Rig on Board

By noon the Seajacks Kraken had been carefully positioned over the semi-submerged Swan, and the tugs returned to base.

It now remains for the Swan to pump itself up to normal freeboard. Once the Swan's deck is above water, the job of securing the rig to the deck begins. Special brackets are secured to the ship's deck, and rig is locked in place for the transatlantic trip.

Rig on the Move

The jack-up vessel Seajacks Kraken is on the move this morning. Following work off Sable Island on the Deep Panuke gas project, the vessel has returned to Halifax. It will now be loaded aboard the semi-submersible heavy lift ship Swan for a trip to the UK for its next assignment.

Under control of the tugs Atlantic Larch and Atlantic Spruce, with Atlantic Oak following along, the rig is shown moving down the harbour toward the Swan.

The Swan has been floated down ready to take the rig aboard.

Containers on the way

The K-Line container ship VERRAZANO BRIDGE sailed this afternoon for Singapore via the Suez Canal.

Big Tanker

The tanker MINDANAO, 147, 447 tonnes deadweight sailed for West Africa this afternoon after discharging crude oil at Imperial Oil. The ship arrived on Friday.

Although registered in Singapore, the ship is managed by Gemini Tankers of Stamford, CT, USA.

Busy Afternoon

It was a busy late afternoon in the harbour as two cruise ships, two container ships and a tanker all sailed within a few minutes of each other.

The very impressive EURODAM, new last year, was the second cruise ship to sail after the earlier departure of NORWEGIAN MAJESTY. EURODAM is headed for Sydney and NORWEGIAN MAJESTY is going to Portland.

Cruise Ship Season

We are now in the peak of the cruise ship season. There were three ships in on Tuesday and there are four in today. Since most of the ships are only in for the day, there is an interesting parade of arrivals for 8 am. Departures are usually from 4:30 onward.

I caught Crystal Symphony leaving on Tuesday.

Aurora

One of the best looking cruise ships to call in Halifax made a visit today. Aurora, at 76,152 gross tons, and built in 2000 is not one of the newest or biggest or flashiest ships. She was designed and built for P&O, a company than once epitomized British good taste and good sense, and respected naval architectural tradition.

P&O is now part of Carnival PLC, and is one of many brands within the group, such as Holland America, etc., Carnival had the good sense to keep the P&O tradition and not tamper with the ship.

Interestingly she left with a close tug escort (Atlantic Spruce). This is so rare as to be remarkable. I conclude that she has a mechanical problem that effected her steering, and so required an escort in case something went wrong.

The ship has an unfortunate history of breakdowns, often related to her electric propulsion motors. She is able to sail on one motor, but this does concern pilots when the ship is in restricted waters, such as a navigation channel. A recent motor problem was corrected by the ship's engineers over night.

Wikipedia has a potted history of the ship and some of her troubles.

Update: the problem seems to have been with one of her anchors. The ship also required tug escort in her subsequent visit to Quebec City, and another blog reported that she had an anchor problem. Ships are supposed to have two functioning anchors. When they don't, they may be detained until repairs take place, or as in this case, take the precaution of having a tug in attendance in case of emergency. With this ship's history of mechanical breakdowns, the precaution was well advised.