No to Maersk (again), Zim says yes

1. Maersk Patras arriving this morning from the St.Lawrence River.

In a ruling delivered on July 18 the Canadian Transportation Agency has again declined Maersk Line Canada's request to transport 200 empty containers from Montreal to Halifax on the Maersk Penang (a foreign flag ship). The Agency's finding was that the transfer falls within the definition of coastal trade and that suitable Canadian ships are available for the work.
Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping Inc offered the two ships Avataq and Umiavut, which were found by the Agency to be suitable.
Maersk has been trying to get the boxes to Halifax by sea on their own ships for some time, with no luck. CN Rail has a program to deliver empties to Halifax by booking their own cargo in the boxes (essentially renting them to defray haulage costs) and other shipping companies offered ships last year, so it would appear that Maersk is stymied.
With decreasing water levels on the St.Lawrence seeing more traffic diverted to Halifax, Mersk is in a tough spot. It does not have space on its ships to take the empties back to Europe and it needs them in Halifax.
On the other hand Zim has opted to add a ship a week to Halifax as mentioned previously. This week's arrival was the Zim Tarragona a Liberian flag vessel built in China in 2010, operated by Rickmers, with a capacity of 4256 TEU. It is also carrying essentially transatlantic traffic inbound, which will certainly boost Halifax's recently declining container numbers.

2. Zim Tarragona arriving on Thursday.

USS Scranton sails

USS Scranton a Los Angeles class attack submarine (pennant number SSN 756) sailed from Shearwater this afternoon after a five day port visit. One of 46 subs of her class, she was laid down at Newport News in 1986, launched in 1989 and commissioned in 1991.
Subs of this class are rated for 33 knots dived, and can carry a variety of weapons. In March 2011 this particular boat launched cruise missiles into Libya as part of the NATO lead operations.
It sails with a crew of 133, almost none of whom were visible on the tiny bridge located atop the sail. A harbour pilot and one of two others were all that were visible from my vantage point.

1. Making the turn around Ives Knoll.

2. Close escort was provided by a patrol boat and a team of divers.

3. Ther tug Glenbrook also accompanied the boat on its outbound course.

Archimedes - 23 hour stop in Halifax

Add Archimdes to the list of superyachts that have visited Halifax. This 1,100 gross ton behemoth was built in 2008 in the Netherlands  to a Feadship design and measures a cool 67.75 meters overall length. Its two Caterpillar engines move it along at a stately 16 knots.
The yacht left Newport, RI on July 20 and made a stopover in Port Jefferson, NY before arriving here yesterday afternoon, just after completion of the Tall Ships Parade of Sail. It left at noon time today giving Gros Morne, NL as its destination.
There are lots of better photos and more detailed descriptions elsewhere on the internet.

1. Archimedes gets away from the dock.

2. Using its twin screws and powerful bow thruster, the ship makes a quick 360 to head out.

Tall Ships highlights

This year's Tall Ships Festival was more related to the festival than the ships in my opinion, simply because there were not a large number of significant (i.e. large, Class A) tall ships.
Nevertheless it was still a splendid sight to see the Parade of Sail today.
Minus Bluenose II (which is not in the water yet) it appears that today's parade was lead by Theodore Too, followed by USCG Eagle.
The following is a quick show of thre major participants in no particular order. 

1. USCG Eagle, always looks splendid.

2. Picton Castle.

3. My favourite, Gazela, still looking like a working ship.

4. Larinda rebuilt after her disastrous sinking in Hurricane Juan. Bounty on the left and Theodore Too on the right -two wildly different products of Nova Scotia shipyards.

5. Unicorn looking very ship shape.

6. The rakish Pride of Baltimore II always a favourite.

7. Roseway also a lovely looking schooner.

8. Bounty perilously close to George's Island, managed to claw off the lee shore.
Most of these vessels have been picture on this site before.

Ville de Quebec leads Dewert and Hurricane

Although Canada and the United States of America can't agree on who actually won the war of 1812-14, they have agreed that it is worth celebrating, so have assembled three naval vessels to  make a two month long trek from Halifax through the Great Lakes. Many important battles of the war took place in that region, and so it is fitting that remembrances take place there. 
The three ships are HMCS Ville de Quebec, a Halifax class frigate that appears to have been re-armed to a certain extent.
USS DeWert an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate commissioned in 1983 (and built at Bath, Maine)
USS Hurricane a Cyclone class coastal patrol vessel, comissioned in 1993.
The three left Halifax this morning, each in turn unfurling a huge national flag as they got underway.

1. Ville de Quebec has backed out into the harbour and started to turn for sea.

2. DeWert is clear and the tugs are casting off.

3. Hurricane brings up the rear. The large Canadian flag showing amidships is actually on the Dartmouth shore, and not on the ship itself.

This was not the only naval activity in Halifax this morning, The French tug Malabar also sailed- see Tugfax for that one.

HAM 318 - giant dredge in for a pit stop

The giant deep sea dredge HAM 318 is making a pit stop in Haifax for fuel and stores. The ship, measuring 33,515 gross tons and 67,471 tonnes deadweight was built in 2001 and flies the Dutch flag. It is owned by Van Oord and operating under a coasting license issued to Van Oord Marine Contractors Canada Ltd, because there is no Canadian flagged vessel able to do its type of work.

Its permit allows it to dredge an excavated drill centre in the Hibernia oil field off Newfoundland between May 14 and September 14. It makes monthly trips into port for fuel and stores (it was in St.John's in mid-June) but is otherwsise self sustaining while it is at work.
Van Oord is one of the largest dredging concerns in the world, and HAM 318 one of the largest trailing suction hopper dredges. Read more at http://www.vanoord.com/ (click on Activities then, Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger for a spec sheet on this ship.)

DS Crown in rescue mission

The VLCC (very large crude carrier) DS Crown that changed names in Halifax last week and sailed for Falmouth, UK on July 7 was the nearest ship to another vessel in distress.
The container ship MSC Flaminia a post-Panamax vessel of 6,732 TEU capacity experienced an explosion in one of the container stacks. The ensuing fire caused the crew to abandon ship in mid-Atlantic, reportedly 1,000 miles from any coast based helicopters, and thus well beyond range.
Of the 25 crew aboard the ship, one is reported missing and four are injured. They have been (or will be) transferred to MSC Stella which will land them in the Azores.
Other details are scant at this time, but it would seem unlikely that sufficient fire fighting resources could be found in time to save the container ship.
One can only imagine the difficulty in assisting small boats from the VLCC with its immense freeboard. The liferaft and lifeboat used by the MSC Flaminia crew would be smaller than the two pleasure craft shown in the following picture. It was also reported that there were 1 meter high seas and significant wind at the time of abandoning ship. The ony advantage would be that the giant ship could create a very good lee (wind break) for rescue operations.

1. DS Crown in Halifax July 6.