Comings and Goings

There were several arrivals and departures in Halifax today, September 8, with the usual mix of different ship types. Among them were:

The auto carrier Tirranna made a double call - a morning visit to Autoport to unload cars then a noon time move to Pier 31.

Backing in to Pier 31, the ship shows off its Wallenius Wilhelmsen colour scheme, which is quite different form its traditional Wilhelmsen orange which it wore on a previous visit January 14, 2018

It may be my imagination, but some of that orange may be showing through the blue on the lower part of the hull, particularly toward the stern. The ship appears to have discharged one heavy piece of machinery at Pier 31 before sailing in the early afternoon for New York.

The 71,673gt, 29,936 dwt is classed a  LCTC (Large Car and Truck Carrier) with a capacity of 7620 CEU. It also has 320 tonne stern ramp for heavy RoRo cargo.

The bulk carrier Manzanillo arrived for Pier 27-28 to load bulk cargo of wood pellets. Built by SPP Shipbuilding Co in Tongyeong, Korea in 2010 it is a 23,456gt, 34,426 dwt vessel with four cranes. 

The ship arrived from Sorel, QC, where it discharged a cargo of ilmenite (titanium ore) from Madagascar. Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (former QIT Quebec Iron and Titanium) has a mine at Lac Allard, QC and sends the ilmentite by rail to Havre-St-Pierre, then by domestic ships to its smelter in Sorel. However due to seasonal shutdowns, labour and other costs, the company also sources ilmenite from its large mine near Ehoala, Madagascar. The low operating cost and huge deposit of the material there pose a threat to the Canadian mine in the long term.

 Sailing for Sarnia, ON, the Canadian flag tanker Algonorth cleared Imperial Oil dock 3 this morning.

The Tuzla, Turkey built tanker carried the name Gan-Gesture from launch in 2008 until 2009 when it became Ramira. Algoma Tankers acquired and renamed the ship in 2018. As expected its attractive red hull with white stripe has not stood up well to the constant abrasion from locking through the St.Lawrence Seaway system. It will likely be repainted in the more serviceable Algoma dark blue at its next drydocking. Its modest size of 12,164 gt, 16,979 dwt make it ideal for servicing smaller ports with reasonable quantities of cargo.

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Cutlass Fury 2021 - big navy day

 It was a big day for the Royal Canadian Navy as hosts for Operation Cutlass Fury 2021. There were three visiting warships in port and eight Canadian ships participated in a sail past and several aircraft carried out a flypast. Unfortunately there was some glitch in the proceedings and a lengthy delay in the start and a lagging ship at the finish, so I was not in the best position when it finally got going.

First to leave port was USS Thomas Hudner which did not participate in the sail past. I barely caught site of it as it headed outbound, passing the inbound container ship MOL Experience (see more below).

With all the Canadian ships and the French ship Aquitaine in Bedford Basin, HMCS Windsor also headed for the Basin before returning to a position on the ferry track to take the salute.

No points for appearance, but Windsor appears to be fully clothed with its acoustic jacket patched in place.

The Canadian ships eventually headed for sea in line ahead, HMCS Toronto in the lead:

Followed by HMCS Montreal:

and HMCS Halifax:

The line then continued with the three MCDVs, HMCS Kingston:

HMCS Moncton:

and HMCS Summerside:

Certainly a rare scene of six Canadian ships in line:

USS Forrest Sherman sailed directly from HMC Dockyad and did not participate in the sail past.

Astrerix was also in the sail past but was well behind the rest of the Canadian ships:

FS Aquitaine , anchored in Bedford Basin, took its pilot pretty much on time at 1530, but didn't seem to be in the same time zone and didn't sail until about 1900 as far as I can figure:

All this activity didn't effect what little commercial traffic there was in the harbour. The container ship MOL Experience, mentioned above, managed to slide in to Bedford Basin before the naval vessels began to leave.

Built by Hyundai, Ulsan in 2007 it is 54,098 gt, 62,953 dwt ship with a capacity of 4803 TEU including 330 reefers. From 2008 to 2010 it was named APL Experience. It is now on THE Alliance's AL5 service for ONE.

Due to the extensive leaf cover of Shipfax headquarters, I missed the flyover, but did catch an errant helo earlier in the proceedings:

It flew out over Bedford Basin, then circled back inland and I did not see it land on any of the RCN ships.

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MSC Weser - here for a time

 The Mediterranean Shipping Company has four scheduled routes that call at eastern Canadian ports, and I hear there will be a fifth added soon. The four present routes all have Montreal as the terminal port, and only the Canada Express 1 and Canada Express 2 service have scheduled calls in Halifax. Those calls were initially lightering/top off calls because of St.Lawrence River draft restrictions, but now have become "paying" as local cargo is handled as well as train/truck express cargo.

Today's arrival of MSC Weser is not a regular call since MSC's Canada Gulf Bridge service from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico normally calls in Corner Brook and Saint John, NB southbound, but not Halifax. Instead MSC Weser is northbound, after sailing from Altamira (August 19), Progresso (August 24), Freeport (August 29) and Philadelphia (September 2).

After working cargo today the ship will move to a layup pier. Its scheduled arrival in Montreal has been changed from September 13 to October 9 for some reason  (likely a blanked sailing due to the Labour Day holiday weekend), so the ship will be here for a while.

Built in 2001 by Kvaerner Warnow Werft in Warnemunde to a CV2500 standard design, it is a 26,106 gt, 33,691 dwt vessel with a capacity of 2524 TEU including 400 reefers. It also carries three 40 tonne capacity cranes. Although it was launched as Wehr Weser it was delivered as Libra New York and carried that name until 2009 when it became Weher Weser again. It became MSC Weser in 2016.

The fifth MSC service, is believed to be the Indus 2, running from northwest India with calls in Italy and Portugal to the US east coast. Details have not been announced officially, but is expected to bring a significant amount of cargo to Halifax. MSC also operates the Indus Express and Indusa services all from Mundra with various ports of call en route to the USA. The three services are also known as the IPAK US services.

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Primo - game over

 The trawler Primo, a fixture on the Lunenburg waterfront for many years, and which sank at its berth during a storm February 7-8, 2021, has been hauled out on the Lunenburg Foundry and Engineering marine slipway.

With its masts cut down, the vessel was raised, but its fate was not clear. There was hope that the vessel could be sold, even in damaged condition, for future use. Owners Dawson Moreland and Associates Ship Riggers Ltd had orginally hoped to convert the vessel to auxiliary sail for trading in the Pacific, but that fell through several years ago and no buyers could be found. It was while lying idle last winter when it is assumed a hull fitting failed and it settled on the bottom. The vessel was insured according to press reports, but it seems unlikely that repairs would make economic sense if no buyers can be found.

I covered the ship's history in a previous post in February: Primo sinks
 

Built by George T. Davie + Co Ltd of Lauzon, QC as a side trawler during the trawler building boom of the 1960s (say goodbye to the cod), it was later converted to a scallop dragger and was last employed by Clearwater.

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Cutlass Fury 2021 - Part Two

 Another visiting naval vessel arrived this morning in advance of Operation  Cutlass Fury 2021. FS Aquitaine D-650 is no stranger to Halifax, as it made a call here on its first long cruise. Following commissioning in 2012, it arrived in Halifax in April 2013.

A European multi-purpose frigate, its design has been adopted by numerous countries even including a variation for the United States. Naturally Canada has not adopted the Fincantieri product preferring to stand alone (and spend more...?).

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Cutlass Fury 2021 - Part One

     A major military exercise will be held over the next two weeks off Halifax. NATO Allies the US, the UK and France will be working with the RCN beginning September 6 about 50 to 100 miles southeast of Halifax. The plan is to simulate surveillance and boarding of a civilian ship and will include operations with the Canadian submarine HMCS Windsor. Other RCN ships likely to be involved are HMCS Montreal and Toronto, which have been working off Halifax for the past few weeks.

The first of the Allied ships to visit Halifax is USS Forrest Sherman DDG-98 an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer, arriving this morning September 2. Launched in 2006 by Ingalls, Pascagoula, it was commissioned in 2006 and is based in Norfolk, VA.

A second Arleigh Burke, USS Thomas Hudner DDG-116 is due later today.

The operation will start September 6 at 1300 hrs with a flyover of CH-148 Cyclone, CP-140 Aurora and Alpha jets. The Halifax Regional Municipality consented to a 500 foot altitude for the flights.

Weather permitting, I will post new reports as ships arrive or sail, as post tropical storm Ida is on its way past Nova Scotia. The exercise is due to be completed by September 17.

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Horizon Arctic - DP trials

 The offshore support vessel Horizon Arctic moved from its berth at  the COVE [Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship] this morning. It went out to Bedford Basin for Dynamic Positioning trials and was back alongside COVE (the former Canadian Coast Guard base) in Dartmouth by mid-afternoon. The ship arrived in Halifax August 28 from Newfoundland [see previous post].

Views of the ship from forward show its impressively high bow, but it does have a large working deck too. (That bow is not needed in the placid waters of the Narrows of Halifax harbour).

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