More variety

 There was more variety in harbour traffic again today, August 3. 

A late morning arrival was the medium endurance USCGC Forward WMEC 911 out of Portsmouth, Virginia. 

It is a Hero class vessel, named for a former Secretary of Treasury 1841-1843, Walter Forward, whose "hero" status is at best questionable. Built by the Robert Derektor Shipyard Inc in Middletown, RI it was completed in 1989 and commissioned August 4, 1990. It appears that it will be observing that anniversary here along with the other Dockyard visitor FS Garonne (see yesterday's post), both of which will be in port for long-weekend holiday celebrations.

Traditionally the founding of Halifax - its Natal Day - was celebrated on June 21, even though the first 2,500 British colonial settlers arrived starting July 2, 1749. In recent years however the first Monday in August has been a civic holiday observed province-wide and not just in the former City of Halifax (which is now part of the Halifax Regional Municipality, formed in 1996 from four different municipalities, each with its own founding date.) Parades, fireworks, road races and other events coincide with the annual busker festival for an extended long weekend of celebration.

As Forward sailed it met the outbound HMCS Windsor which has been seen about the harbour and area in recent days, sometimes exercising with a helicopter.

HMCS Windsor in the Narrows, July 31.

An early morning arrival was the auto carrier Don Pasquale a regular at Autoport on Wallenius Wilhelmsen's transatlantic service. Late in the afternoon it shifted to Richmond Terminals, Pier 9C as it has done several times recently, to unload additional RoRo cargo.

As usual the ship went to Bedford Basin, turned and re-entered the Narrows to tie up starboard side to the dock. The Don Pasquale was built by Daewoo Heavy Industries in Okpo in 1997 and in 2007 it was lengthened from 219.3 to 227.9 m by Hyundai Vinaship in Vietnam. The reworked ship now registers 67,141 gt, 28,142 dwt with a capacity of 7,194 cars. Its stern ramp is rated for 125 tonnes.

The heavy lift ship Pijlgracht completed its work at the IEL dock this morning and sailed in the early afternoon for Providence, RI. That port is not far from the Vineyard Wind project, so perhaps it has more cargo for that project, in additon to what it unloaded here.

 

 

A late afternoon arrival was the NYK Constellation on THE Alliance's AL5 route from North Europe to North America. 

 The 55,534 gt, 65,919 dwt ship was built in 2007 by Hyundai, Ulsan and has a capacity of 4922 TEU including 330 reefers. It was certainly carrying a large number of reefers aft (likely empty). It berthed at PSA Fairview Cove.

A ship meeting, which would be interesting to see, was to take place in the late evening and after dark. The outbound ONE Falcon would meet the inbound ONE Apus outside the pilotage area in different traffic lanes where there is lots of sea room.  It is rare that two of the 14,000 TEU sister ships would be in the area at the same time. Normal schedules would have them several days apart.

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Much ado #2 - the wind

 The second post outlining the busy action in Halifax harbour today, August 2, involves the ships working on the Vineyard Wind project. Halifax is the staging port for the project off the Massachusetts coast. The wind towers arrive in sections on heavy cargo ships and are then transferred to the installation ship. Today saw the departure of the GPO Sapphire (very early in the morning) after transferring its cargo of six towers to the Orion using the Orion's 5,000 tonne crane. [see previous posts]. The GPO Sapphire gave Rostock, Germany for destination.

Late in the morning the Orion sailed from the IEL dock in Woodside for the offshore construction site where it will assemble and place the towers.

That leaves the second heavy cargo ship GPO Grace at anchor with the components for six more towers. Presumably it will have to wait for the return of the Orion to off load. That may be up to a month depending on weather and mechanical issues at the Vineyard site. The GPO Grace arrived July 5 from Aviles, Spain.

 Once the Orion was clear, the heavy lift ship Pijlgracht moved from anchorage in Bedford Basin to the IEL dock. The Pijlgracht initially arrived July 25 [see updated post] at Pier 9C and unloaded a sonar array for the RCN. It then went to anchor on July 26.

I will keep an eye on the IEL dock to see what the ship will be unloading there. As previously reported it has two 700 tonne capacity cranes that can work in tandem for a 1400 tonne lift.

to be continued...

Pijlgracht delivers - part 1 - UPDATED

 The Dutch flagged heavy lift cargo ship Pijlgracht tied up at Pier 9C first thing this morning (July 25) and within a couple of hours had offloaded a shrink wrapped mystery package from its number one hold.

Instead of landing the object on the pier, it was instead placed on a small flat deck Royal Canadian Navy barge on the ship's offshore (starboard) side. (All the nachinery on the pier is from previous ships, including last week's Morning Concert.)

 

  The barge, YC 601 was then hustled away to HMC Dockyard by the tug Glenbrook with the assistance of the Pup tugs Granville and Listerville.

The Pijlgracht's movements over the past month give little clue as to the nature of the package. The ship transited the Panama Canal May 26 and was next reported in the Chalmette and New Orleans area July 11-14, before reaching Jacksonville July 18 to19.

The Pijlgracht is an unusual Spliethoff ship, because it was not orginally built for the company to its own proprietary design.  Instead it was built in 2011 by Hudong Zhonghua in Shanghai as the Beluga Progression. The Beluga company failed amid corruption charges and the ship was accquired by Hansa Heavy-Lift (HHL) the same year, and renamed HHL Lagos. 

Spliethoff acquired the assets of HHL in 2019 when that company also failed, They named the ship for one of the many canals in their home port of Amsterdam. Spiethoff has seven sister ships of the same design, built in 2010 and 2011 and called their P14 type.

The ship measures 17,644 gt, 19,379 dwt and carries three cranes. The one 180 tonne SWL crane is fitted forward on the starboard side. The other two, each rated at 700 tonnes, can work in combination for a 1400 tonne lift, and are mounted on the port side (hence the 14 in the type name).

The ship has two holds with full length folding hatch covers and portable tween decks. The smaller forward hatch opening is 22.94 m long and the large number two hatch opening is 82.4m long, unobstructed. The ship is built to carry heavy loads and is also rated for 912 TEU. Spliethoff and partner company BigLift have become not only heavy lift specialists but also "special cargo" specialists, catering to unusual or delicate cargoes such as humidity controlled materials, luxury yachts, and wind farm components.

The ship will remain in port over night, and may have more cargo to unload tomorrow - if so Part 2 will have more details. 

Update #1

The mystery cargo was a bow sonar array for a submarine - thanks to a reader for passing along this info.

Update #2

The Pijlgracht moved out to anchor in Bedford Basin on the evening of July 26 to make way for the RoRo / Auto Carrier Tarifa to land its cargo July 28.

The Pijlgracht passes through the shadow of the A. Murray MacKay bridge en route from Pier 9c to Bedford Basin anchorage.

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