Quite a Parade

 With three ships all arriving at the pilot station for 0600 hrs ADT, there was an interesting procession. Not long after that there was another procession of outbound naval vessels, making for a busy morning.

The inbound ships, all regular callers in Halifax in order of arrival were:

Irving Oil's Acadian on one of its last trips through Halifax. Its replacement the new Algoma Acadian is due today in Savannah, Georgia on its working delivery trip, via Brazil, from Korea.

 Nirint's Gotland with another delivery of nickel sulfides from Cuba:

 and Tropical Shipping's Tropic Hope on the weekly service from the Caribbean.

 Morning deparures included a naval contingent heading to near shore areas for exercses:

The Royal Canadian Navy charter Asterix was first to leave (no photo here- I had to eat breakfast sometime) and HMCS Montreal:

 ... followed by an as yet unidentified, by name, US submarine:

 and the visiting Danish air defence frigate HDMS Vaedderen:

 There was also later activity, stretching through to noon time.

The cable carrier Fairwind Legion arrived for Pier 9B to load cable racks.

and the cable ship IT Infinity:

Then there was a departure from Autoport. Wallenius Wilhelmsen's Oberon is on the usual route from north Europe.

Aside from the Danish visitor, all of these ships are regular callers and have been covered in detail previously in this blog, so no details are given here.

 There were some other arrivals and departures today, so it was a very busy day in the port.

. 

 

 

Some of Each

 It was a sort of smorgasbord of shipping in Halifax today, July 7, 2024, with representatives of most of the various types of ships that call here.

At PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway there were two container ships, ONE Hawk at Pier 41 and Tropic Hope at Pier 42.

The ONE Hawk is a regular on THE Alliance's Asia -North America EC5 service and is one of several "bird class" 14,056 TEU sister ships on the route. It is westbound from Colombo for New York via the Cape of Good Hope.

 

The Tropic Hope and sister Tropic Lissette operate the weekly service for Tropical Shipping. Tropic Hope arrived this morning from San Juan, Puerto Rico, but was not working cargo this afternoon. It has its cranes swung out ready to start work Monday morning, and is due to sail for Palm Beach, FL.

PSA Fairview Cove also had a regular caller, ZIM China, on the the ZIM Container Atlantic (ZCA) service.

ZIM also carries Hapag-Lloyd (and UASC) boxes in addition to its own cargo.

 ZIM China made it first call in Halifax December 27, 2022. Built in 2008 by Samsung Shipbuilding + Heavy Industry in Geoje, South Korea, it is a 40,487 gt, 51,733 dwt ship with a capacity of 4275 TEU. It carried the name Hanjin Kenya from 2008 to 2017 then after a brief spell as Seaspan Kenya it became ALS Fauna later in 2017. It became ZIM China as of April 1, 2022. The tug Atlantic Bear escorted the ship beneath the A. Murray MacKay bridge (pictured) and through the Narrows and the Angus L. Macdonald bridge outbound for sea.

Autoport hosted the familiar Wallenius Wilhelmsen Thermopylae from the usual western Europe ports, Zeebrugge, Bremerhaven and Southampton.

The Thermopylae, 75,283 gt, 23,786 dwt dates from 2015 when it was delivered to Wilhelmsen Lines by Hyundai Samho. It has a capacity of 8,000 RT43 cars and comes with a 320 tonne capacity stern ramp. Its famous namesake was a 991 grt extreme clipper and was once the fastest ship in the world. Built in Aberdeen in 1868 for the China tea trade, it outraced the Cutty Sark, and set a record day's run of 380 statute miles. It was Canadian owned for a time (1890-1895) and lasted until 1907 when it was sunk as a naval target.

There were four tankers in port today. Algoscotia returned Friday, July 5, from its refit in Portugal where it was drydocked and received a new ballast water system. Its return voyage was a little unusual. It went to Sewaren, NJ (also known as Cliffside Port Reading) and took on a cargo for Imperial Oil. Algoma tankers rarely make international voyages, and this may be a first.

Algoscotia docked bow south at Imperial Oil No.3 dock.

Irving Oil had their own ship East Coast (not pictured) arriving early this morning, and it berthed at the Woodside terminal on arrival. The foreign flag CB Pacific arrived yesterday and anchored until the East Coast sails.

The CB Pacific has become a more or less regular, calling in Halifax in February, March, and May as it made its way between Boston, New Haven, Albany (twice) , New York (twice) and Montreal. Although it has been carrying product for Irving Oil it has not called in Saint John, NB as far as I can tell. It appears to be in ballast. or very lightly loaded this time.

 The CB Pacific, built by Jiangsu New Hantong shipbuilding in Yangzhong, China, was delivered in 2020. The 27,250 gt, 37,787 dwt ship is equipped to handle crude oil, clean petroluem products or chemicals in twelve phenolic epoxy coated tanks (plus two slops tanks). The ship is also built to DNV Baltic Ice Class 1B and is fitted with a hybrid exhaust gas scrubber which can be run at zero emissions. As previously noted it has a covered fore deck - a feature rarely incorporated in tankers.

The fourth tanker is the heated asphalt carrier barge John J.Carrick with its integrated tug Leo A. McArthur, which arrived yesterday from the Great Lakes for McAsphalt.

 

McAsphalt ordered a 12,000 dwt tanker from China in 2021. It was launched in June 2023 and at last report it appears to have been delivered July 1, but is still in China, with no ETA for Canada.

I have taken better pictures of the cruise ship Island Princess on previous visits, such as this one in 2023: 

The best I could do today was a hazy "going away" shot - not its best aspect:

 

It is a rare day when I catch every ship arrival and departure. The only one I seem to have missed today was the 0130 hrs departure of the Oceanex Sanderling, making is rare second trip to St.John's during the past week.

.

The Line Up

 Today, Monday ,June 24 saw several familiar faces as far as shipping goes, with some a new comer too. Since most are well known I will skip the details here, but the ship's names will form links to previous posts.

The first arrival was the bi-weekly caller Tropic Hope for Tropical Shipping at Pier 42. It was followed soon after by the auto carrier Lake Taupo at Autoport.

 As with previous calls the Lake Taupo is eastbound from Veracruz, Mexico to Emden, Germany for Volkswagen.

There were two cruise ships today, the regular Volendam  is en route from Boston and Bar Harbour to Sydney, NS and on to the St.Lawrence.

 The other cruiser was the Viking Mars on its first call. Built by Fincantieri, Ancona in 2022 the 47,842 gt ship has 464 cabins for up to 930 passengers with 456 crew. It boasts a child-free experience (no one under 18 is allowed) with no amusement park type features. It is en route from New York for l'Anse aux Meadows, Greenland and Iceland.

 

Outbound this evening the Viking Saturn meets the Kawartha Spirit returning from a tour of the Northwest Arm.

Like its sister ship Viking Star that was here June 22 it is a very fine looking ship (by current standards). 

Another container ship arrival today was the EM Kea eastbound on the CMA CGM / Maersk transatlantic service from Montreal to Bremerhaven.

 Built in 2007 by Stocznia Sczecinska Nowa, in Poland, it is a 35,874 gt, 41,850 dwt ship with a capacity of 3108 TEU. Built as Cap Norte it was renamed Cape Egmont in 2012 and became EM Kea in 2015, the same year it joined this rotation. 

Another arrival was the tanker Pyxis Theta from Antwerp for Imperial Oil. No photo was possible so I will try again tomorrow.

Odd man out of the mix was the non-commercial vessel HMCS Harry DeWolf AOPV 430 returning to port after some naval activity.

 Name ship of the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship program it was built by Irving Shipbuilding Inc at Halifax Shipyard and commissioned June 26, 2011. Numerous arctic programs are planned for this year, and the ship is likely to be heading north fairly soon.

 

.

Sonderborg for Tropical

 Tropical Shipping's weekly service from Halifax to the Caribbean has been using the gearless container ship Sonderborg since January 29, 2024 in place of the Tropical Lissette which has been switched to more southern routes. Tropic Hope remains on the Halifax run.

Sonderborg was built in 2012 as Sonderborg Strait by Nanjing Wujiazui, and is a 12,514 gt, 14,222 dwt ship with a capacity of 1085 TEU including 250 reefers. It dropped the "Strait" from its name in 2017.

Normally the Tropical ships arrive at PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway on Mondays, but this week Sonderborg did not arrive on Monday, March 11, but instead arrived on Thursday, March 13 and instead of tying up at Pier 42 (which was occupied by other ships) it went to Pier 27. That pier has no container cranes. To work cargo there, it must have used mobile cranes since it has no cranes of its own.

The Sonderborg sailed this afternoon, March 16 for San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Tropic Hope is due Monday March 18 from Limetree Bay USVI on the regularly scheduled date. 

.

After the Storm

 A major storm swept through Atlantic Canada yesterday (Monday, December 11). It was not a winter storm per se as temperatures rocketed up to 14C (57F). Although there was rain with the storm, washing away the remnants of last week's 10cm (4 inches) of snow, the major impact of the storm was caused by high winds, with gusts in the 98 kph (60 mph) range. Ferry services on the Bay of Fundy, Northumberland Strait and Cabot Strait all saw disruptions with cancellations and schedule changes. There were the usual power outages through the region (including at Ship Central Eastern - precluding a post last evening.)

In Halifax a container from PSA Fairview Cove was blown off its stack into Bedford Basin, but was coralled by the tug Atlantic Oak. The tug stood by the pier - perhaps to keep the container alongside. Another tug, Atlantic Larch stood by the container ship Tropic Hope at pier 42, PSA Atlantic Hub.It was too windy to work the ship, and there was a risk that the ship could part its lines in high winds and swells.

 

Pilotage operations were also suspended until 0900 hours this morning (December 12) when the seas had subsided and it became safe to disembark pilots at the pilot station off Chebucto Head. The Oceanex Sanderling which had been due to sail from Autoport last evening, then sailed this morning, with a Halifax pilot. (At least one of the Oceanex masters has a pilotage waiver for Halifax, and the ship does not usually need to take a pilot.)

As the Oceanex Sanderling sailed in very calm conditions at 1020 hrs this morning and with the pilot boat Capt E.T.Rogers in attendance, the paddleboard commuter was inbound to downtown Halifax.

The container ship ONE Blue Jay had originally been scheduled to arrive today, December 12, but spent yesterday hove to or drifting far off St.Margaret's Bay. It is now scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Although there is no wind to speak of today, the ship will remain at sea, allowing the Tropic Hope to finish working at Pier 42. (The new cranes at PSA Halifax Altantic Gateway are not in service yet, and are still overhanging the berth, so the ship cannot occupy Pier 41, and thus must work from mid-berth Pier 41- 42.

Today, December 12, is therefore one of those rare days when there is no scheduled arrival in the Port of Halifax.

.

Initials and more initials

 It seems that the proliferation of initials or abbreviations is well entrenched among shipping companies, with a few notable exceptions. Today, March 21, saw six representatives of seven "initial companies", one hold out, and one anonymous.

PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway saw two "initial ships". The CMA CGM Nerval arrived from Bremerhaven on an unscheduled call. In other words, the ship is not on any of CMA CGM's regular routes through Halifax, and appears to be a "sweeper" dropping off or picking up boxes that have not been accommodated on the other CMA CGM services.

Built in 2010 by the Sungdong Shipbuilding + Marine Engineering Co Ltd in Tongyeong, it is a 72,884 gt, 83,318 dwt ship with a capacity of 6540 (or 6570 depending on sources) TEU including 500 reefers. It is an odd sized vessel for Halifax as we usually see larger or smaller ships.

The ship was carrying boxes from all the Ocean Alliance lines (APL, OOCL, Evergreen, and COSCO).

It sailed in the early afternoon for Charleston.

Its place was soon taken by the MSC Sena from Italy and Sines, Portugal on the CANEX 1 service to Montreal - here to off load some containers to reduce draft for the St.Lawrence River.

The ship has been renamed six times since built as ZIM Sydney by Halla Engineering +Heavy Industry, starting in their Inchon yard, and completed at Samho. The 30,280 gt, 35,966 dwt ship has a capacity of 2825 TEU including 214 reefers.

The ship was renamed in 2000: Rhein, 2002: E.R.Albany, 2004: CMA CGM Egypt, 2006: MacAndrews America, 2007: E.R.Albany and 2013: MSC Sena. [The MacAndrews name comes from the old time British MacAndrew Line, taken over by CMA CGM in 2002 and operated as a "niche service". Founded in 1770, it was was eliminated in 2019.]

Also at PSA Halifax Atlantic Gateway was the Tropic Hope, No initials in use by Tropical Shipping, as the name says it all in terms of its routes.

A hold out in today's initial parade, the ship shares Tropical's weekly service with sister ship Tropic  Lissette. Its company containers also spellout "Tropical" in huge letters.

Due to sail late this evening the ship will head for West Palm Beach, FL then take in several Caribbean ports in cluding San Juan, St Thomas, Philipsburg and Sint Eustatius.

There was a triple "initial" meet in Bedford Basin late this afternoon as two ACL and one CSL ship were visible at one time.

Atlantic Container Line  (ACL) usually has two ships in Halifax each week - one eastbound and one westbound. They rarely meet here, but it does happen once or twice a year when schedules get disturbed - usually by weather. It is always tricky to get both ships in the same frame.

Atlantic Sun arrived this morning on the eastbound leg of this voyage, and (right in picture) sailed for Hamburg.

As the Atlantic Sun was preparing to depart, with the tug Atlantic Beaver in attendance, the bulk carrier CSL Tacoma was gliding past the Bedford Insitute of Oceanography, heading for sea.

The initials CSL are used for the international operations of Canada Steamship Lines, but its domestic Canadian flag ships, use the full name, spelled out in full on the ship's hulls. The Bahamas flag CSL Tacoma has a load of gypsum bound for Baltimore.

ACL was founded by a consortium of traditional shipping lines, but now carry the letter "G" on the funnel recognizing the present owners, the Grimaldi Group.

The other ACL ship, the Atlantic Star, arriving from Liverpool on the westbound leg, held off until the berth was clear, but was already backing in as the Atlantic Sun was clear.

 A ship going the anonymous route - resisting the trend to emblazon the owner's initials on the hull - arrived at Autoport this morning and disgorged a quantity of new automobiles, loaded at the European ports of Bremerhaven March 1-3, Zeebrugge March 4-6 and Goteborg March 9. It is on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean transatlantic route.

A small fraction of the myriad new cars at Autoport inclues hundreds of Audis, probably offloaded yesterday by the Violet Ace.There is also some machinery and other RoRo cargo on the dock.
 

The Grand Pavo dates from 2005 and was built by Shin Kurushima Toyohashi, and at 59,217 gt, 18,376 dwt has a capacity of 6400 cars. The ship's operators are Cido Shipping of Korea and Hong Kong. They seem to be in the business of chartering ships out to others on various term lengths.

Are those the same scaups I saw ship watching at Black Rock Beach yesterday?

Rounding up the "Initial ships" was the after dark arrival of the bulker UBC Santos for Pier 28 to load wood pellets. "UBC"  stands for United Bulk Carriers and I expect to see  "UBC" emblazoned on the ship's hull - but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

.

Where the twain shall meet

 "East is east and west is west..." but the twain can meet in Halifax, when the two container terminals, under common PSA management, arrange for two ships to cross tracks. THE Alliance's EC5 service calls in Halifax both eastbound and westbound, and to ensure that there are no delays, the Southend Gateway terminal can take a ship that would normally call at Fairview Cove when that facility is also handling a ship.

Today, March 7 saw the Hyundai Courage arriving on the westbound EC5 run, from Cai Mep, Vietnam (January 29), Singapore (February 1-2), Colombo (February 6-7), Suez (February 15-16), berthing as usual at Fairview Cove.

As presently configured Fairvew Cove can accommodagte only one ship of this size at a time, but can devote its three cranes the ship.  The 95,681 gt, 99,052 dwt Hyundai Courage, built in 2008 by Hyundai HI, Ulsan has a capacity of 8,562 TEU.

When THE Alliance was formed by Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Yang Ming, Hyundai Merchant Marine was in poor finanacial shape, and was only allowed provisional membership until it was on sound footing. The South Korean government stepped in to stabilize the company, now known as HMM Co Ltd. It is now a full member of the group and is looking to privatise. The company operates about 26 ships with a dozen on order.

The westbound EC5 ship is MOL Charisma which also arrived this morning, but tied up at Pier 41, where it is difficult to see from the shore.

 The ship is a 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt vessel with a capacity of 9060 TEU, including 630 reefers. Due to its size, it is just about as large a ship as can be accommodated at Fairview Cove, and depending on its water draft, it might not have clearance under the harbour bridges. On a previous visit in August 2022, it also docked at PSA Halifax Gateway.

MOL Charisma arriving August 30, 2022.

As stated the ship is on the eastbound leg of the EC5 run, from New York (February 17-19), Savannah (February 21-23), Jacksonville (February 24-25), Norfolk March 4-5). Halifax is its last North American stop before heading to Asia via Suez.

PSA Halifax Gateway (Southend terminal) was also handling the 1145 TEU Tropic Hope at Pier 42, using the terminal's smaller cranes.

.

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:

.