The Line Up

 Today, Monday ,June 24 saw several familiar faces as far as shipping goes, with some a new comer too. Since most are well known I will skip the details here, but the ship's names will form links to previous posts.

The first arrival was the bi-weekly caller Tropic Hope for Tropical Shipping at Pier 42. It was followed soon after by the auto carrier Lake Taupo at Autoport.

 As with previous calls the Lake Taupo is eastbound from Veracruz, Mexico to Emden, Germany for Volkswagen.

There were two cruise ships today, the regular Volendam  is en route from Boston and Bar Harbour to Sydney, NS and on to the St.Lawrence.

 The other cruiser was the Viking Mars on its first call. Built by Fincantieri, Ancona in 2022 the 47,842 gt ship has 464 cabins for up to 930 passengers with 456 crew. It boasts a child-free experience (no one under 18 is allowed) with no amusement park type features. It is en route from New York for l'Anse aux Meadows, Greenland and Iceland.

 

Outbound this evening the Viking Saturn meets the Kawartha Spirit returning from a tour of the Northwest Arm.

Like its sister ship Viking Star that was here June 22 it is a very fine looking ship (by current standards). 

Another container ship arrival today was the EM Kea eastbound on the CMA CGM / Maersk transatlantic service from Montreal to Bremerhaven.

 Built in 2007 by Stocznia Sczecinska Nowa, in Poland, it is a 35,874 gt, 41,850 dwt ship with a capacity of 3108 TEU. Built as Cap Norte it was renamed Cape Egmont in 2012 and became EM Kea in 2015, the same year it joined this rotation. 

Another arrival was the tanker Pyxis Theta from Antwerp for Imperial Oil. No photo was possible so I will try again tomorrow.

Odd man out of the mix was the non-commercial vessel HMCS Harry DeWolf AOPV 430 returning to port after some naval activity.

 Name ship of the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship program it was built by Irving Shipbuilding Inc at Halifax Shipyard and commissioned June 26, 2011. Numerous arctic programs are planned for this year, and the ship is likely to be heading north fairly soon.

 

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New to Halifax - Updated

 A pair of  "new to Halifax" ships arrived today. They are both veteran ships of 17 and 18 years of age however, so are not otherwise new.

First along was MSC Shristi sailing on the Mediterranean Shipping Company's Turkey and Greece service via Sines, Portugal.

 Hyundai, Ulsan built the ship in 2005 for service with K-Line as Venice Bridge. It was renamed Baltic East in 2019, then MSC Shristi in 2020 when acquired by MSC. The 54,519 gt, 64,989 dwt ship has a capacity of 4738 TEU, including 374 reefers.

It is one of the many ships purchased by MSC in the last few years that have projected the line into the position as the world's largest container shipping fleet. The most recent figures I have seen show MSC with 775 ships with a capacity of 5.1 million TEU plus 125 more ships on order. Maersk is in second place with 4.1 million TEU capacity and 33 ships on order.

The second new to Halifax arrival is an auto carrier, but not from one of the fleets we usually see here. Lake Taupo belongs to the Eastern Pacific (UK) Shipping fleet of 22 such ships. 

Built in 2006 by Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co, it served as Morning Miracle for EUKOR until 2017. The 46,800 gt, 12,600 dwt ship has a modest capacity of 4,902 Car Equivalent Units.

The ship was not shown on the Port's vessel schedule, and unusually for an autocarrier is eastbound from Houston, Veracruz and Jacksonville, sailing from the last port of September 16.  The ship also arrived with a slight list to starboard, which makes me wonder if it had an encounter with Hurricane Lee, en route. If so it might be here to re-secure some cargo.

...to be updated if new information is received.

Post Script

I couls see no sign of anything amiss from shofreside, and the ship was happily unloading Volkswagons, presumably made in Mexico. 

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