Saturday in the port

The Canadian flag Nolhan Ava arrived today on its first return trip since it began using the Cerescorp container terminal in Fairview Cove. It was a very short trip since the ship only left Halifax on Tuesday. The ship serves St-Pierre et Miquelon for TMSI and it was recently announced that it would also be calling in Argentia, using a new crane there.

However there was certainly not time for the ship to have made that loop since Tuesday. On arrival the ship also took the tug Atlantic Willow as tethered escort, indicating that it had some sort of problem, perhaps related to steering. That would not be surprising if the ship had a run in with ice. The Gulf ice has now spread well out from the Cabot Strait into the Atlantic and down the Nova Scotia coast to 45 degrees North Latitude

Today's ice map shows 9/10 to 10/10 cover from Cape Ray, across Cabot Strait and as far along the Nova Scotia coast as Musquoboboit Harbour (63 degrees West longitude), and extending well out to sea,  perhaps as far as 59 degrees West, and off the coast as  much as 30 or 40 miles. The rest of the Nova Scotia coast has  ice cover of 3/10 past 65 degrees West, (where the map ends). 

Shipfax predicts a repeat of 1987's ice clog in Halifax for next week. More on that when it happens!
Marine Atlantic predicts trouble next week when the wind forces the ice into Sydney harbour.

Not having trouble with the ice, or anything else, the substitute pilot boat  Capt. E.T.Rogers (ex Chebucto Pilot) has been performing well since it was brought back from Saint John to cover for the poorly performing Scotia Pilot and Nova Pilot. As a casual observer, I think it is able to work in conditions that the other boats were not. There have certainly been fewer suspensions of pilotage operations since it came to work. 

Capt. E.T.Rogers comes splashing in to port and into a head wind.That wind is all that is keeping the ice offshore -so far.

Last Sunday's arrival, HOS Renaissance sailed today, and as predicted gave a destination of Portsmouth, NH, where fibre optic cable is manufactured in nearby Newington.  If it fitted any special cable handling equipment while in Halifax, it was not visible.. All that it seemed to be carrying was a deck load of snow picked up in Monday's snow storm.

  

Also arriving today MOL Partner, after re-joining THE Alliance's EC5 roster of ships. With the Yantian Express fire, the line had to find ships to take up the slack, but with service changes in the port rotation, there have also been other ships added and removed. The "new" ones will start to show up in the next few weeks.

MOL Partner re-joins sister ships MOL Paramount and MOL Paradise on the 11 ship service. It was previously here in May and June 2018. Built in 2005 by Koyo Dockyard Co in Mihara, it is a 71,902 gt, 72,968 dwt ship with a capacity of 6350 TEU, including 500 reefers.

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Offshore update

With both of Nova Scotia's offshore gas installations shut down, there is till activity, but at a much reduced level. Both Sable Offshore Energy (Exxon / Mobil) and Deep Panuke (Encana) are in the process of decommissioning and eventual abandonment and removal over the next two years.

Encana's short lived project, that only began production in 2013 was expected to have a 13 year production life. On the strength of that they entered into a ten year renewable contract with Atlantic Towing Ltd to provide the Offshore Supply Vessel Atlantic Condor. The four well field encountered significant quantities of water and with the drop in gas prices the project became unfeasible, and after several seasonal stops and starts, production halted permanently in May 2018.


The Atlantic Condor was built at Halifax Shipyard to the UT 755 LN design and launched October 31, 2010 (a day later than planned due to high winds.) It went into service in 2011 and has worked steadily in and out of Halifax on the 250 km run to the Deep Panuke site.

Atlantic Condor just reaching the Ives Knoll buoy outbound for St.John's.

On February 22 it made one of its rare departures from Halifax for another destination, and that was St.John's, NL where it has been drydocked.

Today's offshore vessel arrival was certainly a bit out of the ordinary. Rather than one of the local suppliers, this was a United States flagged ship, HOS Renaissance. H.O.S stands for Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC, headquartered in Covington, LA (suburban New Orleans.) The company has a fleet of about eighty vessels of several classes. However at year end 38 of these boats were stacked. Therefore the fleet is seeking work no matter where it can be found.

 HOS Renaissance carries an accumulation of white stuff from passing through last night's heavy snow fall. 

HOS Renaissance is a supplier of the HOS MAX 300 class and was built In 2013 by Eastern Shipbuilding Corp in Panama City, FL. The 3911 gt, 5494 dwt ship has the open deck space for various types of cargo and tanks for liquid muds and other commodities. It is powered by four Caterpillar engines of 7200 kW and through electric motors drive two Schottel Z-drives for 6700 hp. It also has two fixed pitch tunnel thrusters, also of Schottel manufacture.

Far from its Gulf of Mexico base, the ship has probably never been exposed to snow or freezing conditions before.

The ship departed Port Fourchon, LA February 21, and tied up at pier 9C. A sister vessel, HOS Red Dawn arrived in here in September 2017 and was fitted out for cable transport. It then sailed for Portsmouth, NH to load. I expect HOS Renaissance to follow the same routine.

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