Manon delivers to 9C

 The Wallenius Wilhelmsen auto carrier Manon made a two point call in Halifax July 7-8. Arriving first at Autoport early on the morning of July 7, it spent the day unloading cars. In the early evening it moved to Pier 9C in the Richmond terminals and unloaded machinery, and surprisingly - more cars.

This is the first time that I can recall that cars have been unloaded at Pier 9C. There appear to be about 200 Volvos. Volvos (some of which are manufactured in Belgium) were presumably loaded at Manon's last port of call which was Zeebrugge.

Volvo imports usually arrive on ACL ships (these are likely the Swedish built ones) and are off loaded at Fairview Cove. Neither Fairview Cove, nor Pier 9C have facilities to load cars onto double decker railway auto racks, so these cars will presumably be trucked to various destinations.

Autoport, which is owned by CN Rail, also has facilities for vehicle prepping and accessory installation, and also stores cars for "on demand" delivery to distribution centres across the country.

The Volvos unloaded at Pier 9C have the usual coverings and protection pads placed on import cars for shipping. These will presumably be removed when they reach a distribution centre or even a dealership.

The Manon was built for Wallenius Lines in 1999 by Daewoo, Okpo, and lengthened 8.6 meters in 2005. It is now rated at 67,264 gt, 28,360 dwt with a capacity of 7194 CEU and with a 125 tonne SWL stern ramp.

The ship unloaded a great deal of other cargo at Pier 9C. In addition to the usual agricultural, forestry and mining equipment, it also  carried some shrink wrapped motor boats, many wooden crates on Mafi trailers, and some mystery objects.

What appear to be sheerlegs components* are labelled "Weeks", presumably for Weeks Marine, the large US dredging and marine construction company (owned since January 1, 2023 by Kiewit Corporation and in turn the owners of McNally Marine in Canada).

The Manon sailed in the afternoon of July 8.

Manon as it appeared on a previous visit, March 27, 2022.

 Amendment:

On closer examination, it seems that the large red objects are in fact boom components for an E-Crane (or Equilibrium crane) manufactured in Belgium, for use in material handling - particularly dredging, scrap metal handling and aggregates.

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MSC Lucy and Manon

 MSC Lucy

"Going away" photos, especially backlit ones, are not the most desirable for those aficionados of ship photography, but when that is all you can get you take them anyway. Such was the case today ( March 27) with MSC Lucy. It had frustrated me on its visit in January when it arrived and departed in the dark when no photo was possible.

On that January call the ship had spent some days hove to in the Gulf of Maine waiting for the storms to pass before entering Halifax harbour. 

When MSC began calling Halifax with its Indus 2 service from northwest India via the Mediterranean to east coast North America in October 2021, there were eight ships in the rotation, but most of the first eight did not call again. MSC Lucy was the thirteenth ship when it made its first call in Halifax in January. 

With the pilot boat Capt. E.T.Rogers close alongside MSC Lucy has just cleared Pier 42 at PSA Halifax and is about to swing into the western (deep water) channel.

MSC Lucy is a 2005 product of Hanjin Heavy Industry and Construction Co Ltd in Busan, South Korea. It is a 89,954 gt, 104,954 deadweight ship with a capacity of 8089 TEU including 550 reefers. Its next port of call is to be Norfolk. The Indus 2 will be forsaking Norfolk next month and calling on Boston instead - this may be another opportunity for short sea traffic from Halifax.

Manon

Women's names have long been popular for ships (see MSC above.) The other departure today, Wallenius Wilhelmsen's Manon, is named for an opera character, the theme for all Wallenius ship names. Wallenius had either Puccini's Italian language opera Manon Lescaut or Massenet's French language opera Manon to choose from - both based on the same French novel.

I have seen this ship many times, particularly in its original Wallenius green and white paint scheme, but had not been able to get a clear shot of the ship underway since it was repainted in the combined fleet colours last year. (See an alongside photo at Autoport, exactly one year ago: March 27, 2021)

Built in 1999 by Daewoo Heavy Industry in Okpo, South Korea, the ship was orginally rated at 57,018 gt, 14,863 dwt. It was lengthened from 199.2 to 227.9 meters in 2005, thus increasing its tonnages to 67,264 gt, 28,360 dwt. Its capacity is now 7,194 RT43 Car Equivalent Units. It has a 125 tonne capacity stern ramp.

The pilot boat doesn't look quite so small in comparison to the ship from this angle.

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Predominantly Blue

 Blue was the colour of choice in Halifax today, Saturday, May 1, and thereby hangs a tail or two.

The Maersk Penang arrived at PSA Halifax this morning after sitting at anchor outside the harbour since Thursday, April 29.

Due to labour disruptions in Montreal, the ship's normal westbound transatlantic route was changed when it went instead to Saint John, NB. However with export cargo waiting for it in Halifax, the ship then came here and anchored until picking up the normal scheduled sailing day - today.

In March, Maersk announced that the ship would make a trial call in Saint John, March 23, then Halifax March 26 (it did not) and Montreal March 29. If Maersk has been tempted away from Montreal by the Port of Saint John and CP Rail, then one wonders how long they will continue to call in Halifax.

Now that longshore workers have been legislated back to work in Montreal it may be a while before we see the resolution of this story. So far the next scheduled ship on the Maersk CAE service, Maersk Palermo, is south of Newfoundland en route to Montreal, more or less as per normal except about one day later than usual.

Cerescorp, Fairview Cove had its own blue ship today too. MOL Glide is here once again on THE Alliance's AL1 service. The AL1 service is due to end in 2Q 2021, but Halifax has been added to the AL5 service which has already started to call here, serviced by NYK ships.

Still wearing the MOL colours MOL Glide it has not yet been repainted in Ocean Network Express (ONE) magenta as MOL's "M" class ships have. 

No blue ships at Autoport today, but instead it was the green over grey Wallenius Wilhelmsen hull colour scheme of their merged fleets. Manon is one of the veterans of the fleet, built in 1999. It ranks as a regular caller, and was last here March 27, 2021.

There was very bright blue at HMC Dockyard as HMCS Toronto shows off its new 'boot topping". The term is an ancient nautical one denoting the paint on the portion of a ship's hull that is usually under water. The paint is also specially formulated to discourage marine growth and is described as "anti-fouling." The bright blue paint has recently been applied while the ship has been out of the water on the Syncrolift.

The Syncrolift [a registered trade mark] is an elevator platform that lifts ships out of the water by means of a couple of dozen synchronized electric winches (under the light blue hoods in the photo). The RCN's own ship repair unit, called Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Scott (FMFCS), can perform a multitude of repair and maintenance chores once the ships are "in the dry". 

The FMFCS facility recently celebrated its 25th anniversary as commemorated in the forces newspaper Trident

Of note is a current tender to remove .5 meter of toxic sludge that has built up on the harbour bottom under the platform. The project, which is expected to cost in excess of $3 million, will allow the platform to be lowered to its design depth.

The last caller was another exception, because I couldn't see a spec of blue anywhere on Alpine Madeleine arriving from Antwerp for Imperial Oil.

A typical MR tanker of 29,266 gt, 49,999 dwt, like scores of others, it was built by Hyundai Mipo, Ulsan in 2008. The ship is operated by Diamond S Management LLC (hence the funnel mark), a large publicly listed tanker operator with a fleet of 64 ships, 50 of which are MR tankers like this one. Diamond S recently announced a merger with International Seaways, another NYSE listed company, with mostly crude tankers, which will make a combined fleet of 100 ships. Both companies are US based.

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Saturday Round UP, PSA, Irving Oil and Autoport

 Several things were happening in the port today, so I am rounding them up into one post.

At PSA Halifax, ZIM had a different feeder ship in today. Contship Leo is a 9957 gt, 13,803 dwt ship with a capacity of 1118 TEU and carries a pair of 45 tonne cranes.

On the left, at Pier 42 EF Ava for Eimskip and on the right at Pier 41, Contship Leo for ZIM.

Contship Leo was built in 2008 by Kouan Shipbuilding Co in Taizhou, China as Vega Saturn. In 2016 it became CFS Paceno and took its present name in 2020. It appears to be owned by Syracuse Marine Ltd and operated by Contships Management Inc.

Since starting the Canada Feeder Express (CFX) service to Florida and Kingston, Jamaica in 2018, ZIM has used a variety of charters, most recently Tampa Trader and Taipei Trader.  Today's arrival, similar to Fouma on February 25 is replacing Tampa Trader, but it shows on ZIM's schedule for at least three more trips, into May. Tampa Trader is operating between Port Everglades and the Dominican Republic.

East Coast (left) at number one anchorage, and Acadian (right) at number 7?.

It was very windy in the harbour today and thus tankers were not docking at Imperial Oil and Irving Oil where the jetties are not considered secure. It was unusual however to see two Irving Oil tankers in port at the same time. One was due for Irving's Woodside facility and one was due for Imperial Oil.

An indication of the high wind is the bar taught anchor line. The ship offloaded part of its cargo at Irving Oil and has more for Imperial Oil.

Acadian arrived Thursday night at Irving's Woodside terminal and moved out to anchor last night (Friday) as an electrical storm passed through. It is due to move to Imperial Oil when today's winds die down.

East Coast arrived this morning and was due to tie up at Woodside, but anchored instead. It will also move when conditions improve.

Although not visible from the shore the auto carrier Manon kept two tugs alongside pushing while it unloaded at Autoport. That facility also relies on a jetty and mooring lines to a buoy and is not safe during periods of high winds. 

Tugs pinned the ship to the jetty while unloading. 

Manon in its new Wallenius Wilhelmsen paint scheme was built as far back as 1999, but was lengthened in 2005 increasing its size to 67,264 gt, 28,360 dwt and a capacity of 7,194 RT43 cars. It was a regular caller here in its original Wallenius green and white scheme, and this is the first time I have had a chance to photograph it in the new colours.

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Friday inaction

There was lots of action in Halifax harbour today - unfortunately I was somewhere else when most of it was happening, so almost all the photos were of static ships.

The autocarrier Manon finally got out of port after a lengthy stay. It arrived  Tuesday at pier 31, but when it completed unloading machinery, it remained there until late Thursday while Columbia Highway and Oceanex Sanderling did their work at Autoport.

Offshore fog swirls outside Eastern Passage while Manon completes unloading at Autport..

Manon sailed late this afternoon.

Back in service:

 Chebucto Pilot getting underway looking very smart after its refit. It is heading out with pilots for the inbound Budapest Bridge and will disembark the pilot from the outbound UACC Manama.

The Atlantic Pilotage Authority will soon be welcoming two more pilot boats. Under the current names of SC Lynx and SC Cheetah they are water jet propelled boats with 20 knot plus cruising speed, they were built in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and have been working in Europe.


In for CFIA inspection:

 Just getting underway after inspection UACC Manama exhibits no less than 27 manifold connections, signified by the dots between the "A" and the "C". This means that the ship can carry a wide array of chemicals at the same time. Note also the array of piping on deck compared to typical product carriers.

The chemical tanker UACC Manama bound for Quebec, stopped off for Asian Gypsy Moth inspection. A 2010 product of the SLS Shipbuilding Co in Tongyeong, South Korea, the 29,124 grt, 45,612 dwt ship was built as Bunga Balsam for MISC Bhd but was acquired by United Arab Chemical Carriers and renamed in 2014.

Short end of the pier:
K-Line's Budapest Bridge got the short end of the Fairview Cove container pier on its arrival on THE Alliance AL6 service.

The 4526 TEU ship is one of 5 on the Med/Transatlantic service, and is relatively small and lightly loaded, so can be served by the smaller cranes at the east end of the pier.

Long end of the pier:

Yang Ming's 6258 TEU  YM Movement occupied the west end  of the pier and used the bigger cranes.

The ship, an "old" post-Panamax is the leading edge of the wave as the new Panama Canal permits much larger ships to reach the North American east coast from the Pacific.
Although Cerescorp, operators of the pier, have not announced any future plans, they need to step up to the plate with bigger cranes and a longer pier if they are to stay ahead of this development. Most of the 6,000 TEU ships can make it under Halifax's bridges, so should be able to use the piers for some time to come.
I expect some announcement soon as the primary Japanese container lines consolidate, and Cerescorp's owners K-Line may have access to more capital.

Meanwhile back at the downtown waterfront the three herring seiners that have been in and out of Halifax for the past week, sailed again this afternoon.

Lady Janice II foreground and Lady Melissa back, sailed soon after, following Morning Star which had already sailed.

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