Weather Woes - revised

 The month of October is usually noted for wind, but up until now this year it has seen unseasonably mild temperatures instead. However the wind has finally arrived and the last two days have been quite gusty. Those breezes resulted in rough conditions at the pilot station making it too dangerous to embark and disembark pilots. Pilotage operations were suspended at some point yesterday during the day and not resumed again until this morning. Some ships wetre thus delayed.

Among those was the general cargo ship BBC Missouri arriving from Schiedam, Netherlands and Santander, Spain. The 9,627 gt, 12,767 dwt vessel was built in 2010 by Taizhou Sanfu Ship Engineering Co in Taizhou, China. An open hatch, multi-purpose type it mounts a pair of 150 tonne capacity cranes than can work in tandem for a 300 tonne lift.

It was still quite windy as the ship made its way in this afternoon. The tug Atlantic Fir was working stern first and kicking up a lot of spray, but its fore deck was in the lee and dry. BBC Missouri was built in 2011 as Brattingsborg, deleivered sas OXL Rebel but renamed Brattingsborg againlater in 2011. In 2012 it became Clipper Agnes, then reverted to Brattingsborg in 2014, finally becoming BBC Missouri in 2020. 

The ship is registered in Liberia. Its owners are listed as Hono Ship Investment Inc (which is associated with Thorco Shipping A/S of Denmark), technical operators are Carisbrooke Shipping Ltd of England, commercial managers are Weco Projects APS of Denmark, but the ship is sailing as part of the German BBC Chartering fleet, whicn specializes in heavy lifts and project cargoes.

The ship tied up at Pier 27, a general cargo and open pier, but its cargo is as yet unknown (to me). Interestingly the Port of Halifax schedule still refers to to its Brattingsborg.

Things are busy at Irving Oil's Woodside terminal. The tanker Acadian completed unloading yesterday then moved to anchor in Bedford Basin instead of going to sea. That left the jetty open for the French cable ship Ile d'Aix to take bunkers.

The Louis Dreyfus managed ship has been in port since October 20 fitting out for a project at IT International Telecom's marine base at Pier 9A.

I took this picture October 25:

With the Iled d'Aix occupying the berth Irving Oil's next caller, Elka Bene came into to anchor in the lower harbour.

 The 30,770 gt, 45,467 dwt tanker is a regular caller at Irving Oil, bringing refined product from Amsterdam. It was built by Brodosplit, in Split, Croatia in 2002 and is operated by European Product Carriers. The ship was built as Asirat but renamed Bene in 2002 and Elka Bene in 2004.

A number of ships hove to offshore last night, awaiting better conditions, among them was CMA CGM T. Jefferson. The 14,414 TEU ship is now due at PSA Halifax late this afternoon - docking after dusk later today oir tomorrow. Also the container ship ONE Hangzhou Bay was delayed from sailing yesterday, but was able to get away this afternoon. but will now wait until tomorrow, Otober 29. Also waiting for better condiitons is the Eimskip vessel Vivienne Sheri D. It went to Bedford Basin and anchored yesterday and may now sail overnight on its return trip to Iceland.

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New and not new

There was one new ship to Halifax today, and several return callers.
New to Halifax ship is the X-Press Makalu making its first voyage for Melfi Lines.

Built in 2008 by Stocznia Gdanska/Gdynia, it is a 2714 TEU ship with three 45 tonne capacity cranes. Built originally for the Peter Doehle company it was built as Arelia but immediately renamed Maruba Victory until 2010 when it became Arelia again. In 2013 it joined X-Press Feeders and took it present name. X-Press Feeders bills itself as the world's largest common carrier, with more than 110 ships of all sizes, and all chartered out to various shipping lines. The 32,161 gt, 38,629 dwt ship will load and sail tomorrow for Cuba.

Among the return callers is the tanker Elka Angelique, from Amsterdam for Irving Oil.

When it was here in 2013 it loaded some remainder cargo from the old Imperial Oil refinery.
http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2013/10/elka-angelique-arrives-to-load.html

At Autoport MSC Cristiana has been here many times. However since its first visit in 2016 it has received a new paint scheme.

http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2016/02/msc-cristiana-something-different-for.html

Speaking of paint schemes, Wilhelmsen's Themis continues to fade. Built in 2016 by Hyundai Samho, the 75,283 gt, 23,783 dwt car carrier has a capacity of 8,000 cars. It is also one of the HERO class of environmentally advanced ships.

The normally bright Wilhelmsen red/orange colour is now only visible on some touched up areas near the waterline. This is surprising in a barely three year old ship.
Themis unloaded cars at Autoport yesterday and moved to pier 31 this morning to off load some other RoRo cargo.

Due to sail sometime tonight the French cable ship Ile d'Aix has been loading (or maybe unloading?) cable at 9B IT Telecom.

Cable is fed to or from IT Telecom's warehouse by means of a conveyor bridge, through a hatch in the ship's side.

Built in 1992 by Far-East Levingston (Keppel Fels) in Singapore, the 12,384 gt, 8,373 dwt ship has some of the classic cable ship lines with bow sheaves. Many new cable ships work only over the stern, but this ship maintains the traditional function.

The ship made the headlines last year after a lube oil spill in Halifax Harbour.

http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2018/06/ile-daix-back.html

It's last assignment as far as I can tell was in the Irish Sea where it was doing early work for a new cable linking the US to Europe.

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Ile d'Aix back

The cable ship Ile d'Aix returned to Halifax this evening. After its lube oil spill in Halifax harbour May 29, the ship went to the Verreault shipyard in Méchins, QC for drydocking. It tied up this evening at Pier 9B which will allow for a closer look over the next few days.

The ship has a one year coasting license from November 23, 2017 to November 22, 2018 for permanent standby for cable repair services for what was called the Hibernia Cable Systems network. GTT Communications took over the five cable network in January 2017. It has renamed the Hibernia Express cable from Halifax to Ireland and the UK as the GTT Express.

The ship is expected to underway for repairs to the GTT Express with 24 hours and within 36 hours for the Greenland Connect cable and the Grand Banks Offshore Optical Cable.

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Catching up

Fog, rain and high wind prevented ship watching in the harbour yesterday, but as today wore on things cleared a bit.

The Navy was busy in Macnab's Cove (just in side Mauger's Beach) replacing trot buoys. The buoys are used by naval vessels to moor while conducting static sound trials. The  new brightly painted buoys will have better visibility for other vessels in the area, and in case no one is aware they are now labelled "NAVY" in large letters.

A barge mounted crane lifts a new buoy and anchor.

The tug Glenside had the Dockyard scow YC601 and a pair of Ville class pup tugs were employed for the work. However since the Navy no longer has a Dockyard crane barge, they hired the barge Commdive II from Waterworks Construction along with their workboat/tug Waterworks I. The barge was built of concrete in 1942 and has been steadily employed ever since. (It is probably the only working watercraft in Halifax Harbour that is older than I am).

Yesterday's arrival at Imperial Oil was not visible until today. Mahadah Silver is a typical handymax tanker of 29, 354 grt, 45,923 dwt, built by Hyundai Mipo, Ulsan in 2016. The ship is registered in the Marshal Islands, the flag of choice for tankers these days.

 

Unusual for tankers however, it is owned by Omani interests and managed by Oman Ship Management Co. Mahadah is a village of about 2,000 persons in Oman.
Its last port was Antwerp, Belgium. Due to refinery slow downs and pipeline limitations in Ontario and Quebec, Imperial is not refining enough product domestically to meet demand, so is again importing.

Another tardy Canada Atlantic Express arrival today - Maersk Palermo arrived this afternoon - its usual arrival day would have been Saturday.

Looks can be deceiving, but the ship appears to be well loaded - perhaps to St.Lawrence River maximum draft. Maersk / CMA CGM may now transport empty containers, on a non-revenue basis, from Montreal to Halifax, so perhaps some of those are empties. Nevertheless if the  line is shipping that much cargo out of Montreal, it bodes well for Halifax to "top off" with more loads to reach deep sea / salt water draft.

A new to Halifax cruise ship made it inaugural call today. Royal Caribbean International has repositioned Adventure of the Seas this summer to sail from Bayonne, NJ before moving to Fort Lauderdale in the fall.

Built in 2001 by Kvaerner Masa, Turku, the 137,276 grt ship has a capacity of 3,114 passengers and is a Voyager class ship. It has had several updates over the years, and judging by the white vapour emanating from its funnel, may have had exhaust gas scrubbers installed.

Last week's visitor Ile d'Aix, the French cable ship, had a longer than planned stay in port after it was detained by authorities.

It has been reported that the ship spilled a quantity of synthetic lube oil into the harbour May 29, which could not be recovered by the Canadian Coast Guard. I had noticed a small CG work boat trying to break up the sheen - without much success- as it was driven southward towards McNab's Island, just before the submarine USS Toledo sailed.

The wind is driving the sheen southward past the HT 2 (Ives Knoll light buoy) as a Coast Guard workboat tries to break it up.*

The ship sailed for the Gulf of St.Lawrence June 2 and gave its next port of call as Méchins, QC. It is currently showing at the Verreault shipyard there - perhaps having its problem fixed.

For more on the ship, see the post from May 5

* There are two buoys marking Ives Knoll. a rocky ledge extending north from McNab's Island.
The northern most buoy is HT2 and is equipped with a light only.

  
The second buoy, H22, is west of Ives Knoll and is a light and bell buoy, also equipped with a radar reflector. The bell, which sounds when the buoy is being rocked by waves, can sometimes be heard from the Halterm breakwater. It marks Calling In Point 7 for Vessel Traffic.

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Cable ship Ile d'Aix

The French cable ship Ile d'Aix anchored in Halifax this morning. The ship, which works out of Calais, France, has a Canadian Coasting License, allowing it to work in Canadian waters for emergency cable repairs to three important subsea cable systems, namely Hibernia Atlantic (running from Herring Cove, NS to Ireland and England), Greenland Connect (running from Newfoundland to several locations in Greenland, and on to Iceland) and Grand Banks Offshore Optical Cable (connecting several oil production sites to the island of Newfoundland). The one year license runs from November 23, 2017 to November 2, 2018.

 
The ship is a fully equipped cable lay / cable repair ship with a capacity of 2,000 tonnes of cable and carrying all the associated technical materials to do the work including an ROV and seabed plow for trenching and burying cable. It has a heli-deck (forward) and alarge crane aft.

It was built by the FarEast-Levingston Shipyard in Singapore in 1992 as Global Mariner. In 2004 it became Badaro and in 2007 Gulmar Badaro. ASN Marine (Alcatel Submarine Networks) formed ALDA Marine with French shpping company Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) to manage and operate of a fleet of  cable ships that work world wide. They acquired and renamed the ship in 2011.

In 2016 Nokia took over Alcatel-Lucent SA and absorbed it, however the ASN name is still used by Nokia Networks. The company also has the largest fibre optic cable manufacturing facility in the world, located in Calais.

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