Cars, Boxes and Propane

There were ships in port today, November 18, with the usual mix of cargoes - containers and automobiles, but there was also one for an unusual commodity.

Among the usual container ships there were two sister ships at PSA Atlantic Gateway - the South End Container Terminal (aka SECT). The ONE Monaco, which arrived yesterday (see previous post) was a late morning departure on the eastbound leg of THE Alliance's EC5 service. The ship is destined for Singapore via the Cape of Good Hope.

With three tugs to assist, the ONE Monaco prepares to get underway.

Meanwhile the sister ship ONE Minato was approaching Halifax on the west bound leg of the same service, passing Cape Town November 6. The two ships met well offshore beyond camera range.

As the ONE Minato arrives, a previous departure, the CMA CGM Rigoletto is visible at an outer anchorage. It went to anchor there after sailing on November 16, and departed for New York later today.

 ONE Minato is the tenth and last of the series of ships in the Milau Bridge class. Built in 2018 it did not carry a "Bridge" name but was delivered as a ONE ship (Ocean Network Express) to partner K-Line. Built by Imabari Zosen in Mihara, the 152,180 gt, 146,696 dwt ship has a capacity of 13,900 TEU.

 Three tugs turn the ship to back in to Pier 41. It appears to be loaded to capacity.

While all this was going on today's Autoport visitor was also getting underway with two tugs (there are currently seven harbour tugs operating in Halifax). Unlike its previous visit on April 28, 2023 the Grand Pavo will not be discharging machinery at Pier 9C.

Built in 2005 by Toyohashi Shipbuilding in Japan, the 59,217 gt, 18,376 dwt ship has a capacity for 6400 cars.  The Pure Truck and Car Carrier (PCTC) operates for the Hong Kong-based Korean company CIDO Shipping and is not related to the Grimaldi Ocean RoRo operator which has ships with the "Grande" prefix. CIDO is set to be a major player in the shipping scene with 72 ships in its current fleet and 40 more on order.

The Grand Pavo appears to be on a round-the-world trip leaving Singapore June 25 it has called in Korea, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and back to Japan and Singapore then to Sagunto (Spain), Avonmouth (UK), Zeebrugge (Belgium), Rya Harbour (Goteborg, Sweden) and Marchwood Military Port (Southampton, UK). It is now headed for New York.

Rounding out today's arrivals is the small Dutch cargo ship Frisian Octa on its second call in Halifax. 

The ship was first here October 22 to October 30 bringing in 30 containers. After several days at anchor the ship moved alongside PSA Fairview Cove where it took on a quantity of containers carrying propane and sailed for Moa, Cuba. This was the first of a possible six month charter to call in Halifax every two weeks for propane and possibly other cargo. [My post of October 25 called it a "mystery ship" - thanks to a reader I now know why it was here.]

Cuba has been in an energy crisis due to a deteriorated power infrastructure, coupled with an unreliable fuel source (namely Venezuela). On top of that the country had two hurricane strikes - Oscar on October 20 and Rafael on November 7, plus a 6.8 Richter scale earthquake on November 10. The entire nation was blacked out on October 18 and there have been periodic outages since. Propane is a useful alternative fuel for vehicles and various appliances. Due to continued uncertainty of fuel supply, propane from Canada would seem to be more dependable,at least for now. US policy toward Cuba may well become more restrictive in the coming months.

Construction of the ship started at Zaliv in Kerch, Ukraine, and was completed by Damen Bergum, in Friesland in 2010. The Ice Class 1 ship has ventilated box shaped holds with pontoon type tween decks. It carries two 40 tonne SWL cranes. The 5425 gt, 8284 dwt ship was built as Beauforce and took its present name in 2021. It is also licensed to carry dangerous cargoes.

At some date the ship was fitted with an exhaust gas scrubber system. The ship's normal exhaust stack was re-routed to the scrubber housing in a sort of Frankenstein arrangement. It appears that exhaust from the ship's auxiliary engines may not be diverted to the scrubber, since the two small stacks are still visible atop the funnel housing.

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Saturday Report

 The CMA CGM Osiris was a first time caller when it arrived in Halifax this morning April 29.

The ship used two stern tethered escort tugs and took the western, deep water, channel inbound, giving a nearly broadside view as it approached the south end terminal. The use of two escort tugs is part of a familiarization exercise for pilots and tug operators. In case of propulsion or steering failure in one of these large ships, it would take two tugs to control the vessel. The two 5,000 bhp tugs are in fact more effective than one 10,000 bhp tug (no such tug exists in Halifax) as they operate independently to steer and / or brake the ship as needed.

Use of the western, deep water, channel will become standard for large ships and new buoyage was put in place last year to mark the course. The main or eastern channel is quite straight, but the western channel has a dogleg bend and requires good tug coordination to make the turns. A third tug is made up well forward to assist in turning and docking.

The CMA CGM Osiris is a 154,995 gt, 155,979 dwt ship with a capacity of 15,536 TEU. It was built in 2021 by Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing. It operates in the Ocean Alliance service from Asia with its last Asian port call in Colombo, April 5-6, and after transitting the Suez Canal April 14-15 it also called on the Tanger Med port in Morocco April 22-23.

As predicted yesterday the auto carrier Grand Pavo moved from Pier 9C to Autoport this mornnig and finally discharged a quantity of cars. Whether some of them were the ones that had a brief shore excursion at Pier 9C yesterday, I cannot tell.

 

It sailed this afternoon for New York.

Although it is still early in the cruise season there were two cruise ships in port today - albeit small ones. Coincidentally both ships were also in Halifax May 1, 2022. [see my post of that date for details]

Ocean Explorer arrived from Gloucester, MA, and once again squeezed in to Pier 24. It was interesting to see its X-bow from a different angle as it departed for Louisbourg, NS.

Ocean Navigator, which has called here under most of its previous names, again tied up at Pier 23. It is en route from Portland, ME to Charlottetown and on to the Great Lakes where it will operate all summer.

 

To round off the day's activities there was a perhaps less noteworthy arrival. It was the articulated tug / barge combination Leo A. McArthur /  John J. Carrick with a cargo of asphalt from the Great Lakes for General Liquids. They tied up at the Cherubini dock in Eisner's Cove and offloaded by pipeline to General's tanks nearby.

The lattice boom crane in the photo has nothing to do with the unloading process, and in fact blocks the view of the ship's sold black boom which appears to support the offload pipeline. Cherubini Metal Workers, the owners of the dock, are a steel fabrication company and own a number of cranes for use in their own projects and for rental under the R+D Cranes company name.

An event which took place yesterday, April 28 is also worthy of note. It was the official naming ceremony for the William Hall, the fourth Arctic Offhsore Patrol Ship to be built by Irving Shipbuilding Inc's Halifax Shipyard. It is designated AOPV 433.

The ship was floated out November 27, 2022 and is fitting out at Pier 7.  The ship is named for a Nova Scotia who was awarded the Victoria Cross. His Wikipedia entry is worth reading at: William Hall VC

 

 

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Another double and more RoRo

 The Mediterranean Shipping Company had two ships in Halifax today April 26 - one for each container terminal.

First in was MSC Soraya on the Turkey-Greece service - usually these ships use the PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway, south end terminal, but for whatever reason the ship headed north through the Narrows and berthed at PSA Fairview Cove. Ships on this service stop in Sines, Portugal making for an unpublicized seven day transatlantic express from MSC's south Europe hub.

 The 66,399 gt, 73,262 dwt ship has a capacity of 5762 TEU. It was built in 2008 by Samsung, Geoje, South Korea. (In the Narrows it passed the auto carrier Grand Pavo at Pier 9C - see below)

The second MSC ship arrived in late afternoon at the South end terminal. MSC Manzanillo is a regular caller on the CANEX 2 service, and is arriving from Montreal to "top up" containers to ocean draft.

Built in 2005 by Hanjin Heavy Industries + Construction Co, the forepart came from the Busan yard and the after section from the Ulsan yard. It was originally named Juliette Rickmers but was renamed on delivery as Maersk Davao. In 2012 it reverted to Juliette Rickmers until 2017 when it received the charming moniker MP The Gronk. It was mercifully renamed MSC Manzanillo in 2021. [One time owner Mangrove Partners used football player nicknames for their ships, while buying low and selling high and making a tidy fortune in the process.]

The 54,758 gt, 68,168 dwt ship has a capacity of 5060 TEU including 454 reefers. The ship will be sailing for Spain and Italy.

At Pier 9C it was another large consignment of RoRo, this tme on the Grand Pavo. Built in 2005 by Toyohashi Shipbuilding in Japan, the 59,217 gt, 18,376 dwt ship has a capacity for 6400 cars. That would be significantly reduced with the large quantity of other RoRo cargo.

Some of its cargo of cars had to be off loaded temporarily before the non-car cargo could be unloaded. The latter consisted of the usual construction and agriculture machinery. The ship will move to Autoport tomorrow to unload cars, so some of the cars that were moved today will have an extra fraction of a kilometer on them when they are delievered.

 

Initials and more initials

 It seems that the proliferation of initials or abbreviations is well entrenched among shipping companies, with a few notable exceptions. Today, March 21, saw six representatives of seven "initial companies", one hold out, and one anonymous.

PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway saw two "initial ships". The CMA CGM Nerval arrived from Bremerhaven on an unscheduled call. In other words, the ship is not on any of CMA CGM's regular routes through Halifax, and appears to be a "sweeper" dropping off or picking up boxes that have not been accommodated on the other CMA CGM services.

Built in 2010 by the Sungdong Shipbuilding + Marine Engineering Co Ltd in Tongyeong, it is a 72,884 gt, 83,318 dwt ship with a capacity of 6540 (or 6570 depending on sources) TEU including 500 reefers. It is an odd sized vessel for Halifax as we usually see larger or smaller ships.

The ship was carrying boxes from all the Ocean Alliance lines (APL, OOCL, Evergreen, and COSCO).

It sailed in the early afternoon for Charleston.

Its place was soon taken by the MSC Sena from Italy and Sines, Portugal on the CANEX 1 service to Montreal - here to off load some containers to reduce draft for the St.Lawrence River.

The ship has been renamed six times since built as ZIM Sydney by Halla Engineering +Heavy Industry, starting in their Inchon yard, and completed at Samho. The 30,280 gt, 35,966 dwt ship has a capacity of 2825 TEU including 214 reefers.

The ship was renamed in 2000: Rhein, 2002: E.R.Albany, 2004: CMA CGM Egypt, 2006: MacAndrews America, 2007: E.R.Albany and 2013: MSC Sena. [The MacAndrews name comes from the old time British MacAndrew Line, taken over by CMA CGM in 2002 and operated as a "niche service". Founded in 1770, it was was eliminated in 2019.]

Also at PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway was the Tropic Hope, No initials in use by Tropical Shipping, as the name says it all in terms of its routes.

A hold out in today's initial parade, the ship shares Tropical's weekly service with sister ship Tropic  Lissette. Its company containers also spellout "Tropical" in huge letters.

Due to sail late this evening the ship will head for West Palm Beach, FL then take in several Caribbean ports in cluding San Juan, St Thomas, Philipsburg and Sint Eustatius.

There was a triple "initial" meet in Bedford Basin late this afternoon as two ACL and one CSL ship were visible at one time.

Atlantic Container Line  (ACL) usually has two ships in Halifax each week - one eastbound and one westbound. They rarely meet here, but it does happen once or twice a year when schedules get disturbed - usually by weather. It is always tricky to get both ships in the same frame.

Atlantic Sun arrived this morning on the eastbound leg of this voyage, and (right in picture) sailed for Hamburg.

As the Atlantic Sun was preparing to depart, with the tug Atlantic Beaver in attendance, the bulk carrier CSL Tacoma was gliding past the Bedford Insitute of Oceanography, heading for sea.

The initials CSL are used for the international operations of Canada Steamship Lines, but its domestic Canadian flag ships, use the full name, spelled out in full on the ship's hulls. The Bahamas flag CSL Tacoma has a load of gypsum bound for Baltimore.

ACL was founded by a consortium of traditional shipping lines, but now carry the letter "G" on the funnel recognizing the present owners, the Grimaldi Group.

The other ACL ship, the Atlantic Star, arriving from Liverpool on the westbound leg, held off until the berth was clear, but was already backing in as the Atlantic Sun was clear.

 A ship going the anonymous route - resisting the trend to emblazon the owner's initials on the hull - arrived at Autoport this morning and disgorged a quantity of new automobiles, loaded at the European ports of Bremerhaven March 1-3, Zeebrugge March 4-6 and Goteborg March 9. It is on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean transatlantic route.

A small fraction of the myriad new cars at Autoport inclues hundreds of Audis, probably offloaded yesterday by the Violet Ace.There is also some machinery and other RoRo cargo on the dock.
 

The Grand Pavo dates from 2005 and was built by Shin Kurushima Toyohashi, and at 59,217 gt, 18,376 dwt has a capacity of 6400 cars. The ship's operators are Cido Shipping of Korea and Hong Kong. They seem to be in the business of chartering ships out to others on various term lengths.

Are those the same scaups I saw ship watching at Black Rock Beach yesterday?

Rounding up the "Initial ships" was the after dark arrival of the bulker UBC Santos for Pier 28 to load wood pellets. "UBC"  stands for United Bulk Carriers and I expect to see  "UBC" emblazoned on the ship's hull - but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

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