Ferry News, good and bad - Part 1: NS / PEI

Finally there was a glimmer of good news for Canada's beleaguered ferry systems in yesterday's federal budget. Supposing you had been able to hear the finance minster's presentation in the House of Commons, (it was drowned out by opposition memebers pounding their desks) you would have heard that a new ferry has been promised for the Northumberland Strait. The ferry service between Caribou, NS and Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island has been struggling in recent years with aging and inefficient craft. Both the existing ferries, Confederation and Holiday Island are owned by the federal government's Minister of Transport and operated by Northumberland Ferries Ltd, a Prince Edward Island based company.

Holiday Island built in 1971 for the Cape Tormentine, NB / Borden PE service, it was transferred to the second crossing after the opening of the Confederation Bridge in 1997, and it is the one to be replaced. 

Holiday Island is a double deck, doublend ship of fairly simple design. 

Now the not so great news. Holiday Island is to be replaced, the budget promises, with a newly built ship, but no timeline and no dollar figure was given. This means, in my mind, that if a new government comes in after the Autumn 2019 election, the process could be re-started or canceled altogether.

In view of the string of bad luck with foreign built ferries recently (see Newfoundland and Quebec in Part 2 and 3 of these posts) it is very likely that the boat will be built in Canada. The Davie shipyard in Quebec will no doubt be first in line to want that contract. Davie has now completed two new dual fuel diesel / LNG ferries that are not too different from what would be needed on the Caribou / Wood Islands run, so Davie can make a good case for itself.

As part of the budget, the current Federal subsidy to the service has been renewed until 2022. That might be long enough to get the new ferry into the construction stage, but also leaves room to open up competition for a ferry operator.

It is well known that the Woodward Group of Newfoundland would like to take on the service, and in fact it is believed they have access to a ferry that could be in service as early as this summer if wanted. Woodward has two ferries of similar design to Confederation, but ice class, in its fleet now. The first, Qajak W., has been operating between St.Barbe and Blanc Sablon this winter. Although hampered by unusually heavy ice this year, it seems to be doing well. As a used vessel acquired from Europe, it has had any bugs ironed out long ago. The advantage of a Woodward contract is that with three similar ferries in the fleet, they could rotate them out for maintenance. Particularly with the Northumberland service closed for the winter, the boat assigned to that run could operate elsewhere from December to May where its ice class rating would be of use.

However in order to extract the maximum political benefit out of the deal, the government is unlikely to go with the Woodward option.

Here's the scenario:
1. Promise the ferry now and get re-elected in October. Maybe deliver it later.
2. Build a new ferry in Canada, maybe in Quebec = votes in Quebec.
3. Renew contract with PEI company = votes in PEI.

Please remain in your seats. After a brief intermission, Part 2 of this episode will begin.

.

Spring Break in the Basin

With the first day of spring just over the horizon, it looked like spring in Bedford Basin this morning as ships came and went from Cerescorp.

YM Enlightenment arrived from New York, eastbound on the AL1 service, operated by THE Alliance and ACL.

Some very thin shore ice has broken away and is working its way out to the harbour.

The 4662 TEU ship, built in 2015 by China Shipbuilding Corp in Kaohsiung, comes in at 47,952 gt, 56,500 dwt.

YM Enlightenment had to hold off for nearly an hour as the incumbent at Cerescorp finished loading.
Brighton is on the eastbound leg for THE Alliance's EC5 service - next port Jebel Ali.

The 71,786 gt, 72,982 dwt ship, with a capacity of 6350 TEU, built in 2007 by Koyo Dockyard Co, Mihari, joined the 11 ship rotation in January. It has been chartered from Zodiac Maritime Ltd, having previously served other lines as APL London from 2007 to 2013 and Zim London from 2013 to 2015. While not a direct replacement for the fire damaged Yantian Express it the rotation, it does fill out the roster so that a weekly service is maintained. It is also assuned that it has been chartered by HAPAG-Lloyd.

 .

Lomur revisited

When the Eimskip ship Lomur arrived this morning, I could not see any particular sign that the ship had encountered heavy weather nor had damage to containers. However that observation was made in very dim light and from a distance. [see previous post]

Today's scheduled stop (westbound) was to be a brief one, but when its departure was advanced from 10:30 to 12:00 and then it did not sail for more than an hour, it was apparent that there was more work involved than planned.

Damaged containers in the first three bays are more than evident even from a distance. Damage to the ship is harder to detect. The railing around the bow davit and the access ladder to the forward crane are certainly mangled. This could have been done by seas smashing down on the ship, or by loose or wayward containers.

As it pulled clear of Halterm there certainly was evidence of the "deformation" of containers mentioned in the casualty report.  Since the ship is westbound from Iceland to Halifax and on to Portland, I presume those damaged boxes will be dealt with in Portland. The Halifax stop normally involves unloading a few Eimskip containers, and perhaps picking up some empties.

There did not seem to be any damage to containers aft of midships, but because some of those are CMA CGM, I expect there were loaded here today.

Eimskip also operates a dedicated shuttle service from Halifax to and from New England for CMA CGM, so those boxes would have been loaded in Halifax. Export boxes from Halifax for Iceland would normally be picked up on the eastbound leg.

.

Coast Guard in - Coast Guard out

A sunrise arrival today was CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent a fairly rare sight in Halifax in recent years after its political transfer to Newfoundland.
 

Whether the ship was actually escorting the Icleandic Lomur (see yesterday's post) can't be confirmed, but that ship arrived a very few minutes later. There was no damage visible to Lomur from a great distance, and the containers I could see appeared intact.

The Louis S. St-Laurent had been on ice operations in the Cabot Strait, and tied up at Irving Oil in Woodside. Ice has retreated dramatically from the Nova Scotia coast in the past week thanks to warm temperatures and favourable winds. While there is still considerable ice in the central Gulf, even that is diminishing rapidly.

After the Louis had been tied up for a while it was time for the departure of USCG Seneca WMEC 906 that had been in port since Friday at HMC Dockyard. There are often US vessels in port to commemorate important historical dates, but I can think of none this time. Maybe St.Patrick's day? If so at least some of the 100 strong complement were able to stand on deck for the departure.

Seneca is based in Boston, but gave Portland, ME as its last port of call before arriving here.
A member of the Famous class of Medium Endurance cutters, it was laid down in 1982 and launched in 1984 by the Robert Derektor Shipyard Inc in Middletown RI. It was in service in 1986, but not formally commissioned until 1987.  Despite their age, the Famous cutters are expected to remain in service until the 2030s, thanks in part to the transfer of weapons and equipment from decommissioned Oliver Hzard Perry class frigates.

.

Seeing the Light of Day - maybe

An early morning visit to Autoport was intended to get a view of Horizon Highway from the sunny side. Unfortunately my arrival coincided with sunrise and a blaring golden light washed out the colour of the ship from my usual vantage point. Moving to other locations didn't quite seem to capture the essence of the ship as it was partly blocked by construction equipment, Tim Horton's signs, railway tracks or McAsphalt tank trucks. But to paraphrase the adage of one of my early mentors - any picture is better than no picture / and you can always take a better picture.

Herewith the results.

Exhibit A

The land of the rising sun apparently arrived in Halifax along with the ship- even though it is registered in Panama.

Exhibit B

The "new" K-Line RoRo  / Car Carrier livery was the main reason for the visit, so I did manage to capture it despite the busy foreground.

Built in 2016 by Shin Kurushima, Onishi, the ship is a 7,539 CEU carrier of 75,036 gt, 20,586 dwt.

Another vessel that may or may not see the light of day in its entirety is the Defence Research and Development Canada-Atlantic (DRDC) barge that is normally anchored in Bedford Basin off Birch Cove.
It was recently moved to HMC Dockyard for refit, possibly with the intention of lifting it out of the water on the synchrolift.

Tucked at HMC Dockyard, with the tank cleaning barge YRG-62, the DRDC barge awaits a refit.

However I hear that the synchrolift is out of commission due to a burnt out lift motor, temporarily trapping HMCS Windsor in the sub barn and preventing Sackville from going in for finishing touches on its major refit.

The DRDC barge, believed to be YLP 451 and built at Halifax Shipyard in 1959, gets a refit every five years or so. It was last reported here in the spring of 2014 on the synchrolift. See: Shipfax 2014-05-22

Meanwhile its place in Bedford Basin is occupied by the Dockyard camel YC 600 which is illuminated at night and provides an alternate perch for the resident gull population during the refit.

.

Lomur takes another hit.

The Gibraltar flag Lomur sailing for the Icelandic shipping company Eimskip was in Halifax on February 2 for the first time, with heavy ice built up forward. As a small ship, with very little freeboard, this was not surprising in view of the winter conditions at the time and the vessel's route between Iceland, Argentia, NL, Halifax and Portland.
I posted the following photo of its arrival, see the entire post here: 2019/02/lomur-for-eimskip.html

News has now reached me that the ship encountered more serious problems on March 11 while en route from Iceland in heavy weather. It sustained damage to 18 containers, including "deformations" and  there was damage to the ship itself including winches, deck machinery and deck fittings. Some repairs were apparently possible while the ship was underway, but one can only imagine the conditions.  There were no reports of containers lost overboard.

The ship arrived in Argentia March 14 and sailerd for Halifax today. It is due March 18. It is not clear how many of the damaged containers might have been discharged in Argentia or how much damage remains to be repaired.

This post will be updated if more becomes known.

As I observed in the previous post, this is a very small ship for winter North Atlantic.

.

Sampogracht and scrubbing

The Spliethoff multi-purpose carrier Sampogracht made a brief call at Fairveiw Cove this morning and sailed before noon, heading for Rotterdam.

One of the S2L class ships in the fleet, the 18,321 gt, 23,688 dwt vessel is equipped with three 120 tonne cranes. It is able to protect forest products while loading, using its three side doors, which swing up as awnings. It can carry containers too, which appears to be the case on this trip, with some spent uranium cask containers (likely empty) on the deck forward.

On leaving the Cerescorp terminal in Fairview Cove the ship made a wide turn out into Bedford Basin awaiting the inbound YM Modesty to clear the Narrows. 

Once the container ship had turned around the Seaview Point buoy Sampogracht made its way outbound.

Spliethoff converted all their "S" class ships with Alfa Laval Pure SOx exhaust gas scrubbers. It was quite a task to fit them to an existing ship, and it was necessary to build a new enclosure adjacent to the superstructure on the starboard side. A large takeoff pipe from the funnel leads to the scrubber casing and filtered exhaust emanates from the new stack on top. .

Ship owners are not usually too concerned about aesthetics, but Spliethoff decided to reduce the visual impact of the added casing by painting on false windows. The black fakes are the same size as the real windows and only on close inspection are they revealed to be imposters.

Other scrubber fittings, such as on the Irving Oil tankers and the Nolhan Ava were more difficult to conceal.
 

  The cement carrier NACC Quebec, which arrived earllier this week also has a scrubber, but it appear whether it is concealed in its odd looking funnel is uncertain..

 Some ships even have the scrubbers exposed, such as CSL's Spruceglen.

Scrubbers installed when ships are built are almost impossible to detect, except by their vapour plume.

In very cold or very humid conditions, the water vapour dissipates very slowly and remains visible after the ship has passed. The Algoma managed G3 Marquis shown above leaves a trail at least as long as the ship if not longer.

Scrubbers essentially wash the exhaust gas with water. Depending on the salinity of the water it will neutralize Sulphur Dioxide or Nitrous Oxide (SOx and NOx). In fresh water or areas of low salt content, caustic soda is added to the wash water.
With some scrubbers, called open loop, the wash water is released back into environment. This process has been banned in some areas, notably China, over concerns that dilution is not sufficient treatment.
Closed loop scrubbers collect the waste with ceramic or other filters and store it for disposal in port. So far no re-use has been determined for this waste.

.