ZIM shifts gears and a "One Of"

 

A ship that has been calling in Halifax for fifteen years arrived again today, November 10, but this time with a different name. The familiar ZIM Luanda, is now sailing as the Jamaica, and for a while at least, will still be serving ZIM's ZCA service from the Mediterranean to the North American Atlantic coast.

 On a windy and rainy day the Jamaica makes its way through the Narrows - with tug escorts - to PSA Fairview Cove.

The ship was built by Samsung Shipbuilding and Heavy Industries in Geoje, South Korea in 2009. It had been ordered by Seaspan Corp but was delivered in June 2009 to Danaos Corp to take up a charter to ZIM under the name ZIM Luanda. It made its first call in Halifax on January 31, 2010 and has been a regular ever since on the ZCA route.

Sailing from Halifax on its first call, January 31, 2010, the ship appeared to be fully loaded. One Maersk and a few Evergreen boxes peeked out from a load of mostly new looking ZIM containers.

It carried the ZIM logo on its hull until fairly recently when it, and other ships connected to Israel, became targets for demonstrations and threats of various sorts, and chose to reduce their profile. 

Earlier this year the Danaos charter may have come to an end. It would be normal to have a ten year charter with a five year extension, and that would explain a renaming in June of this year to Luanda. In September / October it was renamed Jamaica perhaps in recognition of ZIM's hub in the Port of Kingston, which is now the end point of the ZCA's North American calls. Ships return from there directly to Spain and on to the eastern Mediterranean.

ZIM schedules show the ship continuing on the ZCA service for at least one more call in January.

 While tugs turned the ship to back in to PSA Fairview Cove,the bulk carrier Rt. Hon. Paul E. Martin was outbound from Gold Bond Gypsum for sea. 

Since at least 2006 the ZCA has also been carrying Hapag-Lloyd boxes. The agreement has survived Hapag's withdrawal from the THE Alliance as ZCA ships can still be seen to carry Hapag's orange boxes.

A One Of 

Ships of the Spliethoff Group call in Halifax on an irregular basis. The company maintains a Europe / Great Lakes service, seasonally, and sometimes its ships call here in winter. Today's arrival of their Muntgracht was certainly a "One of" as the ship has already made a Great Lakes call.

 The ship tied up at the east end of the PSA Fairview Cove terminal and appears to have used one of its own cranes to handle cargo.

Built in 2012 by Zhejiang Ouhua in Zhoushan,it is a 9524 gt, 11,744 dwt general cargo ship.With a Finnish Ice Class I it is also rated for heavy loads and heavy lifts. It has three cranes listed at 80, 65 and 50 tonnes SWL and can combine them for a 160 tonne lift. It can also carry up to 696 TEU containers.

It has certainly made the rounds in recent months. Sailing from Sauda, Norway September 9 it entered the St.Lawrence Seaway September 22 (after an inspection in Montreal). It called in Hamilton September 24 to 28, then went all the way to Burns Harbor, Indiana for October 1 to 4. It headed for sea again with a brief stop in Detroit October 6. After exiting the Seaway October 9 it was unreported for nearly a month, then appeared in Bay Bulls, NL November 2-3.  It may well have been standing by awaiting orders, or possibly calling at a remote port that did not register on AIS. 

At time of writing there was no indication of the ship's next port of call, but this will be updated when more info arrives. 

Update: the ship did not sail until November 11 - see that day's post. 

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Odds and Ends

 Today, June 15, was one of those days when Halifax Harbour was the scene of a great variety of shipping activity. There seemed to something happening in almost every sector.

A visitor to number one anchorage represented the bulk carrier category. Danae arrived for clearance from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency before proceeding on to La Baie, QC. The ship is carrying bauxite, loaded at the west African port of Kamsar, Guinea, the world's leading bauxite exporter. Due to limits on the size of ships than can load there a whole class of bulk carriers are named "Kamsarmax". With a maximum length of 229m, ships of the class are also sized to navigate the Panama Canal, so are limited to 80,000 to 85,000 tonnes deadweight.

 Built in 2012 by Penglai Zhonghai Jinglu, in Penglai, China Danae is a gearless bulker of 44,060 gt, 80,989 dwt. The ship arrived during the late evening June 14 and sailed late morning today. It is destined for Rio Tinto Alcan's unloading facility in Port Alfred. Its cargo will feed the giant aluminum production complex in the Saguenay region.

Intermittent fog during the day did not seem to delay shipping to any degree, but some ships did perhaps sneek in or out more or less invisibly. The Kingston class HMCS Moncton wearing its commemorative disruptive paint scheme, was one of them. The camouflage was applied to the vessel as a tribute to vessels that served during World War II's Battle of the Atlantic.

The fog partly concealed the tanker Acadian at anchor. It is due to move alongside Irving Oil's Woodside terminal this evening.

The fog was thicker in a seaward direction, but as it lifted it also revealed container ship activity at PSA Halifax. The MSC Nuria remained hidden at Pier 42, but the ZIM Luanda could be seen at Pier 42, even if the tops of idle cranes were not.

 

The 40,030 gt, 50,697 dwt ship dating from 2009 has a capacity of 4253 TEU. Samsumg Shipbuilding + Heavy Industry Co Ltd built the ship at its Koje (now khown as Geoje) shipyard. The ship is a long time regular caller on the ZIM Container Atlantic (ZCA) route.

There was only one herring seiner in Halifax today. The Morning Star arrived in mid-morning and sailed at noon time after unloading its catch to tank trucks. (The gull escorts accompanied the boat in from sea).

The difference in size between the Danae and Morning Star presented quite a contrast.

Autoport received an unsual vessel, the Grande Togo one of about 27 Container / RoRo's operated by the Grimaldi Group. (Grimaldi also owns the Atlantic Container Line, which has five more ConRos.) The ships of this increasingly rare type usually operate between Europe and Africa, where they can handle a wide variety of cargo at all kinds of ports. Grimaldi is one of the last operators of ConRos of any substantial number. Its presence on a transatlantic run is certainly an "one of".

Built in 2011 by Uljanik Shipyard in Pula, Croatia, it is a 47,232 gt, 26,650 dwt ship with a capacity of 1318 TEU and 3037 cars. It is equipped with two cranes (probably of 40 tonne SWL capacity).

Of note are the truck cab/chassis units stowed on the open deck. It must be the first time in many years that vehicles have been seen here in the clear like this. There is some evidence of protective panels on the front grillles of some of the cabs, but they must have taken at bit of a saltwater shower en route. The ship is not taking the usual transatlantic route. Although it loaded in Antwerp, Jun 3-6, it also called on Vigo, Spain June 8-9 before embarking on its transatlantic voyage.

Another consignment of wind farm pylons arrived this afternoon on the GPO Sapphire. The ship is a fleet mate of GPO Grace which delivered a similar cargo in May.

GPO Sapphire was built by CSBC Taiwan Corp in Kaohsiung in 2019. Measuring 49,091 gt and 63,581 dwt, it is a semi-submersible specialist heavy load carrier, one of four sister ships in the GPO Heavylift fleet.

The six pylons, including pilings, bases and towers will be assembled and transferred to the installation vessel Orion at the IEL pier in Dartmouth. The Orion is currently installing the first six units in the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts.

 

There is one more type of vessel, not covered in the above "catalog" and that is pleasure craft. While Halifax is home to scores of small craft, from PWCs on up (see yesterday's post), it is also a way point for larger vessels en route to and from the various pleasure ports of the world. Two such "boats" are in port now, and are perhaps worthy of mention.

Epiphany (with the "i" given as "!") is a 132 gt motor sailer built in 2003 in New Zealand. It previously carried the names Nephele and Ipanema. The 34m x 8m aluminum hulled craft can accommodate six guests and five crew (in 3 cabins). It arrived from Newport June 12. Its mast is visible from blocks away.

 On the other side of the pier, the motor yacht Vive la Vie provides something of a contrast. It is a 60 m long miniature ship of 1277 gt, built in 2009. Its more spacious hull can cater to 12 guests in six cabins and has eight double berth cabins for crew. It arrived from Gibraltar June 13.

These two craft are tied up at a new timber pier built on the site of the old Foundation dock, which to my mind was a lot more interesting when it was home to the tugs of Foundation Maritime and later Eastern Canada Towing. It was a little less pedestrian friendly however.

There are nine tugs tied up at the Ectug pier in this 1977 (ca. May 1) photo.

(One tug is hidden behind the cook house / dispatch office with only its mast showing.) 

The tugs are from the left:

1, 2 (hidden) and 5: three of the same class Point Vim, Vigour, and Viking; 

3: Point Valiant; 4:Point Vibert; 6: Point Valour, 7 and 8: Point Gilbert and/or/and Point James 

and 9: either Point Carroll or Point Spencer

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Let it Blow (x 3)

 The weather outside is frightful, but at least it was not snowing in Halifax (unlike northern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, where there was heavy snow) today December 13. But it was the wind that probably accounted for today's relative dearth of shipping activity in the harbour.

The coastal tanker Algocanada was straining at its anchor in #4 anchorage in the lower harbour.

Although there were few whitecaps to tell of high wind, the bar taught anchor chain was the giveaway as Algocanada bides its time at anchor.

 The ship arrived Thursday December 8 from Sarnia but anchored awaiting its turn at Imperial Oil. (It had to wait for the Gaia Desgagnés which arrived from Lévis, also on December 8 and sailed on December 10, and the Algoscotia which arrived December 10 from CornerBrook.

 Gaia Desgagnés, a rare visitor, sailed from Halifax with cargo for CornerBrook.

On Monday (December 12) when the Algoscotia sailed, it was Algocanada's turn at Imperial Oil, but  later the same evening it moved out to anchor again.  With the winds predicted to die down the ship is expected to move back to Imperial Oil tonight.

The only container ship in Halifax was the ZIM Luanda but high winds may have have slowed or stalled crane operations.

 Built in 2009 by Samsung Shipbuilding and Heavy Industry in Koje, it is a 40,030 gt, 50,697 dwt ship with a capacity of 4253 TEU. It has been a regular caller for many years on ZIM's Zim Container Atlantic (ZCA) service. It is not schduled to sail until tomorrow morning.

The only real indication of the high winds and rough conditions was a bit of splash at the bow of CCGS Jean Goodwill as it returned to its BIO base from SAR patrol.

 The ship was the only Canadian Coast Guard all weather ship available in Halifax for the past few weeks as several ships are in refit and others have been relocated to cover for them.

Noteworthy however is CCGS Kopit Hopson 1752 [See December 2 post] which has moved from Irving Shipbuilding's Woodside facility to the BIO base. Whether the ship is fully commissioned yet or not is unknown, but it must be close if it has been handed over to the CCG.

After such multi-year VLE refits, the ship must be stored, equipment must be tuned and crew must be oriented - a process that could take weeks.

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Quitting time

It looked like quitting time at the factory late this afternoon in Halifax harbour as three ships all sailed within a few minutes of each other and all from different locations.

First off was Gerhard Schulte. The German owned ship is on temporary assignment with ACL filling in for the Atlantic Sail. That ship, one of the Chinese built G4 ConRos has been in Hamburg, Germany for repairs since April 10.

After unloading and loading at Cerescorp's Fairview Cove terminal yesterday, Gerhard Schulte made an unusual move early this morning to pier 27, probably to take fuel. Now that Halifax no longer has a bunker barge service, pier 27 has become the designated refueling stop where tank trucks deliver fuel directly to the ship.

Next to leave was Zim Luanda from Halterm.

A regular on Zim's weekly service, its next port is to be New York.

The last of the rush hour departures was the Canadian flag Nolhan Ava resuming its spot on the TMSI service to St-Pierre et Miquelon. The ship has come off a refit in Freeport, Bahamas and alongside in Halifax starting in mid-April.

While Nolhan Ava was out of service its place was taken by Lomur which was in Halifax yesterday to discharge cargo from St-Pierre. It then sailed for Portland, ME,  back again under the Eimskip banner. It came off that company's Green Line service in April to work for TMSI.

Lomur does not appear again on Eimskip's published schedule so this may be a one off trip. Eimskip operates a feeder service between Halifax and Portland, ME for CMA CGM on its Green Line ships.

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Zim Luanda - arrives early, greeted by flare

Container ship Zim Luanda arrived in port early today. Due to high winds the ship could not anchor outside the harbour to wait her scheduled arrival time at Halterm, so instead came into port and dropped the hook at anchorage number 1.

Built in 2009 by Samsung SB+HI at their Koje, South Korea yard, the ship was delivered June 26,2009 to owners Seaspan Ship Management. It was immediately sold to Danaos Shipping of Greece, complete with its long term charter to Zim.  Seaspan has arranged for finance/construction/charter/management arrangements with many companies, and now manages about 70 ships for major shipping lines.

This ship measures 40,030 gross tons and 50,800 deadweight and has a capacity of 4253 TEUs.

A pyrotechnic flare, in the air at about midships, was part of a survival training exercise being conducted  near Ives Knoll, not related to the Zim Luanda. 

Connors Diving's boat Eastcom stood by during the exercise, which may have included lifeboats, rafts, survival suits and people in the water (intentionally).

Earlier this week Eastcom returns to base following another assignment. In the right background is a survival training installation at Woodside.