Now Showing

Although I am in my sixth decade of marine photography, my current show at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia is entitled Four Decades of Marine Photography. That is because I have selected images only from the 1960s to 1990s.


They are all in black and white and were taken in Quebec and Nova Scotia (with one from New Brunswick) and show a wide range of shipping related subjects from my large archive.


On Saturday, July 8, there will be an opening reception from 1300 to 1600 in the Chase Gallery at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, 6016 University Avenue, corner of Robie Street.


The exhibit runs until July 26. Gallery hours are Monday to Saturday 0830 -1630, Wednesdays until 2100 hrs.


All photos are professionally printed on archival water colour paper, with acid free matte and framed behind glass and are for sale. Prices range from $125 to $150.

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Dartmouth III heading west

The oldest of the Halifax harbour ferries has been sold and will be heading to Toronto to work for the Toronto Island Transit Service Inc. Dartmouth III dates from 1979 when it was built by Ferguson Industries in Pictou, NS (Hull No. 205). It arrived in Halifax on May 3, 1979 but did not enter service until September 10, 1979. That was the day that it and its sister Halifax III (Ferguson Hull No. 206)
replaced the 1956 era wooden ferries Dartmouth II and Halifax II. Your faithful reporter made a one way cruise on each during his noon time lunch hour on that day.

At that time the ferry service was operated by the then City of Dartmouth, and so it was that Dartmouth III was christened by Genevieve Brownlow the wife of Dartmouth mayor Daniel Brownlow on Sunday, September 9. There was an open house and trial cruise in the harbour.

The two boats were state of the art vessels, propelled by Voith-Schneider cycloidal drives and were especially configured for the new ferry terminals in Halifax and Dartmouth, with offset wheelhouse and side loading ramps.

Cycloidal drives are rarely visible, and difficult to explain. The vertical vanes rotate on a turnatable. The captain adjusts the pitch of the vanes to go forward or in reverse or in fact any direction, including sideways.

 
The Cities of Halifax and Dartmouth and Halifax County formed Metro Transit in 1981 to operate the area's bus services, but it was not until 1994 that the commission took over the ferry service. In 1996 when the three municipalities joined to form the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), the new body operated the transit services directly but it was still called Metro Transit. In 2014 it was rebranded Halifax Transit and the HRM was re-branded Halifax (minus the cross bars on the As).
[Despite all this the areas of Halifax and Dartmouth are still used in common parlance and in postal addresses, and in this blog.]

 Dartmouth III dressed all over and with a large load of passengers during Tall Ships 2009.

Dartmouth III was removed from service in 2016 after new ferries came into service and it laid up over the last winter at the former Coast Guard base in Dartmouth.  On June 5 it was towed out to Sambro by Halifax Tugger and Capt. Jim and hauled out on the slip at the Canadian Maritime Engineering shipyard.

On the slip at Sambro Head

It will be interesting to see how the Dartmouth III will get to Toronto. It might be possible to sail on its own hull, but at 8 knots and no sleeping accommodation it would make a long trip of many short hops.
It seems an unlikely candidate for a tow since it relies on its propulsion system to stay on track. Perhaps on a barge?

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Polar Prince, other royalty and...

To mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, a 150 day Coast to Coast to Coast expedition, called Canada C3, will bring together scientists, educators, students and others to see and explore Canada as few others can, aboard the icebreaker Polar Prince. 

 Polar Prince disembarks some RHIBS as it approaches the lower harbour.

Organized in 15 legs, the ship will sail from Toronto to Victoria via the Northwest Passage.
The expedition has its own web site at: https://canadac3.ca/en/homepage/

The ship Polar Prince is no stranger to Halifax and Nova Scotia since it has spent several winters in Lunenburg. However it does go back further than that.
Built in 1959 by Davie Shipbuilding Ltd, Lauzon, QC the ship was named Sir Humphrey Gilbert and was stationed in Newfoundland.

In 1983 it arrived in Halifax where it underwent a major reconstruction, that included a new icebreaking bow. The old bow was broken up in Dartmouth.

Its derrick system was also reconfigured. Changing from the traditional derrick mounted on the house, with control room under the bridge, it received a new goal post type structure mounted at the break of the forecastle with the derrick house on the forepeak. It retained its old mast, less the boom. The refit was completed in early 1985 and it returned to Newfoundland. It was back in Halifax again in 1996 for a refit.

It was decommissioned then in November 2001renamed 2001-06 . It was sold to Gilbert Enterprises of Clarenville, NL and renamed Gilbert I, then in July 2002 to Norcon Marine Services in Glovertown, NL and renamed Polar Prince. Since then it has been owned by Deep Ocean Research Ltd of St.John's and current owner GX Technology Canada Ltd of Calgary. During that time it has been Canada's only commercial icebreaker (there are several icebreaker class commercial cargo ships, and a number of government icebreakers) and was last in Halifax in 2010.

It received another major modernization in 2009. For the Canada C3 expedition, it has received a new paint scheme that includes the Canadian flag.

There was other royalty in port too, as Queen Mary 2 made another visit.

Trying to get a view of the ship from a different angle this time, I managed a "going away" shot from Herring Cove.

 Yang Ming Line's YM Evolution is a regular now on the AL1 service of THE Alliance. HAPAG-Lloyd, a partner in the service seems to have no ships in this particular loop - it is all Yang Ming.

YM Evolution's bow dips slightly as she works into the swell off Herring Cove outbound for sea.

One of five sister ships, it was built by the China Shipbuilding Corp in Kaoshiung in 2014 and carries 4662 TEU on 47,952 grt, 57,320 dwt. It is registered in Taiwan.

This morning's arrival for Tropical Shipping was AHS Hamburg, one of two ships to service the line from Halifax. By late morning however its name disappeared from the bow ...

... and this afternoon was replaced by the name Bomar Rebecca.

At the same time the ship's registry was changed from Antigua and Barbuda to Liberia. When it sailed it still had the Carsten Rehder funnel marking, but this seems likely to change at its next port of call, which is to be West Palm Beach. The new name suggests that the ship has been acquired by Boreal Maritime of London, and will  be under the management of Bernhard Schulte. It is too early to tell if the ship will remain on the Tropical Shipping run.

The ship was built in 2008 by Jingling Shipyard in Nanjing as Pacific Hawk. It was renamed AHS Hamburg in 2012. The 9957 grt, 13,760 dwt ship carries two 45 tonne cranes and has a capacity of 1118 TEU.

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Sunday comings and goings

A visitor from the Great Lakes made a stop over for bunkers before sailing for Foynes, Ireland this afternoon. Fearless is a bulk carrier built in 2001 by the Naikai shipyard in Setoda, Japan. Its original name was Bright Laker and it made several trips to the Great Lakes under that name, before it was sold and became Fearless in 2013. Its dimensions of 606'-11" x 77'-5" make it a "Seawaymax" ship. It is fitted with four 30 tonne cranes to allow it to handle a variety of cargoes such as steel.

Its tonnages are 18,049 grt, 30,778 dwt, but due to draft restrictions in the St.Lawrence Seaway it cannot load to full deadweight tonnage on the Lakes.

It made its most recent trip to the Great Lakes when it entered the St.Lawrence Seaway June 2. It unloaded cargo in Oshawa, ON and Detroit, MI before arriving in Milwaukee June 17. There it loaded its grain cargo, sailing on June 23, and exiting the Seaway June 28. Unlike some Great Lakes callers it did not top up its cargo on the St.Lawrence, but continued direct to Halifax.

We will be saying goodbye to the the tall ship Esmerelda this evening. It moved out to anchor this morning to give the cruise ship Celebrity Summit lots of room to leave pier 21 (the cruise ship over- nighted in Halifax so that passengers could enjoy Canada Day celebrations).

Back in its previous anchorage, Esmerelda battens down in preparation for heading to sea.

 Also sailing this afternoon, was the newest member of the Canadian tanker fleet. Golden Oak, which arrived June 25, has been chartered by Algoma Tankers for six months, and placed under Canadian flag. That means it has a Canadian crew and can trade between Canadian ports at will. This is a refreshing change from the flurry of coastal licenses the various tanker companies resort to when there is an increased demand. The ship was registered in Halifax on June 15.

In this case Esso refinery shutdowns have meant an increased demand for tankers to deliver fuel to the Greater Toronto Area, and southern On tarioas  a whole.

I neglected to mention in my post of June 25, that the ship was built as Sichem Berlin in 2008 but was very soon renamed  Marida Margeurite. It took its present name in 2014. 

 

Golden Oak outbound for Nanticoke, ON.

Those coastal licenses allow foreign flagged ships (and their crews) to sail in Canadian waters, sometimes for prolonged periods. Most however are for a month, which makes it impractical to sign on a Canadian crew, much to the consternation of the seafarers.


See Tugfax for one such example.

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Canada 150 Day

It was the day for festivities as Canada celebrated the 150th anniversary of confederation. Regrettably the weather was not fully co-operative in many areas, including Halifax, however I did manage a red and white themed photo.

With the lower harbour "tick o' fog"  the Narrows was the only more or less clear spot all day Canada Day.

CCGC Bickerton sailed from the Bedford Institute Coast Guard dock for its home base of East Bickerton (pronounced Beckerton).

The first Arun class high endurance lifeboat to join the CCG, it is not only the oldest of the ten boats, built in 1989, but it is also the only one with an FRG hull. Bickerton was built by Halmatic in Southampton, UK and followed the original design by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The RNLI operated scores of these craft between 1971 and 2008. The rest of the CCG boats were built in Canada in various yards, with aluminum hull.

Shortly after delivery, Bickerton occupies a spot at the small craft end of the old Coast Guard base on Parker Street in Dartmouth. In the background CCGS Provo Wallis and Frank M. Weston and in the foreground a ubiquitous dory.

 
As delivered to the CCG, Bickerton wore the late lamented Search and Rescue colours of red hull, white stripe and yellow superstructure. Those colours were eliminated when the CCG was folded into the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and many vessels were multi-tasked to include SAR duties.

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Largest and Largest

The largest container ship yet to call in Halifax broke the record by  about 700 TEU containers (by capacity - not by the actual number it was carrying). Zim Antwerp monopolized all four cranes at Halterm as it worked its cargo at pier 41. At 114,044 grt, 116,294 dwt and 10,062 TEU capacity it beats out a trio of CMA CGM ships that have called here, of 95,263 grt, 113,800 dwt, 9365 TEU and breaks through the 10,000 TEU mark for the first time in Halifax.

 Zim Antwerp was built by Hyundai Samho in South Korea in 2009, initially for Zim, but in 2011 was sold to NSC Shipping GmbH + Cie KG and chartered back, under the Liberian flag. It is the way of the future, but at the low end of the very large ships calling at east coast North American ports. Ships in the 13,000 TEU range are now visiting US ports, and 20,000 TEU ships are now being delivered from the shipyards for the Asia-Europe run, displacing the 10,000 to 15,000 ships to North America.

Also in port was the 4,180 passenger capacity Anthem of the Seas. It is the largest passenger vessel (by capacity) scheduled to call in Halifax this year. Its gross tonnage is 168,666 gross tons (a measurement of cubic space contained within the ship, 100 cu ft = 1 gross ton). It was built in 2015 by MeyerWerft, Papenburg and last year had some bad luck with weather missing a Halifax port call early in the season.

A less significant ship perhaps, anchored for bunkers today. The oddly named Desert Osprey is a Marshal Islands bulk carrier, built in 2015 by Mitsui, Chiba, and operated by Atlantic Bulk Carriers. The 31,848 grt, 55,837 dwt ship is bound from Vila do Conde, Brazil a bauxite and alumina port, and is bound for a Quebec smelter, likely in La Baie (for Arvida) Baie Comeau.

It may be a lucky ship however, as a rainbow began to form over number 2 hatch.

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The Americans are here

The United States Navy arrived in force today, and there was also a representative of the United Sates merchant marine.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Strike Group, lead by the aircraft carrier of the same name are making a weekend visit, resulting a minor invasion of several thousand sailors to join the many other who will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of Canada's constitution.

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower at anchor, with Dominion Diving's launch Halmar alongside.

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CVN 69 is a Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carrier. At 1092 ft in length it is too large to tie up conveniently at any Halifax piers (its flight deck would overhang or contact the pier side structures at most berths) but concerns about its nuclear power plant preclude berthing anyway. Therefore it has taken up position in number one anchorage. A fleet of support craft have been engaged to ferry liberty persons ashore and deal with the inevitable waste products. 

The Atlantic Oak - working in reverse- shuttles the pontoon Irving Beaver out to number one anchorage, carrying waste containers. (See Tugfax for more on the pontoon).

The other members of the Strike Force, USS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE-5), USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) and USS San Jacinto (CG-56) are all berthed in HMC Dockyard.

Pressed into service as a shuttle, the tour boat Summer Bay stands off the stern of the aircraft carrier and the Liberty unloads cargo at Autoport.

The lone US merchant marine representative is the Liberty a car carrier that arrived at Autoport this morning. Currently the largest car carrier under US flag, irt was built in 2006 by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki as Topeka for Wilhelm Wilhelmsen. It was acquired by Tote Carriers earlier this year and renamed. It will move over to pier 31 tomorrow to unload more cargo.

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