Slip formin' away

Work on the extension to peir 9B is carrying on apace.
Following completion of dredging by Harbour Development, McNally Construction has placed a crushed stone mat base and is busy levelling it using Derrick No.3. The process involves dragging a heavy beam back and forth the across the bottom. The crane suspends the beam at the correct depth and the barge  moves using its own winches and anchors established on shore and on the harbour bottom.  The tug Whitby sets and resets the anchors  as needed to reposition the barge.

1. Derrick No.3 suspends a heavy drag beam to level the new gravel mat 

2. Whitby repositions Derrick No.3. One of the orange anchor buoys can be seen in the background.

Meanwhile in a round-the-clock operation, dozens of workers are placing concrete for the first crib, using the slip-forming process, where the concrete form is raised continuously as the concrete is poured (the CN Tower was built this way too). The crib is being built on the deck of the semi-submersible barge Beaver Neptune. When the pouring is completed and the concrete sufficiently cured, the barge will be partially sunk and the crib will be floated off.

3. Orange suited workers place concrete in the slip-form on Beaver Neptune. The continuous pour goes on twenty-four hours a day. The concrete pumper truck's delivery pipe is seen at the top left of the photo. 

Caporal Kaeble, V.C.

The second in the series of Coast Guard patrol vessels, Caporal Kaeble, V.C. rolled out of the Halifax Shipyard plate shop on Sunday. This is the ship's second appearance outdoors, it was rolled out in April for painting, then returned indoors for more work.

New pilot boat needed - badly [UPDATED June 6]

Pilot boat service in Halifax was delayed today when A.P.A. No.18 broke down and had to be towed back to base by the tug Atlantic Oak. The 1974-built boat is back up to A.P.A.No.1 (built in 1976) which was out of service for maintenance.

1. Atlantic Oak, towing over the bow, brings A.P.A.No.18 back into port after a breakdown this afternoon.
Departure of the visiting Norwegian warship Thor Heyerdahl was delayed for several hours until A.P.ANo.1 could be returned to operation.

2. A.P.A. No.1 - seen here on Sunday June 3, is the duty pilot boat.

The new pilot boat Chebucto Pilot has been delivered to Halifax (it arrived about Sunday June 3) but it has not been commissioned yet (nor is it officially registered.) The new 18 knot boat is the first of two boats built by Abco of Lunenburg for the Atlantic Pilotage Authority. (The second will be delivered in the fall for service in Saint John.)

3. The handsome new Chebucto Pilot has been delivered to Halifax, but is not yet in service.

Update: Chebucto Pilot on harbour trials June 6.

A.P.A. No.1, 18 and 20 (also built in 1974) have served the A.P.A. very well, but are certainly of retirement age.

Naval activity

There was naval activity in Halifax Harbour today - but not from our navy.

 1. Etoile returns to her berth after refueling at HMC Dockyard.

2. Belle Poule gets underway using an inflatable boat as a tug.

The lovely French naval training schooners Belle Poule and Etoile left their berth at the Tall Ships Quay to venture over to HMC Dockyard for fuel- Etoile in the morning and Belle Poule in the afternoon. They used their inflatable boats as tugs to dock and undock. Built in 1932 the vessels are veterans of the Free French navy of World War II.

3. Thor Hyerdahl - a stark contrast.

Meanwhile the Royal Norwegian Navy Ship Thor Hyerdahl made a quick visit to Halifax today. It is presumably on its way to Quebec City for this weekend's naval review. The helicopter frigate is one of a class of five ships assembled in Spain using some hull components built in Norway.The ships are diesel and gas turbine propelled and have a published speed of 26 knots.
The ships' visits conincided with a naval conference in Halifax.

Ojibwa soon to be on the Road

I delayed my departure by a day, but will now be hitting the road for the next three weeks or so. Postings will be spotty.
In my absence:
Expect the arrival of the tug Florence M. (ex Point Vibert, ex Foundation Vibert) with the barge HM Dock 1 to load the submarine Ojibwa for Ontario.

Ojibwa is the last of the RCN's "O" class submarines to leave Halifax and is now lying at jetty Lima in Dartmouth.

Dimitris P.- bunkers and sails

The suezmax tanker Dimitris P. arrived in Halifax this morning from Point Tupper, where it had unloaded a cargo of crude oil. It sailed this evening for Nigeria.

With the potential closing of the Imperial Oil refinery and reduction to a terminal, it should still be possible to store crude oil there, but it is more likely that it will only store refined product for local distribution.
If that is so, will it still provide bunker fuel to ships?

Garnet Leader -feeding the demand

North America's constant demand for automobiles is being fed by ships such as Garmet Leader, arriving this afternoon from Emden, Germany. Operated (under charter) for NYK Line of Japan, the ship, built in 2008 and 57,692 gross tons has a rated capacity of 6,600 autos. Flying the Bahamas flag, it is owned by a company domicilied in the Isle of Man, but associated with Stamco Ship Management of Piraeus, Greece.
NYL Line (Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha) does about $22bn of business each year from a variety of transportation related operations. About a year ago they were operating 827 major ocean vessels including 143 containerships, 344 bulk carriers, 57 woodchip carriers, 118 car carriers, 86 tankers, 29 LNG carriers, three cruise ships, and 47 other ships. They also have fleets of planes, trains and trucks and containers.