Cargo for St-Pierre

The regular vessel serving St-Pierre et Miquelon for SPMI, Nolhan Ava, returned to Halifax on Thursday May 30 and tied up at pier 9C. The ship sailed from St-Pierre in mid-April for refit Freeport, Bahamas. Whatever refit work was done there, it did not include much paint above the waterline, because the ship's superstructure and upper hull still shows signs of a hard winter's work.

The substitute ship Lomur which has been on the weekly St-Pierre run since April 26, passed the idle Nolhan Ava this afternoon, outbound from Fairview Cove.

Lomur is carrying a variety of cargo including a box from its former charterer Eimskip. Note also one of SPMI's 53 foot sea going containers stacked on a Zim 40 footer.

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Usual and Unusual

Traffic in the harbour has been nearly as per usual in the past couple of days, with a few unusual twists.

Usual
Today Lomur arrived from St-Pierre, on its pinch-hitter role for SPMI while Nolhan Ava is in refit in Freeport, Bahamas.

Lomur rounds east of George's Island en route to Fairview Cove, inbound from St-Pierre.

According to press reports, Macquarie, the former operators of Halterm (they sold it to PSA last week) are still seeking in excess of $1.2 million in damages from the March 23, 2017 alision of Nolhan Ava and one of Halterm's old unserviceable cranes. Nolhanava (as it was then) was approaching the berth at pier 36-37 when its bridge wing struck Crane #2. The crane was shifted out of position, striking a concrete barrier which in turn struck Crane #3. Apparently Halterm is claiming that damage to #2 crane was so severe that immediate demolition was necessary. That is a matter for the courts to decide.
Damage to Nolhana Ava was apparent shortly afterwards.

Crumpled bridge wing was tarped for safety until permanent repairs could be made. In order to damage the starboard bridge wing and impacting the crane, the ship had to be backing in towards the berth

As far as "immediate" goes, it was not until early September that a large crane was set up to begin demolition of the crane. (The crane boom is lying flat on the pier and has not been raised yet.)

It was past mid-month before demolition actually got under way on crane#2, with demolition of #3 and #1 following.

 Usual

Today it was just another in the seemingly endless stream of autocarriers  Eurasian Highway made its call at Autoport. The ship was here before in 2016, but I did not get a photo then.

The ship is still in the old (and boring) K-Line livery of plain grey hull. Newer ships have adopted a more dramatic colour scheme shown here recently.

 

 Eurasian Highway 59,029 gt, 18,709 dwt, built in 2012 by Imabari Shipbuilding Co Lt in Marugame, Japan has a capacity of 6215 autos.

Not so usual

Not so usual visitors sailed last evening (Thursday) for Boston. The tug Salvage Monarch, towing the tall ship Caledonia had arrived Sunday to get out of high winds in the area. No photos were possible for me, but there are some excellent ones of Shipspotting Canada-East Facebook among other locations.

Caledonia was covered here recently and the tug Salvage Monarch is the subject of a Tugfax post today.

Unusual

Another not so usual visitor is the Brigitte Bardot the latest in a long string of Sea Shepherd Society protest vessels to call in Halifax. Several of these have had lengthy stays here through arrest or other circumstances. 

Brigitte Bardot (the boat) features two outriggers for stability, and a narrow main hull permitting speeds up to 27 knots (50 mph) using diesel fuel. Prior to Sea Shepherd ownership it set a (since broken) speed record for round the world sailing. 

This one appears unlikely to have an extended stay.  It is named the now 80 something French film star, a long time animal rights advocate, whose fame drew considerable attention to the east coast seal hunt when it was still a major commercial enterprise. She ventured out on the ice to see the seal pups for herself in 1977, bringing down the wrath of Newfoundland sealers.

Brigitte Bardot has been based in Australia since it was acquired by Sea Shepherd in 2010.

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Write if you find work

It think it is time for a letter from the Lomur. After a short tenure with Eimskip, the ship arrived in Halifax April 12 and anchored in Bedford Basin. Original schedules showed Lomur with a longer term charter with Eimskip, but perhaps all the storm damage incurred to ship and cargo in March convinced someone that the ship was not suitable for the type of work, and cut the deal short.

 Lomur awaiting assignment, Bedford Basin.

It now appears that the ship has been fixed for work with Transport St-Pierre International (TSMI) for at least a few trips. Lomur will move from anchor to Cerescorp Friday morning to load, departing later in the day.


TMSI also serves Argentia, NL but Lomur will be unable to do that as a foreign flag vessel, so it will only run between Halifax and St-Pierre. As for lack of RoRo capability, TSMI has recently taken delivery of a number of flat rack 53 foot containers containers, which should accommodate most RoRo items such as cars. TSMI and Oceanex are among the very few container lines in the world to carry 53 foot containers to sea. Both companies operate ships that do not have celluar holds, which limit the size of containers.

TMSI's brand new 53 foot flat racks await work at Cerescorp. 

 (They carry reporting mark "MMJ")

 

The regular TMSI ship Nolhan Ava is in Freeport, Bahamas for reft. Is there a small chance that it will handle some of the Halifax bound cargo from Yantian Express that has been stuck in Freeport for months?

Nolhan Ava with several 53 foot dry containers on deck

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Comings and Goings

After transferring some of the deck cargo of wind blades from BBC California, [see previous posts] BBC Brazil sailed this morning for  Montreal. Since the California must pass Montreal en route to its destination of Ogdensburg, NY, there must be a reasonable explanation as to why the transfer was necessary.

BBC Brazil has several interesting features, including the turtle deck over the bow and the full width enclosed bridge. It is certainly lightly loaded if it has only three blades on deck.

A new to Halifax autocarrier arrived at Autoport this morning then shifted to Pier 31 this afternoon. I doubt that that there any connection between owners Wilhelmsen Lines and Tulane University in New Orleans, but the choice of name shows the variety available when the fleet standard is to name ships beginning with the letter "T".

With Atlantic Willow (bow) and Atlantic Bear (stern) the Tulane turns to back into Pier 31.

Tulane flies the Maltese flag and sails for the Wallenius Wilhelmsen joint fleet. Built in 2012 by Hyundai, Ulsan, the 72,295 gt, 28,818 dwt ship has a capacity of 7,934 CEU. With a 320 tonne capacity stern ramp, it can handle large RoRo loads as well as cars.

Arriving in Bedford Basin is the small container ship Lomur. The ship had been on a charter to Eimskip and was scheduled to continue calling in Halifax until at least May. However it has now been replaced by another ship.

Lomur at anchor in Bedfrod Basin awaiting orders.

That new ship, called Pictor J has already started work for Eimskip, but will not be calling in Halifax until May. Eimskip's ship rotation has been juggled somewhat as a result of the new ship.
Lomur was battered by a storm on its way from Iceland to Argentia, NL in March and there was damage to several containers and to the ship itself. See previous post:

http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/03/lomur-revisited.html

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Lomur revisited

When the Eimskip ship Lomur arrived this morning, I could not see any particular sign that the ship had encountered heavy weather nor had damage to containers. However that observation was made in very dim light and from a distance. [see previous post]

Today's scheduled stop (westbound) was to be a brief one, but when its departure was advanced from 10:30 to 12:00 and then it did not sail for more than an hour, it was apparent that there was more work involved than planned.

Damaged containers in the first three bays are more than evident even from a distance. Damage to the ship is harder to detect. The railing around the bow davit and the access ladder to the forward crane are certainly mangled. This could have been done by seas smashing down on the ship, or by loose or wayward containers.

As it pulled clear of Halterm there certainly was evidence of the "deformation" of containers mentioned in the casualty report.  Since the ship is westbound from Iceland to Halifax and on to Portland, I presume those damaged boxes will be dealt with in Portland. The Halifax stop normally involves unloading a few Eimskip containers, and perhaps picking up some empties.

There did not seem to be any damage to containers aft of midships, but because some of those are CMA CGM, I expect there were loaded here today.

Eimskip also operates a dedicated shuttle service from Halifax to and from New England for CMA CGM, so those boxes would have been loaded in Halifax. Export boxes from Halifax for Iceland would normally be picked up on the eastbound leg.

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Coast Guard in - Coast Guard out

A sunrise arrival today was CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent a fairly rare sight in Halifax in recent years after its political transfer to Newfoundland.
 

Whether the ship was actually escorting the Icleandic Lomur (see yesterday's post) can't be confirmed, but that ship arrived a very few minutes later. There was no damage visible to Lomur from a great distance, and the containers I could see appeared intact.

The Louis S. St-Laurent had been on ice operations in the Cabot Strait, and tied up at Irving Oil in Woodside. Ice has retreated dramatically from the Nova Scotia coast in the past week thanks to warm temperatures and favourable winds. While there is still considerable ice in the central Gulf, even that is diminishing rapidly.

After the Louis had been tied up for a while it was time for the departure of USCG Seneca WMEC 906 that had been in port since Friday at HMC Dockyard. There are often US vessels in port to commemorate important historical dates, but I can think of none this time. Maybe St.Patrick's day? If so at least some of the 100 strong complement were able to stand on deck for the departure.

Seneca is based in Boston, but gave Portland, ME as its last port of call before arriving here.
A member of the Famous class of Medium Endurance cutters, it was laid down in 1982 and launched in 1984 by the Robert Derektor Shipyard Inc in Middletown RI. It was in service in 1986, but not formally commissioned until 1987.  Despite their age, the Famous cutters are expected to remain in service until the 2030s, thanks in part to the transfer of weapons and equipment from decommissioned Oliver Hzard Perry class frigates.

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Lomur takes another hit.

The Gibraltar flag Lomur sailing for the Icelandic shipping company Eimskip was in Halifax on February 2 for the first time, with heavy ice built up forward. As a small ship, with very little freeboard, this was not surprising in view of the winter conditions at the time and the vessel's route between Iceland, Argentia, NL, Halifax and Portland.
I posted the following photo of its arrival, see the entire post here: 2019/02/lomur-for-eimskip.html

News has now reached me that the ship encountered more serious problems on March 11 while en route from Iceland in heavy weather. It sustained damage to 18 containers, including "deformations" and  there was damage to the ship itself including winches, deck machinery and deck fittings. Some repairs were apparently possible while the ship was underway, but one can only imagine the conditions.  There were no reports of containers lost overboard.

The ship arrived in Argentia March 14 and sailerd for Halifax today. It is due March 18. It is not clear how many of the damaged containers might have been discharged in Argentia or how much damage remains to be repaired.

This post will be updated if more becomes known.

As I observed in the previous post, this is a very small ship for winter North Atlantic.

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Lomur for Eimskip

It was an icy initial trip for the latest addition to the Eimskip fleet. Lomur arrived this morning with a substantial build up of frozen spray forward, coating masts and containers several feet thick in places.

Lomur is a rather small ship for the route, and like a lot of small feeder types has a superstructure piled up aft, which must be an uncomfortable place in rolling seas. Ships on the Eimskip Green Line do not have much opportunity to head south to make wide arcs around bad weather [see yesterday's post] They are on a schedule and must make a bee line for the next port. Therefore they get whatever weather is coming.

Measuring only 4454 gt, 5560 dwt, with a capacity of 505 TEU and equipped with a pair of 40 tonne cranes, Lomur was built in 2002 as Frisia by Qinshan Shipyard in Wuhan. It was delivered as Apolo, renamed Anja in 2003 and Ruby in 2010. The name Lomur was applied in 2015 and the ship registered in Gibraltar. It is operated by Briese Schiffs on behalf of a German ownership syndicate. 

Before sailing for Portland, ME this morning, the ship carried out a compass swing in number one anchorage. Perhaps they will find some warmer water en route, otherwise there will be a lot of work for someone to break free all those containers on deck forward.

Note the pilot rope ladder deployed just aft of midships, where there is a gap in the deck load. No wonder pilots find it unsafe to board certain ships in some conditions.

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