean Seeker (black hull) and Belle Isle Sea (blue hull).

More on the Dominion Pursuit:

Measuring less than 15 gros tons (13.64 gross tons, in fact) the boat is not required to be registered by name, only by registry number, which is C15244NS. The boat was built by Atelier Maritime Tilly (AMT) in St-Antoine-de-Tilly, QC for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It was given an unofficial name, which I believe it was Denis Riverin (it may also have been Louis Bérubé). Dominion Diving acquired the boat in about 2007. It is used as a launch and diving tender in Halifax harbour.

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Basin boats, and cars and boxes

There is no particular theme to today's post - it is more a random collection of my observations.

There was lots of room in Bedford Basin for various activities. HMCS Fredericton moved, with tug assistance, from HMC Dockyard to the Bedford Magazine (Jetty NN) and HMCS Moncton took up an anchorage position not far away.

Moncton is still wearing its commemorative paint scheme marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic in 2020. Bedford Basin played a critical role in that battle as it was a marshaling point for ship convoys. Naval escorts and some other ships were painted in a variety of schemes to confuse or mislead the enemy about the ship's position, direction of travel or speed. 

Also in the Basin for some form of trials was the newest vessel in the Fisheries and Oceans fleet based at the Bedford Institute. CCGS Capt. Jacques Cartier was delivered earlier this year by Seaspan and has already conducted several scientific missions.

I earned a stern rebuke some time ago for stating in a previous post that new Canadian ships are too small, but they certainly appear stubby compared to the ones they replace. I am sure they are technically advanced, seaworthy and packed with all necessary equipment, but they are not as aesthetically pleasing as ships of yore. [I am a charter member, and currently the only surviving member (as far as I know), of the Canadian Committee on Aesthetic Responsibility and am therefore qualified to comment.]

On the west side of the Basin at Mill Cove the tour boat fleet has settled in for the winter. 

From left to right these are:

Kawartha Spirit - returned from Lunenburg and laid up. It did not operate in Halifax during 2020.

Theodore Too - laid up and apparently still for sale.

Harbour Queen I - did operate tours in 2020 and provided ferry service to George's Island.

Silva of Halifax - also operated in 2020 giving harbour tours.

Anchored in Mill Cove is the schooner Katie Belle . It appears that they crew went ashore without stowing sails. It made one trip to sea during 2020 - September 19 to October 19. See: September 19

It certainly did those sails no good if they were left that way for a month.

At the other end of the harbour the autocarrier Viking Queen made one of its periodic visits. The 55,775 gt, 16,890 dwt ship was built in 2007 by Ujanik, Pula, Croatia, with a capacity of 7,000 cars.

Outbound rounding Ives Knoll, the Viking Queen leaves lots of room for Dominion Bearcat doing some sort of work off Pier 20-23.

And as an update on the demolition work at the former Foundation Maritime dock (latterly Svitzer Canada) - the salvage pier has been completely removed, and the "cook house" has been removed from the main pier. Work has now started on dismantling the main pier starting with the guard rails.

The crane barge Canadian Argosy removes material and places it on the deck barge VM/S 87. 

(The name painted on the barge is "VMS 087" but that is incorrect.)

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