Five cruise ships and other traffic - amended

 Welcoming three or even four cruise ships together in the Port of Halifax is not unusual, but having five ships in port at once is rare. Today, October 11, is the only day this season when that number of ships is scheduled to call on the same day.

Staggering their arrival times is required to ensure there are enough pilots and linehandlers available, while still maintaining "normal" commercial shipping activity in the rest of the port.

Norwegian Pearl (2390 passengers, for Pier 20), Sky Princess (3660, Pier 22), Viking Octantis ( 380, Pier 31) and Ocean Voyager (200, Pier 24) were the first to arrive, embarking their pilots between 0630 and 0645 hrs. Seabourn Quest (Pier 23) followed at 0715 hrs ADT.

By the time they were all secured at their respective berths it was wall to wall white on the waterfront.

Viking Octantis arrived as the sun was rising behind heavy cloud. Delivered in December 2021 by Vard Tulcea (a Fincantieri yard) the 30,114 gt ship is rated Polar Class 6 and can carry 378 passengers in 189 staterooms. (Other sources say 380 passengers.) it operates for Viking Expedition Cruises.

The ship sailed to Antarctica for the first part of 2022. Returning via New York it spent the summer cruising on the Great Lakes. Exiting the Seaway October 4 it called in Trois-Rivières, Quebec City and Sept-Iles en route to Halifax.

Ocean Voyager has also been to the Great Lakes this season, exiting the Seaway October 5 and calling in Montreal October 5-6, Quebec City October 6 and Charlottetown October 9. 

The ship is a familar one in all its guises since built in 2001 as Cape May Light by Atlantic Marine in Jacksonville, FL. It has sailed as Sea Voyager in 2010;  in 2015 it became Saint Laurent, and in 2016 the Victory I. The ship was re-labelled Ocean Voyager in December 2021 and returned to service earlier this year for American Queen Voyages. [Yes those are the same ducks in both photos]

The ship was in Halifax April 29 this year (and its sister Ocean Navigator , the former Cape Cod Light, on April 26).

New to Halifax is the Sky Princess a 145,781 gt behemoth built in 2019 by Fincantieri Monfalcone. In addition to its 3,660 passengers it carries 1,346 crew. I did  not get a clear photo of the ship on arrival, but may get one when it sails. (It is the largest ship in the panorama photo above).

Commercial traffic in the harbour continues too, with one unusual move. The general cargo ship Onego Duero (see October 9's post) had been unloading steel rail at Pier 27, but  moved out to anchor in the lower harbour early this morning to free the berth for the Trinitas from Cuba with nickel concentrates.

The ship apppears to be light, but it may still have cargo aboard -if so it will move back to Pier 27 to complete unloading once the Trinitas sails. Both the cargoes of steel rail and the nickel concentrates are transloaded to rail cars at Pier 27, and with Iberian Bulker (the red ship in the panorama photo) at Pier 28, there was no room to work two ships at the same time.

PSA's South End terminal saw the arrival of Eimskip's Skogafoss and theTropic Hope for Tropical Shipping.

Along with sister ship Tropic Lissette, the two ships maintain a weekly service to and from Florida and the Caribbean. Much of the (northbound and southbound) traffic is refrigerated. The 15,215 gt, 20,325 dwt ship dating from 2018 has a capacity of 1145 TEU including 260 reefers and carries two 45 tonne SWL cranes.

 PSA's other terminal at Fairview Cove accommodated THE Alliance's NYK Rumina, a regular caller of long standing.

A 55,487 gt, 66,171 dwt vessel, it is rated for 4922 TEU including 330 reefers.Hyundai Samho delivered the ship in 2010.

 

With its escort tugs, the ship only gently disturbed the placid waters of the Narrows and the Basin as it made its way inbound.

Amendment

The Sky Princess sailed just as the sun was vanishing from the Halifax waterfront, so only the ship's funnel caught a few rays.

 For the record some of the other ships mentioned above, Skogafoss and Norwegian Pearl, as they sailed this afternoon:

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Big Day and what's going on

 Despite being the Sunday of a holiday weekend (Monday, October 10, is Thanksgiving Day in Canada), the port was going almost full out with activity today (October 9).

Arriving for Pier 9C with RoRo cargo was the United States flagged Liberty. A 61,321 gt, 19,628 dwt ship, it was built in 2006 by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki and has a capacity of 6,354 RT43 sized cars. It also has a 235 tonne capacity stern ramp.

The ship was originally Wilhelmsen's Topeka, but in 2017 it was assigned to their United States operation American Roll-On Roll-Off Carriers (ARC), with ship management by TOTE. Although it sometimes carries priority US government cargo, it also works on Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean's regular car carrying routes. (It has called here numerous times under both names.) 

Its last port on this trip was Bremerhaven. When it completes its RoRo work at Pier 9C, it will move to Autoport to offload cars.

Following close behind for PSA Halifax's Atlantic Hub (South End Terminal) was MSC Poh Lin on the Mediterranean Shipping Co's Turkey-Greece to United States service, via MSC's own hub in Sines, Portugal. [Sailing from the South End terminal was CMA CGM Magellan a 13,880 TEU ship.]

 

Dating from 2004 when it was built by Hyundai Samho, it is a 54,774 gt, 66,786 dwt ship with a capacity of 4862 TEU.

PSA's north end terminal, Fairview Cove, handled the NYK Romulus arriving late in the morning, for THE Alliance's route from North Europe.

At the deep water piers of Ocean Terminal, which has been seeing lots of cruise ships lately (although there were none today), there were two cargo ships.

At Pier 27 it was Onego Duero with a cargo of steel rails from Poland for the Canadian National Railway. The ship arrived yesterday, October 8, from Szczecin.

 A typical multi-purpose type, it was built in 2012 by Jiangsu Yangzi Changbo Shipbuilding in Jingjiang, China. The 6351 gt, 9770 dwt ship carries a pair of 80 tonne SWL cranes. Originally named Pietro Benedetti it was renamed Antonia in 2019 and acquired its current name in 2021.

Also arriving yesterday at the adjacent Pier 28 was the Iberian Bulker a (chartered) member of the well known Lauritzen company.

 The I-S Shipyard in Imabari, Japan built the 23,242 gt, 37,668 dwt bulker in 2017.  I believe it is also Japanese owned, but operating within the Lauritzen Bulk Carriers pool of up to 100 chartered and owned ships. Lauritzen also operates reefers and other ships such as LPG tankers. The Danish company is best known as owners of the "Dan" ships that pioneered winter navigation on the St.Lawrence River in the early 1960s. [See my post of June 11, 2018.]

The ship is provided with four 30 tonne SWL cargo cranes and may also have grabs. They were not visible as the hatches were open and blocked the view of the crane pedestal bases where the grabs would be stowed. The ship arrived in ballast from Norfolk,VA and is loading cargo from the Halifax Grain Elevator. Lately the elevator has been handling soy beans, which arrive by rail, and wood pellets which arrive by truck. From the type of ship and the dust raised when loading, I would guess wood pellets.

These may be among the last photos of Pier 27-28 from this vantage point (bad as it is.) New construction has started in the Pier 29 area as part of the expansion and re-organizaiton of the rail lines and buildings within the South End terminal. A wonderfully vague sign gives no notion of specifically what is going on except that this view will eventually be blocked. I believe the plan may also be to block public thoroughfare in the area too. The present well travelled road is actually port property, and I doubt that there is any established public right of way, despite more than fifty years of public access. Nevertheless the sign must be directed at the public, even though is nearly invisible as it is parallel to the traffic.

The sign is a tribute to whoever got the City, the Port and the Canadian Government to all agree on wording. That is why it gives no useful information, but does hint at the reduction of container truck traffic to and from the port, and between port terminals, by shifting it to rail. Whatever it is that they are doing it should be noted that it is a $48 million dollar Solution. I also guess it is a $48 million gift from the Canadian taxpayers to the Port, PSA and CN Rail.

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