Splish Splash

 High winds in advance of a cold front kicked up white caps in the inner harbour and some waves in the approaches. Ships needed some extra trug assistance but there did not seem to be any real delays.

 The Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel HMCS Goose Bay was one of at least four vessels of its class that have been exercising in local waters for the past few days. Kingston, Moncton and Summerside have all been in and out of port.

The tug Atlantic Oak works on the bow of the tanker East Coast as it gets underway from Woodside. Irving Oil's Canadian flag tankers usually trade within Canada, but this trip they are giving Boston as the destination. (Irving Oil has the ship on long term charter from the Dutch company Vroon, hence the the V symbol on the bow.)

The pilot boat Captain E.T. Rogers was making a bit of spray as it headed out to disembark the pilot from the bulk carrier Rosalia (see April 17 post).

Now fully loaded with wood pellets, the ship is giving a destination of the River Tyne in England.

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Rosalia - bulk loading delayed

The bulker Rosalia arrived April 15 to load wood pellets, but loading has been delayed off and on by rainy weather. There is no way to protect the cargo from moisture during rain, so loading is suspended. The wood pellets arrive in Halifax by truck from the preparation plant and are transferred to Halifax Grain Elevators. The grain drying equipment is used to reduce and control the moisture content of the pellets which will be used as "hog fuel" for power generation,likely in Denmark.

 

Under the spouts and ready to load - weather permitting*

Built in 2016 by Jiangsu Hantong Ship Heavy Industry in Tongzhou, China, the Rosalia is a 25,546 gt, 38,558 dwt vessel equipped with four 35 tonne cranes, but without grab buckets. (Grab buckets can be hard on ships and hard on certain types of cargo such as grains.)

Splosna Plovba Doo of Portoroz, Slovenia is the listed owner of the ship, however that small seven ship company is part of the 400 ship Peter Dohle Group of Hamburg. With 200 container ships (on charter to others) and some 300 bulkers and multi-purpose ships, Dohle is one of the largest non-liner operators in the world.

* the ship is tied up at pier 28 under the "grain" loading spouts, and almost impossible to photograph. Now that PSA Halifax has taken over Pier 30-31 for containers there is also traffic and container storage in the way.

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