Hyundai Sunday

ZIM continues to bring in bigger ships. Today's first time arrival was the Hyundai Mercury, a ship owned by the nebulous Arzel Shipping Inc, and managed by Eastern Pacific Shipping (UK) Ltd. The latter is the London branch of a Singapore company that manages more than one hundred ships of all types. This particular ship, not surprisingly built by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Ulsan in 2009, has a capacity of 8562 TEU and measures 94,511 grt, 9581 dwt.

Hyundai Mercury just clear of Halterm, heads for sea.

The crane shadow neatly frames the pilot door let into the side of the ship.

The ship serves the ZIM Container Service Pacific route, and has worked its way up the astern seaboard from Savannah (Sept 2), Charleston, Norfolk and New York. It has now sailed for Kingston, Jamaica, then on through the Panama Canal to China and Korea before returning to the Canal, Kingston and Savannah by mid-November to start the rotation all over again.

Leaving its last east coast port and heading for the hub port of Kingston, Jamaica, the ship is fairly lightly loaded, since most cargo is likely imports from China and Korea.

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HAPAG-Lloyd ships

Since the formation of THE Alliance earlier this year, there has been a dearth of HAPAG-Lloyd ships in Halifax. Other members of the block have been providing the ships on the various routes that call here.
However with the Chilean company CSAV holding 34% of H-L since 2014, the nature of H-L has changed and several CSAV ships have been folded into non-South American trade routes. The current H-L fleet consists of 219 ships both owned and chartered, with a capacity in excess of 1.6 mn TEU.


Among them is Palena which is owned by something called HL-4160 chartering (possibly associated with Southern Ship Management of Valparaiso, Chile) and since earlier this year the ship has been carrying full HAPAG-Lloyd livery, but still with a traditional CSAV name.

Palena sails this morning as the fog clears.

Palena is a 6541 TEU ship (including 600 reefer plugs) of 73,934 grt, 82,248 dwt, built in 2006 by Hyundai, Ulsan. It is a regular on the EC5 service for THE Alliance (Halifax, Jedel Ali, Singapore, Laem Chebang, Singapore, Colombo, Halifax and various east coast US ports).

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Rotterdam - shortest stop on record

Rotterdam, co-flag ship of Holland America Cruises (with Amsterdam) made one of the shortest port calls on record today. It was less than an hour and a half  from arriving at the pilot station to clearing again, and within those tight confines obviously had no time to tie up securely at pier 31. Shortly after 0800 I saw the ship in the stream off Halterm heading seaward, so it must have made very good time outbound. 

The ship is en route Rotterdam to Boston via St.John's and was originally scheduled to spend the day in Halifax. However its name was removed from the official Cruise Halifax web site at some point.

In view of the high winds and driving rain today, and iffy forecasts for the next few days, perhaps the line decided not to lose time en route to Boston and scrubbed the official visit. Why it called in at all remains a mystery.

File photo from 2002 - definitely not today.

Built in 1997 by Fincantieri Marghera, Italy, the 61,849 grt ship has a capacity of 1404 to 1685 passengers and a crew of 620. It made its first call in Halifax May 13, 2002 and has called fairly regularly since. Its current schedule sees it touring Europe in the summer, and South America in the winter, with a brief fall season on the eastern seaboard.

After arriving in Boston September 9, the ship is due in Halifax again September 11 and 25 and  October 5 and 9.

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Tiger - a Wilhelmsen giant

Wilhelmsen's Tiger made its second call in Halifax today. The first was March 1, 2016, but on that occasion it did not manage to pass my camera.

 Atlantic Oak follows the ship out to Ives Knoll, but did not have a line up. - it was just going to pier 41.

A 7th generation Daewoo car carrier design, it was built in 2011 by Daewoo's Okpo shipyard. At 74,255 grt, 30,140 dwt, it has a capacity of no less than 7,934 cars. Newer ships can carry more than 8,000.

Fitted for carriage of other roll-on, roll-off cargo, it first unloaded at pier 31 yesterday before moving to Autoport overnight. It's stern ramp is rated for 320 tonnes, so it can handle some pretty large rolling loads.

Scotia Pilot is smothered in spray as it paces the ship outbound.

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Drama Queen 1

A small drama unfolded in Halifax harbour Sunday evening when the party /tour boat Harbour Queen 1 lost power during a tour. The boat drifted inside the Halterm pier extension onto the breakwater.

It took the combined efforts of the Halifax Tugger and Atlantic Oak to get the boat off and back to its base at the Cable Wharf.

Divers were to examine the boat for damage today, and before it re-enters service there will be an investigation to determine why it lost power.

 Harbour Queen 1 shortly after entering service in Halifax in April 1987.

Harbour Queen 1 was built in 1985 in Oromocto, NB as Pioneer Princess II and operated tours out of Fredericton for a couple of years before making the voyage to Halifax. An imitation of a Mississippi river boat, it has a pair of dummy funnels and a motorized paddle that does not propel the boat.

 I am not sure anyone is fooled by the paddle, but it is part of the package.

The boat is equipped with an anchor (see port bow above) which was deployed when it went adrift, but likely did little to stop the boat.

Vessel operators Murphy Sailing Tours Ltd will certainly miss the services of this vessel as we are entering the height of the cruise season, with three ships in today (Veendam, Norwegian Gem and Insignia.)

Today Halifax Tugger was back at its more prosaic duties, wrangling the garbage scow from the cruise ships, such as the Insignia.

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Friday evening and Saturday activity

Just as the sun was setting Friday evening the container ship Brotonne Bridge got underway from Fairview Cove for sea. The Cerescorp container terminal had been particularly busy over the past few days, with ships anchored in Bedford Basin waiting to berth.

With Atlantic Oak made up astern as tethered escort, Brotonne Bridge begins to make its turn for the Narrows.

Built in 2010 by Samsung Shipbuilding + Heavy Industry in Koje, the 46,444 grt, 58,200 dwt ship has a capacity of 4526 TEU. It is working on the AL6 service of THE Alliance.

The new cruise ship Mein Schiff 6 made its first call in Halifax this morning. Completed in May of this year and christened June 1, the ship was built by Meyer Turku Shipyard in Turku Finland, for Tui Cruises of Germany.

There was quite a crowd awaiting the arrival of the ship on cool crisp morning in Halifax.

The 98,811 grt ship has a capacity of 2,790 passengers and has a crew of 1,030. The ship follows the design of two previous ships, Mein Schiff 3 and Mein Schiff 5, that have proven very popular with German passengers.

Things moved rather slowly in the harbour thereafter. The expected arrival of the small container ship Berta did not happen at 1100, but closer to 1200.

Scotia Pilot returning from the pilot station, having embarked the pilot on Berta, was making good speed and lots of spray.

This was the first chance I had to see the new pilot pilot boat Scotia Pilot in operation. It certainly appeared to be steady and fast, but generated a lot of spray, most of which was kept off deck thanks to the large bow flare.

Berta is certainly in the small range for a container ship, with a capacity of 645 TEU in a ship of 6264 grt, 7400 dwt. It is owned by Intersee Schiffarts of Germany, and flies the Antigua and Barbuda flag.

With the tug Atlantic Willow tucked in on the starboard quarter to assist, the ship will be turning to back into pier 31.

It is operating for Nirint with bagged nickel sulfides from Cuba. After discharge, using its own 40 tonne cranes, it will be heading for Rotterdam.

Meanwhile out at number one anchorage the CMA CGM Nabucco had completed its Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspection for Asian Gypsy Moth larva, and had weighed anchor, but awaited the passing Berta before moving alongside pier 41.

Using three tugs, Atlantic Oak, Atlantic Fir and Spitfire III the ship gets underway from the nearby anchorage area.

The ship first called in Halifax in May of this year, but I did not get a photo. It is one of four sister ships (the other are CMA CGMs La Traviata, Otello and Tosca) in the CMA CGM fleet. So far CMA CGM Otello is the only other one of the class to appear in Halifax on the Columbus Loop service. Built in 2006 by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, the 91,410 grt, 101,810 dwt ship has a capacity of 8488 TEU (including 700 reefers).

The ship used three tugs, but this did not cause delays elsewhere in the port, as Atlantic Towing Ltd appears to have augmented its Halifax tug fleet to four tugs - something that has been needed for some time.

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Bigger ships for ZIM

With the opening of the enlarged locks in the Panama Canal earlier this year, ZIM has been bringing larger ships in. Theses ship, too large for the old canal, can now go transpacific and continue on through Panama to the North American east coast.

Many of these ships do not belong to ZIM, but are chartered in. Such is the case with today's arrival, Asklipios, a 113, 412 grt, 118,815 dwt vessel with a capacity of 9954 TEU (including 1400 reefers). Although not breaking the through the "magic" (but arbitrary) 10,000 TEU barrier, it is still a big ship for Halifax.

 Asklipios towers over bow tug Atlantic Fir with the high horsepower Spitfire III braking at the stern.

Built in 2011 by Samsung Shipbuilding and Heavy Industry Co in Koje, South Korea, the ship started life as Hanjin Spain under the Panamanian flag. With the collapse of Hanjin as a victim of the shipping recession, and declared bankrupt in February 2017, its ships were put up for sale. Capital Ship Management, owned by Evangelos Marinakis, snapped up five sister ships from the fleet. He acquired the former Hanjins United Kingdom, Netherlands, Korea, China and Spain for a reported $31mn [US] each, and arranged for charters to other lines, allowing them to replace smaller and less efficient (former Panamax) ships.

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