Comings and Goings - and old news.

Despite the halt in train traffic, there is still some activity in the Port of Halifax. Trucks have been able to take up some of the work, but they are stretched to the limit, particularly long haul.

Zim Monaco arrived and sailed, but there is no telling how much cargo the ship off loaded on took on.

The two coastal container services, Oceanex to Newfoundland and SPMI to St-Pierre et Miquelon and Newfoundland are still providing their services, but some reduction in cargo must be expected.

After unloading its cargo of rails Onego Rio moved from pier 27 to anchorage in Bedford Basin. This normally means the ship is awaiting orders for its next assignment.

Having completed refit work the jack-up drill rig Noble Regina Allen "sailed" late this morning under tow of Siem  Commander and Atlantic Osprey with Atlantic Tern in attendance. The rig was visible well out to sea in the cold clear air.

News from Wednesday
Thanks to helpful fellow harbour watchers I am able to explain the following photo taken off Africville on Wednesday.

It depicts the RNMB (Royal Navy Motor Boat) Hussar towing three Coil Auxiliary Boats (CABs). Able to operate autonomously Hussar was delivered to the Royal Navy as part of a new method of mine clearance. Rather than sweeping for mines with grapples and chain cutters in the old fashioned way, the CABs replicate the acoustical signature of ships causing the mines to detonate far from the minesweeping mother ship. Autonomous operation, controlled from land or, presumably a distant ship, reduces the risk to human life. 

There is talk that the RN will adapt some of its older minesweeping vessels to carry this system. Perhaps some RCN Kingstons could be adapted too.

The RN and manufacturer Atlas win the acronym of the year (so far) award for the ARCIMS = Atlas Remote Combined Influence Minesweeping System - but is still early days!

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Port Paralysis Ahead

Protests against a pipeline crossing indigenous territory in British Columbia have spread in scope and in location, extending all the way to the Port of Halifax. Now highlighting many other grievances,  the protests appear to have become deeply entrenched and threaten the country's economy.

The most disruptive of the protests are two encampments adjacent to the CN main railway line near Belleville, ON, which have cut off all freight and passenger rail traffic between Montreal and Toronto. CN plans to stop all rail operations east of Toronto, and ports such as Halifax, Saint John, Quebec City and Montreal are now restricted in terms of what cargo they can import or export. All of the other ports, except Halifax, have alternate rail corridors, whether through CPR or CSX or short lines. Whether CN will co-operate to interchange traffic out of or into Halifax seems unlikely at this point. All import cargo that leaves Halifax by rail for the US midwest is routed through Montreal and then to Toronto.

A train carrying export and intermodal cargo did arrive in Halifax on Friday morning, and I believe an autorack train arrived today (Saturday) however it does not seem likely that there will be many more. Containers are beginning to pile up in terminals and shipping lines may have started to bypass Halifax already. Some commodities - particularly propane for home heating are already being rationed in Halifax.

The Port of Halifax will become a very quiet place if container traffic grinds to a halt. A small protest, highlighting some local grievances blocked the Cerescorp main gate at Fairview Cove earlier in the week, but was short lived.

NB: Please note I am not unsympathetic to the issues raised by the demonstrators. However I try to keep Shipfax as a source of information, rather than opinion, so will refrain from taking sides, and try to be as fair as possible.

Ironically harbour activity in Halifax today  appeared to continue as usual.


BBC Rio remains tied up at pier 27, with a cargo of rails for CN. Since longshoremen only work Monday to Friday on these cargoes, the ship was idle today.

The ship's own 80 tonne cranes are used to work the cargo, which is stockpiled on the pier until CN needs it. It is then railed to Winnipeg for preparation.
The ship's hull was built by Damen Okean in Mykolayiv, Ukraine in 2003 and completed by the Damen Hoogezand yard in the Netherlands. Launched as Ile de Reunion, it was renamed 03: Frida, 04: BBC England, 13: BBC Ecuador, 14: Thorco China, 16: BBC England, 17: England and later in 2017 took its present name. The 7576 gt, 10,300 dwt ship flies the Netherlands flag.

Arriving for THE Alliance, MOL Maxim headed straight for Cerescorp, Fairview Cove. Just how much cargo is waiting for it is a question. So is the fate of its inbound cargo. Will it be unloaded here or carried on the another port such as New York, where it has a better chance of reaching the US mid-west in any sort of predictable time frame ?

The "M" class MOL ships are new to Halifax. Built in 2010 by Mitsubishi Heavy, Kobe, MOL Maxim is a 78,316 gt, 79,393 dwt vessel with a capacity of 6724 TEU, including 500 reefers.

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Acivity north and south

There was activity at both ends of the harbour today.

In south end off Halterm, McNally Marine began to mobilize for its dredging contract. The tugs Mister Joe and J.F.Whalen moved the Derrick No.3 into position off the end of pier 42. One of the mud scows has also been moved from pier 9 to pier 23, which will be the operational base for the work.

The dredging is the first phase of the pier extension and is expected to take at least two months. A second phase is to build the concrete cribs that will be sunk in position to form the pier.

Rounding Ives Knoll in the southend the autocarier Siem Cicero headed inbound for Autoport.

The tugs Atlantic Willow and Atlantic Larch shepherd the ship around Ives Point.

(Atlantic Larch is temporarily assigned to Halifax while Atlantic Bear is in Saint John assisting with the LNG tanker Pan Europe.)

The ship has been calling here since its maiden voyage. See Shipfax July 21, 2017
With a capacity of 7,000 cars,  it is one of the larger autocarriers.

Moving from the southend piers to anchor in Bedford Basin, Onego Rio passed in and out of the late afternoon shadows from waterfront buildings.

The ship arrived January 6 and unloaded a cargo of rails at pier 27. This what I said in my January 7 post:

 " Onego Rio  is a 7576 grt, 10,300 dwt ship built in 2003 by Damen Okean in Mykolayiv, Ukraine. It carries a pair of 80 tonne capacity cranes."

Since there is no severe weather in the immediate forecast, the ship is likely waiting for orders. 

 

It will join another ship that is waiting for orders, although the orders may be well known:

Thorco Liva rests at anchor in a very frigid Bedford Basin Sunday morning.

Thorco Liva will likely be heading for Newington, NH to load fibreoptic cable, and is just waiting for the a date to be there.

At pier 9C in the north end, beside the usual crop of suppliers, Trinity Sea at 9C and Horizon Enabler fueling at 9, the tug Atlantic Enterprise appears to be getting some repair work to a window in its winch house. A piece of plywood has been hastily applied.

Atlantic Enterprise picked up a coating of frozen spray on its trip up from New Jersey, and perhaps a broken window in its winch control house.

For more on the tug, see: Tugfax January 13

What its role will be in the Yantian Express is a bit of a mystery. SMIT has dispatched another tug from Rotterdam. Sovereign is due at the ship Tuesday, joining fleet mate SMIT Nicobar and Maersk Mobiliser. Sovereign is well equipped for fire fighting with dual water/foam monitors.

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Break Bulk - and a throw back.

Non-containerized cargo at Port of Halifax facilities has been dropping steadily over the past several years, and is down to about 370,000 tonnes - below 2013 levels. [Cargo handled by National Gypsum, the oil terminals and Autoport are not included in that number.]

Therefore it was most unusual to see four non-container ships working at Port of Halifax piers today.

From  north to south:

CLI Pride carries a pair of 60 tonne cranes, and a large yellow spreader stowed forward athwartships.

CLI Pride was tucked in at Fairview Cove, and must have discharged its project cargo quickly. The 7138gt, 7821 dwt ship dates from 2011 when it was built by Dongfang Shipbuilding Group in Yueqing, China as Brielle. It became BBC Luanda in 2014 and took its present name in August last.
The ship arrived off Halifax Sunday from Rotterdam, and is returning to the same port. I am not envious of the return trip across the Atlantic in ballast in a relatively small ship.
The ship was in  Montreal as recently as the end of October. It was also on the Great Lakes in July under its previous name.

Crew members check the lashings on a pleasure craft stowed in its cradle on deck.

 It took an extra wide angle lens to squeeze Danzigergracht into one photo at Pier 9 c. As with many Spliethoff ships it has several pleasure craft on deck as part of their regular yacht delivery service from Europe to the Caribbean. However that was not the reason for the ship's call here. To the bottom right of the photo are the tips of three wind turbine blades that the ship offloaded this morning.
They would have been carried below deck and are as long as the space between the middle crane and the ship's bridge.
Built in 2009 by Jinling Shipyard in Nanjing, China, the 13,558 gt, 18,143 dwt ship has three 120 tonne capacity cranes and is specialized for heavy lift and project cargoes, but can also carry sensitive cargoes such as paper products.

Work continues on Thorco Liva at Pier 9c.

Although not carrying cargo, work continues in the holds of Thorco Liva. If its past visits to Halifax in 2016 -2017 are any indication, it is related to carrying fibreoptic cable. It is also multi-purpose ship, capable of heavy lifting. It was built in 2012 by Honda Heavy Industries in Saiki, Japan, rated at 13,110 gt, 16,901 dwt and fitted with a pair of 50 tonne cranes.

And at pier 27 there is another ship of the same type. Regrettably no photos are possible, but Onego Rio  is a 7576 grt, 10,300 dwt ship built in 2003 by Damen Okean in Mykolayiv, Ukraine. It carries a pair of 80 tonne capacity cranes, which it is using to discharge a cargo of rails for CN.

Throwback
The recent news about the Yantian Express* fire noted that the ship Happy Ranger was standing by the to assist if needed. When the tug Smit Nicobar arrived,  Happy Ranger was relieved, and continued its journey from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Trois-Rivières, QC. 

The ship visited Halifax only twice as far as I can recall, and on its first visit it loaded a very unusual cargo.

As part of the development of the Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP), the accommodation structures for the Thebaud field were fabricated in Dartmouth and Halifax. The ship used its 400 tonne cranes to load the blocks. They were then taken to Teeside, UK where they were mounted on the bases, then transported back to the Thebaud field for installation. 

Now twenty years after the first gas flowed, the project is being decommissioned, the structures will be removed and taken to Europe to be scrapped.

The ship was built by Schelde SNB, Flushing in 1998 and measures 10,990 gt, 12,950 dwt. Owner Mammoet is a division of Spliethoff's.


* Footnote
I am irritated by "the media's" continual mis-pronunciation of the name Yantian Express. Named for a city in China, the spelling should accurately indicate how it is to be pronounced. It is not "yan-TAIN" please! 

Just to give a sense of why HAPAG-Lloyd named a ship after Yantian - the Yantian International Container Terminals has an 8km long waterfront, equipped with 70 container cranes and had a throughput of 78.3mn TEU in 2013. (Halifax will likely squeak past 500,000 TEU again for 2018).

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Dark Arrivals

Short days are still with us, and it will be several weeks before they are long enough to catch most arrivals and departures.  There were two arrivals after dark today and there will be one before sunrise tomorrow - all first time callers.

There was just enough light to catch Spliethoff's Danzigergracht as it made it way in this afternoon to Pier 9c. Due to come in from anchorage tomorrow morning CLI Pride will be going to Fairview Cove. Both ships will only be in port for a short time, so there may be a chance of photos in daylight when they sail.

 Danzigergracht is coming up on the  Maugher's Beach reporting point, while CLI Hope' Pride's lights show over the breakwater from its anchorage position. (1700 hrs AST)

Also arriving late this afternoon, the cargo ship Onego Rio tied up at Pier 27 to off load rails for CN. No chance of a photo there - perhaps when it sails later in the week.

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