HMCS Toronto in the Basin

 Reference has been made in the past to the Jonquière Bank anchorage in Bedford Basin, an area used by naval vessels for acoustical and other testing. See: Jonquière Bank

HMCS Toronto is the current occupant of the anchorage, using a spread of four or possibly five permanent mooring buoys to secure the ship in position.

In compliance with current government policy the ship was flying its flags at half staff to commemorate the hundreds of children whose remains have been detected in unmarked graves at former residential school sites.

HMCS Toronto FFH 333 was the fourth ship in the Halifax patrol frigate program. It was launched December 18, 1990 and commissioned July 29, 1983.

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MSC Sandra - full speed ahead

MSC Sandra made a day long call in Halifax today, August 19, to lighter off some cargo en route to Montreal.  Built in 2000 by Hanjin Heavy Industry + Construction Co Ltd, it is a 43,575 gt, 61,468 dwt ship with a container capacity of 4340 TEU, including 150 reefers.

Sailing this evening the ship still had a deck load of at most five high, but generally four high. This is still more than what I have seen in the past, such as my photo of almost exactly three years ago on the St.Lawrence when it was only loaded to three tiers high - and no containers on the after deck.

The ship is quite an impressive sight (and sound) at 18 knots or more. 

Halifax remains unaffected directly by port delays in the US, with such ports as New York/New Jersey and Savannah with  nine to seventeen ships (respectively) anchored offshore waiting several days for berths. There have been no diversions to Halifax, as a lot of the delays are in export cargo, due to truck and labour shortages.

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Sigma T - taking a rest

 One of the busiest boats in Halifax is called the Sigma T, but it is perhaps not well known. Operated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans from the Bedford Institute, it can be seen in Bedford Basin or out in the approaches on most days.

Built along modified fishing boat lines by Samson Enterprises in Arichat, NS, the boat is equipped with a small gantry and other gear to allow the vessel to carry out water sampling. The boats name represents a quantity used in oceanography to describe the density of salt water at a given temperature.

It is not the first boat to used the name. A previous boat in operation until 1999 was called Sigma-T (with a hyphen).

Sigma-T is seen here in January 1975 in winter layup at Purdy's Wharf with the Great Lakes vessel Northcliffe Hall preparing to sail to the Caribbean, the burned out ship Amvourgon on the south side of the pier and alongside the Fisheries Research Vessel Harengus. The Sigma-T was built in 1963 in Cheticamp, NS as Miss Valerie.

The current Sigma T appears to be in refit at BIO since mid-July, but the water sampling and measuring process goes on, I believe with the Connors Diving Services boat Eastcom filling in.

There seemed to be quite a crowd on deck - perhaps some summer students - while the Eastcom worked not far off the Bedford Institute yesterday. Eastcom was built by Millenium Marine Inc in Escuminac, NB in 2010.

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APL Dublin - daylight arrival

 APL Dublin arrived in Halifax again today on the Columbus JAX service. This is the first time that it has arrived or sailed in full daylight, and so I was finally able to get a clear photo. 

APL Dublin passed the ZIM Yokohama, which has been anchored off Halifax since August 6.

It was not so long ago that ships with a capacity in excess of 10,000 TEU were a novelty in Halifax, but they are commonplace now. The only noticeable extra attention paid to them is the provision of a tethered escort tug at the stern. In today's case it was Atlantic Beaver taking up position off the pilot station, to be later joined by Atlantic Fir for docking.

APL Dublin dates from 2012 when Daewoo Shipbuilding +  Marine Engineering built the 128,929 gt, 131,204 dwt ship in Okpo, South Korea. Its capacity is listed as 10,960 TEU, but is nominally 11,000.

As for the mysterious ZIM Yokohama lurking offshore, it is shown on the port's arrival list for August 29. It sailed from Valencia, Spain on July 28 on its regular ZCA service. Its next port is to be New York, August 31. It is a 39,906 gt, 50,532 dwt ship with a capacity of 4250 TEU, built by Dalian New Shipbuilding, China in 2007.  It has been overtaken on its route by several other ZIM ships, including today's ZIM Monaco.

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Sized to Suit - and a moth by any other name

 It was a matter of different strokes for different folks or as the British say - horses for courses - today, August 17 as bulk carriers of vastly different sizes arrived in Halifax.

Johanna C is a multi-purpose "Tween Open Hatch Box" type. It has box shaped holds, with portable tween decks, and hatches the full width of the hold. With a pair of 80 tonne cranes and 12 cubic meter grabs it is suitable for many types of bulk cargoes and all sorts of general and project cargoes. 

Hold cleaning and airing is underway as the ship arrives in Halifax this morning.

Owned by the British company Carisbrooke Shipping, and registered in Cowes, Isle of Wight, it is managed by SMT Shipping of Cyprus. The ship was built in 2009 by Jiangsu Yangzijiang of Jianyin, China, 9530 gt, 12,947 dwt. It arrived from Wilmington, North Carolina  to load wood pellets.

Towards the other end of the size scale the Chinese flag bulker Ri Guan Feng occupied number one anchorage for several hours. Built in 2010 by Jiangnan, Shanghai, for China Ocean Shipping Co (COSCO) is a 40,913 gt, 75,566 dwt ship of 225m over all length. That makes the ship a "Kamsarmax". The port of Kamsar, Guinea can only accommodate ships of a maximum length of 229m. As one of the busiest bauxite exporting ports in the world, many bulkers are built to suit the port.

Some supervisory gulls line the seawall at pier 41-42 as the ship gets underway for sea. 

Pilots face a long climb to embark or disembark while the ship is in ballast.

Indeed the ship loaded bauxite in Kamsar in July, discharged at Alcoa's refinery in San Ciprian (San Cibrao), Spain earlier this month, and sailed directly here in ballast. I imagine the ship was here for Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) clearance, before heading on for Sept-Iles, QC to load iron ore.

The CFIA inspection would be to ensure that the ship was not carrying the larvae of the Lymantria dispar, an invasive species of moth that threatens North American forests. The high mobility of the larvae, which can become air borne, gave the insect the common name of "gypsy moth". That name has now been recognized as an ethnic slur and out of respect for the Romani people (who are mistreated in many central European counties) the common name has been dropped by scientists and the Latin name, or its abbreviation L.dispar has entered general use until a new common name can be found. (CFIA does not appear have got on board yet.)

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Another Bridge for Toronto

Cherubini Metal Works, the Halifax based bridge and steel fabricators, have completed the third of four bridges to be installed in Toronto harbour. Cherubini assembled the bridges at their Eisner's Cove facility in Dartmouth where they can be loaded directly to a barge for waterborne delivery to Toronto.

The latest bridge section has been rolled out on Cherubini's pier in Eisner's Cove.

Today saw the arrival of the tug Beverly M1 from McKeil Marine and the barge Glovertown Spirit which tied up at Cherubini's wharf ready to load. 

The barge Glovertown Spirit arrives with the tug Beverly M 1.

Loading will not take long, but the bridge must also be secured to the barge, so it may be three to four days before they are ready to sail. Shipfax will provide what coverage we can.

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More Cable Ships

 Halifax has frequently hosted cable ships, going back to the early days of the technology. Western Union, the French cable company and others have made Halifax their base. In recent years IT International Telecom has established its marine base here and IT ships are in and out of port regularly. Their IT Intrepid is currently in port as is the offshore supplier Siem Dorado undergoing conversion for cable work. The general cargo ship Enna is still alongside the Siem Dorado possibly transferring cable or other gear.

A crane has lifted off a section of gunwale or transom from Siem Dorado and is landing it on the dock next to IT Intrepid at Pier 9A.

On August 12 another cable ship arrived, but for a completely different company. The Marshall Islands flag Durable is owned by Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, a US corporation, with bases in Baltimore, MD and Honolulu. 

The ship was built by Keppel Hitachi in Singapore in 2002 as the Tyco Durable. When Tyco became over extended and failed, the ship was sold and renamed in 2010. Transoceanic has a huge contract with the US Navy, signed in 2018 and extending to 2023. Presumably it involves maintaining seabed communication and monitoring systems.

The Cable Wharf, adjacent to the Halifax ferry terminal, still uses the name, but has not been used for cable since the 1960s. It was once the Western Union wharf, and had a large storage building for cable and other equipment, and was the base for two famous cable ships the Cyrus Field and the Lord Kelvin. My 1971 photo of the "ferry plaza" between the Law Courts and  Queen's wharf is barely recognizable today.

Taken from beneath the Law Courts bridge across Water Street, the white building is the Fisherman's Market - most recently Nova Scotia Crystal. The Western Union building - long since demolished - is in the background.

 I have published the following photo before, showing the cable ship Lord Kelvin arriving in Halifax in 1955. 

There are several interpretive plaques on the Cable Wharf outlining the history of subsea cables.

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