Yantian Express fall out continues

The saga of the Yantian Express fire will be a long one and it is by no means over. HAPAG-Lloyd has declared General Average, meaning that all cargo interests will be required to post surety before retrieving their cargo. The surety is to cover the cost of saving the ship. This ancient custom of the sea has proven to be the best way to pay for salvage costs.

Meanwhile the ship itself is still en route to Freeport, Bahamas and may arrive on the coming weekend - a month after the outbreak of fire in its deck cargo. Until the ship is docked and adjustors get to have a look round, the extent of damage to cargo and ship will not be known with certainty.

Reports that the ship is underway on its own power, with tugs escorting means that some parts of the ship have apparently not been damaged seriously, if at all.

Meanwhile in Halifax two ships from THE Alliance have sailed. Shanghai Trader, the interim replacement for Yantian Express, sailed at noon time today, bound for Jebel Ali, UAE, the next port in the EC5 service eastbound port rotation.

A time worn Shanghai Trader sails this afternoon. It seems to be drawing a bit more water than it did yesterday, so perhaps some repairs were being made.

The second Alliance ship sailed yesterday. Dalian Express gave its next port of call as Port Said. That is not a normal call for the EC5 service, but is a call for the IEX India East Coast Express (which does not call in Halifax). Dalian Express was also four days late on this leg of its trip, so may be somehow "dragging its feet" to spread the schedule out to return to weekly calls at the scheduled ports.

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As THE Alliance scrambles to make up for the port calls missed by the Yantian Express fire, there was the rare sight of two ships on the same line, in port at the same time.

Two ships on the same line at Cerescorp, Fairview Cove this morning.

Dalian Express (a sister ship to Yantian Express) is on its regular routine for the EC5 service, having called here westbound January 13. It is now on the return leg eastbound, having picked up its own allocated cargo at US ports, and presumably some that was intended for Yantian Express.

Docked directly ahead at Fairview Cove is Shanghai Trader brought in to take up Yantian Express' eastbound cargo. Although remarkably high in the water, the ship appears to be close to capacity. That would indicate that a large proportion of eastbound containers are empties headed back to Asia.

There did not seem to be any cargo handling going on, but there was quite a bit activity at the dockside with truck cranes.

Shanghai Trader came out of the Hyundai, Ulsan shipyard in 2005, built for charter work. It has been owned since new by the Offen Group, but has carried a sort of Who's Who of names: 2005: P+O Nedlloyd Delft, 2005: Maersk Dolores, 2010: Santa Patricia, 2010: Cap Scott, 2012: Santa Patricia, 2012:  SCI Nava Sheva, finally taking its current name in 2015. It has been on the spot charter market ever since. At 54,809 gt, 76,255 dwt and a capacity of 5047 TEU (including 550 reefers) it is significantly smaller than the ship it is replacing: Yantian Express 88,493 grt, 100,003 dwt, 7506 TEU (700 reefers).

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