Mixed Bag

 Halifax harbour is noted for its variety of shipping activity. Today, April 28, lived up that reputation, as follows:

An unusual early arrival was the ferry Fundy Rose in for a week's in-water refit. As a result there will be no ferry service between Saint John, NB and Digby, NS until May 5. Operators of the service, Bay Ferries Ltd, also run the CAT service from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor, ME and the Northumberland Ferries between Caribou, NS and Wood Islands, PE. 

Fundy Rose was built in 2000 by Daewoo Heavy Industries in Okpo, South Korea as Superstar Ithaki, but was delivered as Blue Star Ithaki. It was temporarily renamed Canada 2014 for its delivery trip from Greece to Canada in November 2014. After its first refit in Halifax, it was registered as Fundy Rose April 8, 2015 and entered service soon after. Because it is owned by the Crown by way of the Minister of Transport, it is registered in Ottawa. Bay Ferries Ltd is the operator and responsible for maintenance.  

The ship had initial modifications and subsequent refits in Halifax in previous years, but must go to another port when drydocking is required as Halifax has no available drydock. (Saint John does not have convenient facilities, in part due to the extreme tidal range.)

Halifax is a busy container port, handling about 500,000 TEU per year. (2024 statistics are not available yet but will likely be less than that number). However this morning's container ship arrival was not to load or unload containers. The Adams arrived to undergo invasive species examination by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. 

The ship has recently been transferrred from an Asian container service and requires clearance before it can enter other Canadian ports. It operates for Hapag-Lloyd under charter on the new Gemini Cooperation, with Maersk. The AL1 / TA3 service from North Europe to North America is not scheduled to call in Halifax, so this is a "one of" call. Its port rotaton is Saint John /Hamburg / Wilhelmshaven/ Newark / Norfolk / Baltimore and Saint John.

The Adams was built in 2003 by Koyo Dockyard Co in Mihara, Japan. It was orginally named APL Ireland, becoming ACE Ireland in 2012, and Venetiko in 2013. It was renamed Adams in 2021. The 66,462 gt, 67,009 dwt ship has a capacity of 5928 TEU. It sailed after a few hours at anchor.
 

The bulker CSL Tacoma arrived for a cargo gypsum. The stockpile at Gold Bond's lower Burnside / Wright's Cove has seldom been so large. CSL Tarantau, is a Trillium class ship, built in 2013 by Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China with a tonnages of 43,691gt comes and 71,279 dwt.It was built for CSL Americas pool partner Klaveness and named Balto. In 2016 Klaveness withdrew from the pool and its ships were divided up with the other pool partner, Algoma.
 

The ship is a regular caller in Halifax carrying its gypsum cargoes to several US east coast ports. 

An early afternoon arrival was the tanker CL Virginia Woolf with refined product from New York for Irving Oil.

Just less than a year old, it was delivered by New Times Shipbuilding Co Ltd, Jingjiang, China,  in June 2024. With tonnages of 30,259 gt, 49,359 dwt, it is classed as LR1 (Long Range 1). Despite its Chinese ownership it is managed by Synergy Denmark A/S  a 700 ship operator of tankers, bulkers and auto carriers.

 There was also activity in Bedford Basin where two ships have been at anchor.

The Franbo Lohas arrived from Capetown, April 24 and anchored well out in the northern anchorages. It is a familiar ship in Halifax as a submarine cable carrier. Each time it has a cargo of cable to load in Portsmouth, NH it comes to Halifax to be fitted with special racking in the hold to spool the cable.

  The Honda shipyard in Saiki, Japan built the ship in 2016. One of a dozen or more similar ships, built for Thorco, it was delivered as Thorco Lohas. The 13,110 gt, 16,966 dwt ship has box shaped holds, moveable tween decks and a pair of 50 tonne SWL cranes. It was renamed Frambo Lohas in 2021.

It has now moved in to Pier 9C presumably to be fitted out again.  It was very windy in the Basin and the ship was assigned two tugs to keep in on course and to turn it off Pier 9C.

The two newest tugs in Halifax, Atlantic Ash and Atlantic Maple were assigned. They seemed a bit larger than needed for the job, but one of the Halifax tugs, Atlantic Fir appears to be out of service after its crunch yesterday [see post].
 

When the Atlantic Pilotage Authority's regular pilot boats are unavailable to transfer pilots inside the harbour, Dominion Diving Ltd provides a launch service. Today their usual boats were all over the map - as far away as the Strait of Canso, working elsewhere in the port or well offshore (unknown reason). They therefore called out the Dominion Pursuit to take the pilot out to the Franbo Lohas. It was certainly a splish-splash trip with stiff winds kicking up white caps in the Basin.

As a vessel of under 14 gt, it is registered by number (which never changes), C15244NS and its name is unofficial. Its original "name" - also unofficial - was Louis Bérubé. It was built for the Department of Fisheries, by AMT Marine Inc in St-Antoine-de-Tilly, QC. Acquired by Dominion Diving in 2004 it was "renamed" in 2007. The boat also sees duties as a dive tender and lines boat.
 

The other ship anchored in Bedford Basin is the crude oil tanker Goldway which arrived in ballast April 25. As noted in this blog on that date, it had recently changed ownership and as predicted the transfer includes a change in funnel marking and name.

 

Seen from afar today the funnel has acquired new colurs - although what I could see may not be the final scheme. The ship's name Goldway still appears on the stern, but it has been renamed - officially - and appears as Nordic Moon on official web sites.

If a better picture becomes available later today it will be posted below:

 

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Extra Sailings, Sweepers and Diversions

Container lines are trying to deal with the aftermath of the longshore workers strike in the United States and the current strike in Montreal. There are stranded boxes in ports such as Halifax and it seems that additional ships have been brought into fetch them and get them back in service, and to pick up mountains of empties in the terminals. 

It also seems that ships are being diverted from Montreal and that Halifax will be handling both  import and export containers from that port. Unlike Halifax, Montreal is a terminal port, so ships generally unload completely before loading. When those ships are diverted to Halifax it results in a major increase in truck and train traffic to and from the port, not to mention the additional loading and offloading work. It also means that we see container ships in ballast (i.e. without any visible cargo.)

 

MSC Levina III at anchor in Bedford Basin since October 31, is on MSC's Canada Express service from Le Havre, Antwerp and Zeebrugge. It initially arrived in Halifax on October 30, and in anticipation of the Montreal strike was completely unloaded. It was then sent to wait for export cargo to arrive by train, or perhaps by truck. It moved back alongside the PSA Fairview Cove terminal yesterday, November 4 and sailed today, November 5. [ For details on the ship see my post of July 11, 2024.]

Also at anchor in Bedford basin and in ballast, MSC Nahara arrived November 2 and unloaded.

 

As mentioned in a previous post, the ship is designed to operate without hatch covers, and as a result the stowage cells extend above the level of the main deck as lashing frames. This will greatly reduce the likelihood of boxes being lost overside. 

The ship was to move alongside PSA Atlantic Gateway (South End Container Terminal) today to load.

Meanwhile at PSA Fairview Cove the MSC England arrived from Freeport, Bahamas, on what MSC's schedules shows as an "extra vessel". So far no departure time has been scheduled.

The ship was built as CMA CGM Vega by Hyundai, Ulsan in 2001. The 39,812 gt, 51.020 dwt ship has a container capacity of 4132 TEU. It adopted its current name in 2007. 

(That is a Dominion Diving tender and crew boat, Dominion Pursuit, passing the ship. It has been assigned to take a pilot out to the anchored MSC Nahara. Dominion Diving has the contract for that service when the pilot boat is busy elsewhere.)

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