Arrivals, auspicious and otherwise + Sunday update

There were three notable arrivals in Halifax today - some making more of an impression than others.

The first was the Canadian owned Zélada Desgagnés, arriving from Freeport, Bahamas, under the Barbados flag. Like several of her sister ships in the Transport Desgagnés fleet, the ship spends a portion of the year trading internationally under foreign flag. Come summer however the ships return to Canadian flag and prepare to service northern Quebec and arctic ports during the July - October resupply season.

Zélada Desgagnés dates from 2009 when it was built by Qingshan Shipyard in Wuhan, China as part of a large order of heavy lift general cargo ships initiated by Beluga Shipping. Launched as Beluga Freedom, it was renamed Zélada Desgagnés on delivery. It was initially registered in Canada in January 2009 but reflagged to Antigua and Barbuda to work for Beluga Shipping  until June 2009 when it arrived in Canada. Despite the failure of Beluga Shipping, the ship has continued to work bareboat charters for much of the year.
The 9611 grt, 12,850 dwt ship is equipped with two 180 tonne cranes. Fleet mates Rosaire A. Desgagnés (ex Beluga Fortification) and Sedna Desgagnés (ex Beluga Festivity) are fitted with two 120 tonne cranes but are essentially sister ships.

The port of registry of Bridgetown (Barbados) is offset to port, but welded letters ''Quebec'' are centered under the ship's name. A few brush strokes will return them to prominence, while Bridgetown will be painted over.

The ship tied up at pier 26 where it is expected to be handed over to a Canadian crew and reflagged in the next few days.

Updated on Sunday:

Despite fog and rain the foreign crew was busy returning the ship to its pre-charter condition. This also included painting QUÉBEC as the port of registry. The ship is still flying the Barbados flag, so the actual handover has not yet taken place.

  
Captains J. Henri-Zélada Desgagnés (b.1880) and his son Joseph Artur Zélada ''Mick'' Desgagnés (b.1903) were, among the founding fathers of the current Desgagnés fleet, which is no longer family owned, but nevertheless pays tribute to its roots by continuing to honor the family name.

A pair of new vessels to Halifax made their arrivals today:

Kawartha Spirit is the latest acquisition of the Ambassatours fleet, as a replacement for Haligonian III. Of essentially the same design, and built by the same builders, Hike Metal Products Ltd of Wheatley, ON, Kawartha Spirit  is in fact eight years older, built in 1964. However it has spent its entire existence in fresh water, first as Miss Muskoka. It has also been upgraded with a more modern wheelhouse and other amenities.

Its last owner, Randy Hinton of Bobcaygeon, ON operated the boat for 26 years until accepting the offer to sell to Ambassatours. He also undertook to deliver the boat down the Trent Severn Waterway, across Lake Ontario to the New York State Canal  system to New York City, then hugging the coast to Halifax.

I am hopeful of a name change, but so far Ambassatours is using the Kawartha Spirit name in its advertising.

The most noted, but perhaps least auspicious arrival today was the debut of the Katie Belle, the product of amateur boat building cousins from Stewiacke, NS. They captured the imagination of many with their five year home build project schooner, which has already this year sailed as far as Charleston, SC where it was rigged and outfitted with sails.

Construction of a 23m schooner is no doubt a singular achievement, but the boat's graceless lines and high freeboard show little reference to Nova Scotia schooner tradition. 

 

Its much anticipated arrival in Halifax nearly resulted in tragedy however, when it cut across the main shipping channel, without warning or communication forcing the auto carrier Zenith Leader to stop engines to avoid a collision. Later tacking about in the harbour caused some concerns among other vessels as well, most notably the harbour ferries.

Failure to maintain VHF listening watch, failure to adhere to navigation lanes, failure to give way and general inattention are among the most common  misdeeds of pleasure sailors in Halifax, giving commercial shipping fits on an almost daily basis in the summer season. I have never heard of any  consequences for violators however. So it seems unlikely that carelessness and ignorance of the rules of the road is likely to change without police or Coast Guard enforcement. Someday an accident will happen.

.

Nolhanava returns - CORRECTED TO 20-20

The RoRo container ship Nolhanava returned to Halifax today [June 8] after a protracted stay in China, where an exhaust gas scrubber was installed.

The ship tied up at pier 9B with what appears to be a full cargo of containers, all with the same Chinese markings. The ship is also sporting an elaborate new colour scheme, which is partly concealed by today's blanket of pea soup fog.

Update:
With a bit more clarity it became obvious that the markings on the containers were not Chinese! I will put it down to a combination of fog, viewing the containers from a sharp angle, and questionable eyesight. The symbol is in fact a ship's wheel, with a container slung from its top peg, and with the letters TMSI below. TMSI likely refers to some form of Transport Maritime St-Pierre International. The local agents for the St-Pierre et Miquelon route are Transport Service International.

The seam between the original funnel and the housing for the extension containing the exhaust gas scrubber system is visible in this photo.

The containers, which are mostly 53 foot, but include some 20 ft boxes and tanks, carry the reporting mark MMJU, which is not listed in any references I can find.

Seen more or less in the light of day, the new scheme is quite startling. (Oddly it nearly matches the colours of McNally Marine, whose crane barge Canadian Argosy is tied up just aft of Nolhanava at pier 9C.)

.

Rain or Shine

Ships come and go, rain or shine, and such was the case this morning with several arrivals blanketed in fog and with rain or drizzle adding to the gloom.
The only ship fit for a photo was Aniara arriving for Autoport.

A bit of judicious photo editing brought out some of the colour despite the elements.


Built in 2008, the ship is rated for 7,600 RT43 cars. RT43 is based on the space needed for a 1966 or1967 Toyota Corona, representing 7.38975m2, without allowance for stowage space. It is also sometimes referred to as a CEU, or Car Equivalent Unit.

.

New Faces and Old

It was a fairly quiet weekend in the Port of Halifax, so there is not much to report on.

A first time caller, the autocarrier MSC Immacolata visited Autoport on Sunday. MSC autocarriers never visited Halifax before this year and now we have seen three.

This was one was built by STX Dalian shipyard in Wafangdian, China in 2012, and measures 59,835 grt. It is owned by Niki Shipping Co Inc of Athens and flies the Panama flag on charter to MSC.

Now a frequent caller to pier 9 with cargo for Wilson Fuels, the tanker Nanny arrived on Thursday from Come-by-Chance and sailed today.

A wisp of fog creeps in with the incoming tide as the tanker gets away from pier 9.

After turning off the pier it heads for Loon Bay, NL, near its home base port of Lewisporte.
Once it gets there it may meet up with the newest meber of the Coastal Shippping Ltd (Woodward Group) fleet. Sten Fjord was registered in St.John's May 24. A tanker of 8,882 grt, 13,670 dwt, it was built in 2004 by Jiangyang Shipyard in Shanghai as Falcon and was renamed in 2009 by Stenerson AS, flying the flag of Gibraltar. Coastal does not usually rename it ships, so it is likely to enter service as Sten Fjord.

The fog came well into the harbour with the colder tidal water, silhouetting the Angus L. Macdonald bridge, where re-decking has reached mid-span.

On Saturday that newest deck section was waiting on the barge Timberland, with more fog at the harbour mouth. The tugs Halifax Tugger (left) and Belle D. (right) and workboat Captain Jim are in attendance. They will move it under the bridge where the old deck section will be lowered and the new section raised in place.

Sunday also saw the arrival and sailing of the Atlantic Concert. Now down to three G3 ships, ACL's second G4 ship, Atlantic Sail will  is due tomorrow on the eastbound leg of its first trip.

.

Oceanex Connaigra and Dinkeldiep - soon to be replaced.

Oceanex Connaigra will go back to its usual St.Lawrence River regular run after Friday's visit [June 3]. The normal Halifax / St.John's Oceanex ship, Oceanex Sanderling is due back from an extended refit in Gibraltar. Its first sailing from St.John's will be June 7, with an arrival in Halifax on June 9 and departure on June 12. It will then go on a twice weekly schedule that Connaigra has been maintaining.
 

Oceanex Connaigra has been making two trips a week to St.John's for most of the time it has been running to Halifax.

Oceanex Connaigra's return to the St.Lawrence will mean that the chartered Stena Carrier will return to Europe. It has been filling in on the St.Lawrence while Connaigra had a refit, and while Connaigra has been filling in for Sanderling.

Stena Carrier trots along at 21 knots on the St.Lawrence.

Meanwhile the small cargo ship Dinkeldiep, which has been maintaining the service to St-Pierre et Miquelon for nearly a year, will soon be replaced by the regular ship on the run, Nolhanava. That ship (the former Shamrock) has been in China for the installation of an exhaust gas scrubber system. It made the long trip, via Papeete, Tahiti, both ways, and is due in Halifax June 8.

 Dinkeldiep may have one trip left on the St-Pierre run.

.

White ships - FS Monge and Pacific Princess

 It was a day for white ships in Halifax.

This morning's departure was FS Monge, the French navy's missile range instrumentation ship, which sailed for St.John's.

 When it was here last, I gave all the details and a little flashback to satellite tracking ships of the past.

Shipfax October 7, 2015


This time I was able to see the ship from a different angle, and to spot the  Alouette III helicopter 242

To add to the flashback from the previous post, here is the Soviet Akademik Sergei Korolev:

See the Wikipedia post on the ship's namesake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev

The arrival was Pacific Princess. It berthed bow north at pier 22, and on departure backed out into the number one anchorage and turned to sea.

 Built as R Three in 1999 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire for Renaissance Cruise Lines, it was acquired by Princess Cruise Lines Ltd in 2002 and renamed Pacific Princess. I measures 30,277 grt, and is a relatively small ships, with a passenger capacity of 688 (lower berths) or 826 (all berths) and a crew of only 373.Princess Cruise Lines however only markets for 680 passengers.
Its next port of call is to be Reykjavik.

New faces for Zim and the G6

A couple of new to us container ships arrived today: Mona Lisa is sailing for Zim and Nansen Strait for Hapag-Lloyd in the G6 Alliance.

Mona Lisa has had a varied history initially with the William Schulte organization in 2006 when it was built by Shangai Chengxi as  Lisa Schulte. The same year it took up a charter as CSAV Panamby until 2011 when it became Lisa Schulte again. It was sold to Cyrus Seas Lines SA of Athens in 2013 and became Mona Lisa under the Liberian flag.

A 35,975 grt, 42,102 dwt ship, it has a capacity of 3534 TEU, including 500 reefers.

Nansen Strait is a much larger ship at 54,809 grt, 67,273 dwt, with a 5047 TEU capacity, including 550 reefers. It was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan in 2005 as P+O Nedlloyd Dover. The same year it became Maersk Durham until 2010, then renamed Cap Stephens, all the time under Claus-Peter Offen ownership.

In 2012 it was renamed Santa Philippa and was acquired in 2014 by Norwegian investors Cleaves Securities AS of Oslo. They placed the ship under Carsten Rehder management. It acquired its present name in 2015.

Another arrival today was Tombarra, which docked intially at pier 31 to unload a number of farm tractors and other non-auto RoRo cargo.

It will move over to Autoport later this evening.

.