All in a (Sun)day's work.

There were four ships occupying berths in the deepwater general cargo piers today. At pier 24 the small cruise ship Victory II (ex Cape Cod Light) arrived yesterday to mark the end of another season of St.Lawrence River and Great Lakes cruising. With sister ship Victory I (ex Cape May Light), Victory Cruise Lines seems to have found the formula for operating a pair of ships that at one time seemed to be unemployable. Due to the cramped location and extra vigilant security I did not attempt a photo.

At pier 28 the container and general cargo ship Augusta Sun was positioned at the grain spouts and the dryers were working at the grain elevator, but the ship did not appear to be loading today. The Nirint ship, on its return from Cuba, completed unloading its nickel cargo at pier 31 and moved to pier 28 to fill at least one box shaped hold with "hog fuel" for Rotterdam.

One photo will have to do for the ships at pier 28 (left) and 27 (right) where a gap between truck trailers allowed only a partial view of each.

At pier 27 a newcomer, HC Svea-Kim was also not working, taking a break from unloading its cargo of train rails from Poland for CNR. These regular shipments are often carried on Onego vessels. This one however is operated by Zeaborn Chartering, and still carries "HC Chartering" in large letters on its hull.  Zeaborn took over HC Chartering in 2016 and in 2017 acquired Rickmers Line and later Rickmers Ship Management . In 2018 it acquired ER Schiffahrts (Ernst Russ). Now along with its majority interest in Intermarine and co-operation with Carisbrooke it has widespread management , chartering and liner operations.

Built in 2000, the hull was fabricated by Damen's Galati, Romania yard, and the ship was completed at the home yard Damen Hoogezand in Foxhol. Originally named Katja it was renamed MSC Apapa in 2001 and reverted to Katja in 2002. It took its rather odd current name in 2013. The 6382 gt, 8961 dwt ship is equipped with two cranes of 60 tonnes capacity.

Zeaborn has a very complete spec sheet on the ship, which may make up for the lack of photo:

http://zeaborn.com/fileadmin/documents/datasheets/vessel-data-sheet-hc-9-000.pdf

Across the camber at pier 31 was the unusual sight of a tanker alongside. The BW Raven has been shuttled all around the harbour since it arrived October 17 for Imperial Oil (and subject of previous posts). It was anchored in Bedford Basin for time, due to weather, returned to Imperial Oil to finish unloading then yesterday moved to anchor in the lower harbour to make room for another ship. [see below].

Well and truly unloaded this time, BW Raven waited in number 1 anchorage yesterday until space was available at pier 31.

The ship's appearance at pier 31 may be in order to take on bunkers (it was originally scheduled to go the pier 9 for bunkers, but in the end did not do so.) However engine repairs (which preclude it from remaining at anchor) or hot work could be other explanations.

A gap in the first fence allowed for an unusual "stern on" view of the BW Raven, only partly screened by the second fence. 

Halterm has taken over the pier 29 area (once the site of fish plant - see September 27 post) and
until recently were stacking containers there. Now they seem to be using the space to park truck trailers. Photos of ships in the area are therefore hit and miss.

Although the deepwater piers are rarely used so intensively, one has to wonder what will happen when the camber is filled in for Halterm expansion.

The MidRange tanker Puze arrived at Imperial Oil #3 dock from Antwerp with another load of refined product.   Despite its Marshall Islands registry, the ship is owned by the Latvian Shipping Company JSC and named for a sparsely populated parish or administrative district and village in the Ventspils area.

Built in 2006 by the 3 Maj Brodogradiliste in Rijeka, Croatia, it is a 30,641 gt, 52,679 dwt ship. Comparing with the similar sized BW Raven the ship has a much different and wider navigation bridge structure, projecting forward beyond the accommodation block.

There was also container ship activity today with another of the MOL "P" class ships, MOL Partner, arriving for THE Alliance. Sister ship MOL Paramount arrived October 19 and has exactly the same tonnages of 71,902 gt, 72,968 dwt, capacity of 6350 TEUs, including 500 reefers and also came from Koyo Dockyard in 2005.

MOL Partner passes pier 9C inbound for Fairview Cove.

.

Rant warning: IS THIS CRUISE REALLY NECESSARY

As a personal blog Shipfax reserves to right to embark on a rant now and again. Long time users are accustomed to this and know they can skip right over them without penalty. So every once in a while when it is a slow news day in the port, Shipfax gives over to an opinion piece to acknowledge one of the proverbial elephants in the room.

During the Second World War rationing was put in place for certain kinds of food, and not all luxury food either, but some essentials too. Automobile manufacturing was stopped and gasoline and tires were rationed for personal use. Even then people were encouraged to reduce the use of many commodities and services voluntarily through the use of advertising posters.

One of the best known posters was "Is your trip necessary?" It applied to all forms of travel - by ship, train, bus, car. The use of commodities such as fuel, wear and tear on steel, rubber and other strategic materials was fairly easy to understand in wartime. Public travel resources were also needed to move troops, so space was made by limiting civilian use. There were abuses of course, but generally people understood that resources needed to be reserved for the war effort.

Many would argue that the planet is facing an even more existential threat today with global warming and that all out war must be declared soon if we hope to reduce carbon emissions. I expect the cruise industry will soon be faced with having to answer the question "Is your trip necessary?"

Some facts about the cruise industry are self-reported in the following:
https://www.f-cca.com/downloads/2018-Cruise-Industry-Overview-and-Statistics.pdf

Here are few of the most telling:

• In 2017 there were 25.8 million cruise passengers (up from 4.5% from 2016 and 20.5% in five years). 11.5 million of these were from the United States.
• Demand for cruises continues to outpace supply and utilization exceeds 100%. (In other words all cruises are apparently sold out with standing room only).
• 22,000 new lower berths were added in  2017.
• 50 new cruise ships with 220,000 lower berths were expected to be delivered between 2018 and 2025.

The cruise industry has a $126 billion economic impact providing $41 billion in wages and salaries. There may be as many as 4.5 million people employed as crew. The most popular destinations are in the Caribbean where the passengers spends an average 4.38 hours ashore and average expenditure across all destinations was $103.83.

Due to overcrowding and stress on the infrastructure, some places such as Alaska, Barcelona and Venice are already putting the brakes on cruises, but that likely means the ships will just go somewhere else. Such initiatives as cold ironing (using shore power instead of generators when tied up) will have minuscule effect on the "carbon footprint" of the cruise industry. Conversion to LNG is gaining little traction. Such feel good programs for tourists like recycling and cruise volunteerism are of no net benefit either.

The total energy required to build a cruise ship is enormous. The amount of material going into making the steel, aluminum and countless other materials is intense. Can you imagine the food waste generated by three or four thousand cruisers over a ten day period? Would they waste that much at home?

When the answer to the question "Is this trip necessary" is "No" then how is the world to balance the need to reduce carbon output with totally optional travel. 

Will the cruise industry have to be banned outright? (Please don't suggest carbon offsets, or tax/penalties in lieu of compliance with targets). That question may not have to be answered in what remains of my lifetime - but maybe it will some day.

Is the party over? After a harbour tour, the "Party Boat" Harbour Queen 1 has just disembarked a full load of nearly 200 passengers (capacity is 194, about four crew), who then returned to their bigger boat Riviera (capacity 1250 passengers, 800 crew) at pier 20. None of these trips was really necessary and yet easily 1,000 people had a job thanks in part to this one ship.

.

BW Raven makes a move

The BW Raven finally got to move from anchorage in Bedford Basin this morning. Weather conditions had kept the ship in the Basin since Sunday October 20 when it left Imperial Oil dock #3.
See also: http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/10/basin-for-orders.html

The ship had so little of its cargo left on board at the time, it appeared to be in ballast. There must be a few drops left to unload yet, so it was back to the oil dock today.

The tug Spitfire III escorts BW Raven back to Imperial Oil from Bedford Basin.

BW Tankers (Word-Wide Shipping) appears to be transitioning to a new colour scheme. The funnel marking has been changed from solid  blue with white "BW" to a white band with a stylized globe.

The crude oil tanker BW Columbia, at anchor on the St.Lawrence River, displayed the older BW funnel mark and colour scheme.

Also the blue diagonal blue bands with BW initials painted forward on the hull have been painted over.

The difficult to remain green hull colour will apparently be kept.

.

October 23 - Kootenay Day

Today was a solemn day to remember the nine lives lost and countless others deeply affected by an event that took place fifty years ago.

HMCS Kootenay was in the English Channel en route back to Canada when its gear box exploded. Nine Canadian sailors lost their lives, and many of the 243 or 244 aboard the ship suffered short and long term injuries. Kootenay was ailing in company with HMCS Saguenay and HMCS Bonaventure at the time

A memorial service was held today in Point Pleasant Park where the anchor of HMCS Bonaventure rests as a memorial to naval personnel who died in service in peacetime.

.

Mein Schiff 1 flees

The cruise ship Mein Schiff 1 made the briefest of calls in Halifax today. Scheduled to arrive  at the pilot station at 0730 that would have put the ship alongside pier 22 at 0830, but not fully secured until closer to 0900. The ship did make it alongside, but by 0930 it had at least one tug in attendance and a pilot ordered and was getting away again for sea.

Today's forecast for high winds came true shortly after 0900 when a short burst probably exceeded the predicted maximum of 40 kph by about double. That would certainly have made maintaining the ship's position at pier 22 very difficult if not impossible. The ship is due in New York (Cape Liberty, Bayonne, New Jersey) October 25, so will very likely head there directly.

The ship's fall schedule was disrupted by weather last week when it arrived in Portland a day early and remained over night. As far as I am aware it was able to call in Boston, Bar Harbor, Saint John and Sydney as planned.

The smaller cruise ship Silver Wind is was still due for a 1000hrs arrival at the pilot station, however it canceled too and so there were no cruise ships today.

.

MSC - looking for more superlatives

This morning (October 22)'s return to Halifax of MSC Meravgilia marks the second visit for the record breaking ship. See October 5 for its first visit: http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/10/saturday-round-up.html

Although it is (only) the sixth largest cruise ship in the word, it is the largest to call in Halifax, Boston, Charlottetown and many of its other ports of call.

MSC Meraviglia turns on its own axis off pier 22 before backing in.

MSC Meraviglia has to share sixth place with its new sister ship MSC Bellisima delivered in March. However a Meraviglia plus class has been started with lead ship MSC Grandiosa now under construction. The ships will take over the "second largest" slot, edging out some Royal Caribbean ships.

MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company), the  Italian owned, but Geneva based company is not just doubling its cruise fleet. Its container line is also on a growth curve. The line currently has the world's largest container ship in its fleet, the 23,756 TEU MSC Gulsun, the first ship to stow 24 containers athwartships.

Recent reports indicate  that MSC may well surpass AP Moller-Maersk for the largest container shipping line as it continues to order giant ships. Maersk on the other hand has apparently drawn the line on larger ships and stated that it wishes to keep its fleet capacity at 4.2 million TEU, and is not ordering new ships. MSC is still ordering ships of 23,500+ TEU size. As they are delivered MSC stands to exceed the 4.2 million TEU fleet size within two years.

MSC does not make direct calls in Halifax, but serves Montreal and Saint John, NB, using generally older, more modestly size ships, such as the 4168 TEU MSC Brianna.

.

Star Pride

The small but very luxurious Star Pride while spending the day at pier 23, took the time to have some work done from the charter boat Captains Pride. The unusual stern in berthing of the ship was likely to provide some protection for a diver - however I don't see a diver's flag.

Note the closely spaced vertical bars on the openings around the ship's poop deck (aft weather deck where the mooring winches are located.) A sister ship was attacked by pirates off Somalia, and thus the ship carries several passive defense measures such as this. It also has LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) defense, a non-lethal, but nonetheless unpleasant means of fending off attackers.

The ship made its inaugural call in Halifax  as Star Pride just over a year ago:
http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2018/09/star-pride-inaugural-call.html

The ship will look quite different after next year. In common with the two other ships in the Windstar fleet it is scheduled for a virtually unprecedented refit at Fincantieri, Palermo. The ship will be cut in half and a new 84 feet long section will be inserted amidships. That will add new restaurants, shops, 50 new suites (and proportionate crew space) and many other upgrades. New passenger capacity will be 312, up from 208.

However the most unusual change will be new engines and generators.

It is rare that ships get such a radical makeover. But in view of the new emission regulations the option of adding exhaust gas scrubbers to such a small ship was likely not an option. Conversion of the engines to alternate fuel was also likely impractical.

.