Backlog

 As noted in yesterday's post there was the usual backlog after a holiday weekend. Unusually, the catch up appears to have extended to today, May 21.

 

Containers

The big ship arrival that I missed yesterday, the CMA CGM Chile was still in port this morning, finally getting underway at noon time. As required by harbour regulations, due to its size, it employed two tethered escort tugs, made up astern. They worked the ship to starboard to use the western, deep water channel.

 

The CMA CGM Chile was built in 2019 by Hyundai Samho and is registered at 149,314 gt and 157,076 dwt, with a capacity of 15,072 TEU. It is operating on the Ocean Alliance Asia-North America service. 

Of interest - the ship does not display the CMA CGM funnel mark, nor the large banner letters on the hull that other CMA CGM ships do. This may be explained by the fact that the ship is not owned by CMA CGM, but is on charter from Seaspan Ship Management. Now the largest container ship charter company, Seaspan's 223 ships have a capacity of 2,300,000 TEU.They finance, arrange for build. charter back and manage ships for many container shipping lines.

 

Cars

Autoport was also playing catch up as it completed working the Wallenius Wilhelmsen ship Tijuca (see yesterday's post). As the ship was ready to sail at noon time another Wallenius Wilhelmsen ship, the Carmen, was inbound to take the berth. The "meet" of the two ships was arranged for the lower harbour where the Carmen proceeded west of George's Island and turned north and then proceed east of the island. This allowed the Tijuca to take the usual outbound course from Eastern Passage, tight to Ives Knoll, thus avoiding any close quarters passages. There eas a close up view as the ship made its way inbound, with the tug Atlantic Cedar made up aft for turning assistance.

 

Carmen dates from 2011 when it was delivered by Daewoo Shipbuilding + Marine Engineering in Geoje, South Korea. It is a 74,258 gt, 31,143 dwt ship with a capacity of 7934 CEU (or 7879 RT43 size cars, depending on the source.) It has twelve decks, five of which are hoistable for oversize loads, and reinforced for heavy loads. It has a stern ramp with a 320 tonne capacity and a single side ramp with unknown capacity.

 

Carmen turns around north of George's Island, to line up for Eastern Passage and Autoport. One of the Woodside ferries, in the background, was out of service today due to mechanical issues.

When built Carmen was painted in Wallenius' green and white colours. Wallenius Shipping and the Wilhelmsen Group merged in 2017 and adopted the current  colour scheme over time as ships underwent regular drydocking. This make the ship look very much like its fleet mate Tijuca which was by then outbound, passing a flotilla of disinterested eiders in summer plummage.

 

After completing work at Autoport in the later afternoon, the Carmen moved to Pier 9C to off load RoRo cargo and is due to sail later in the evening.

Among the other arrivals - briefly:

MSC Sagitta III arrived at Pier 42 from CornerBrook on what is termed the Halifax Feeder by the Halifax Port Authority. That service appears to be a new route joining Montral and Boston. In any event it is rare to see a ship with so few containers on deck - not to metion all four cranes at work.

General Cargo 

The Augusta Luna arrived this morning on the Nirint Shipping "nickel run" from Cuba. It will offload is usual cargo of bagged nickel sulfides at Pier 28.

Fish

The herring seiner Fundy Monarch arrived with a small catch that it unloaded to trucks at Pier 9C, then moved to Bishop's Landing. 

As I understand it, this boat is the "scout" and has been working for a few weeks off Nova Scotia, looking for migrating herring. If sufficent quantities are found other boats may arrive from southwestern Nova Scotia or New Brunswick to participate in the catch. 

Built in 2014 by Chantier Naval Forillon in Gaspé, the Fundy Monarch was originally called Dual Venture (the second seiner of that name) and was renamed when acquired by Connors Brothers of Blacks Harbour, NB.  See older post May 31, 2015 on these boats.

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Some New Names, Some Familiar

 There were some "new to Halifax" arrivals today, July 18 and some familiar returns.

 New 1

An early morning arrival was the IT Infinity, an offshore support vessel re-purposed for cable work for IT International Telecom. It tied up at the company's marine base at Pier 9A where workers were at the ready with a crane and other gear to fit the ship out.

It was built in 2008 by Aker Tulcea in Turkey (and likely completed at Brattvaag, Norway) to a ST-216L CD platform supplier design. The diesel electric vessel is ice strengthened. Named Volstad Princess it operated under Tidewater Management until 2017 when it became Standard Princess, managed  by Fletcher Supply Vessels Ltd of Aberdeen, Scotland. IT International Telecom seems to have acquired and renamed the ship late last year. However on arrival this morning it was still wearing a "Fletcher" logo.

At some point since 2019, when it was working out of Aberdeen, posssibly for Equinor, it acquired a 75 tonne SWL deck crane, mounted well aft.

It reportedly sailed from Aberdeen May 29, arriving in Cape Canaveral June 15. It left there June 19, but was back in port July 10 to 13 when it sailed for Halifax. The ship is currently flying the flag of Barbados.

New 2

Another arrival for Canadian Food Inpection Agency (CFIA) inspection put in this evening and anchored in the short term anchorage #1 in the lower harbour. The Liberian flag Marianna is en route from Itaqui (Sao Louis), Brazil with a cargo of bauxite or alumina for a port in Quebec. The ship must be declared clear of LDA moth larva by the CFIA before it is allowed to proceed to a Canadian port where the invasive species of moth could harm the coniferous forests. 

 

Built in 2010 by IHI Marine, Yokohama, it is a 31,532 gt, 55,753 dwt ship fitted with four 35 tonne SWL cranes and is equipped with four grabs.

Familiar 1

With Marianna occupying anchorage #1 the following inbound vessel passed west of George's Island, giving spectators a closeup treat. Perhaps many did not realize that the Atlantic Sky is one of five sister ships maintaining a weekly container and RoRo service for Atlantic Container Line (ACL).

 Peaking out from astern of the ship was its tethered escort, the tug Atlantic Oak, ready to provide braking and steering assistance as the ship made its way toward the PSA Fairview Cove terminal in Bedford Basin.

(The use of the pre-fix name "Atlantic" for the two vessels is coincidental - there is no connection between the Grimaldi owned Atlantic Container Line and the Irving owned Atlantic Towing Ltd.)

Familiar 2 (3,  and 4)

Tied up for the night at the Bishop's Landing area docks, were the three herring seiners that have been fishing out of Halifax for the past few weeks. They fish at night, unload their catch in the morning and rest up during the day,before putting out to sea again in the evening. However this evening they appear to be staying in port.

The largest of the three, Lady Melissa, arrived this morning (and despite appearances did not have a naval escort) and off loaded its catch at Pier 9.

 The Morning Star arrived a little later and also unloaded at Pier 9, pumping its catch into a waiting tank truck. 

It then launched its bug boat (seine skiff) and moved along the pier to land its seine net for repair.

The third boat, Fundy Monarch (the former Dual Venture of 2014), seems to have tied up without unloading, so presumably had no catch. It also eluded my lens.

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