Yantian Express update

Reports indicate that the Maersk Mobiliser has the Yantian Express in tow. Although not stated, this implies that there is crew aboard the ship, whether ship's original crew or salvors, someone had to be aboard to rig the towline. They may have since left the vessel again once the line was secure. Making a tow up either by the bow, or by the stern, can be a very labour intensive job if the ship has no power for winches.

There is also an initial damage assessment of effected containers. This could have been done from reports by the evacuated crew, however there is one statement that says "all reefers in Bay 1 to 24 are without power and switched off. All other Bays with Reefers are continuously supplied with power and in operation." This would also indicate to me that there is someone aboard the ship tending to the power plant. However the ship is not using its main engine, so does not have a full operating and navigating crew on board.

The ship's cargo hold is allocated bay numbers - odd numbers for 20 foot containers and even numbers for 40 foot. Bay 1 is the farthest forward.

Looking at some photos of  Yantian Express's sister ship Ningbo Express, I can see the actual bay numbers marked on the hatch coamings, for twenty foot containers.

Odd numbers represent 20 foot bays Even number are not shown, but bay 16 is a forty foot bay consisting of bays 15 and 17.

Bay numbers in white added by photo editing

Bay 31 is set up for 20 foot containers only. 

Extent of damage from the press release is said to be Bay 12 on deck forward, and below deck  Bay 1 to 9. Cargo below deck in Bays 11 to 17 may be effected, and as per the above, reefers from Bay 24 forward are without power. 

Yantian Express arriving Halifax for the first time May 20, 2013.

(bays 1  to  24 are in the yellow box)

Towing an unpowered ship is a slow process, and at last report they were barely making headway. ETA for Halifax is now January 20, but that depends on a number of factors.

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Cinnamon and some weather

Normally thought of as a spice, cinnamon is also a colour, and that is why this particular ship carries the name it does. Like all ships in the Canfornav fleet, it is named for a species of duck, and the Cinnamon Teal has a cinnamon coloured body.

RST trucks provided bunker fuel to the Cinnamon at pier 9C south today. Note the rain water pouring out of the stern scuppers. Not so evident is the wind blasting down through the Narrows.

Built by the Wuhu Shipyard in China in 2003, Cinnamon is a geared bulker of 18,311 gt, 26,737 dwt and carries three 40 tonne cranes. Its last port of call was Bécancour, QC, where it unloaded a bulk cargo, and it is now in ballast. It anchored off Halifax yesterday but came into port in the evening to get ahead of high winds. Bunkering from trucks began today. RST, a J.D.Irving trucking company, delivered the fuel.

Cinnamon is part of the 40 ship fleet of the Montreal based Canadian Forest Navigation. Founded in 1976 the company has a long standing agreement with Navarone S.A. of Greece to  operate the ships, and most are registered in Cyprus.

Canfornav is privately owned, and is "dedicated to serving the St.Lawrence and Great Lakes" according to the company's website. Since 2000 it has been building progressively larger ships - some of which are too large for the Seaway, while also renewing its Seawaymax bulkers.  Traditionally it has chartered all its ships, but has begun to take up ownership of some ships, including buying some of the previously chartered vessels.

Cinnamon is one of five ships of the 26,000 dwt class, the smallest in the fleet. Most ships are in the 30,000 to 37,000 dwt size but is also has five 57,000 tonners and two 64,000 tonners.

The company's interest in ducks is not limited to naming their ships. They have also supported Ducks Unlimited and purchased a three island sanctuary area in the St.Lawrence River called Batture-aux-Loups-Marins (Sewolf Flats) off l'Islet. It is home to eiders, night herons and other species, and is a resting spot for large numbers of sandpipers and snow geese during spring and fall migration.

Weather Footnote:

Cinnamon docked at pier 9C south, at the berth previously occupied by Thorco Liva. That ship went out to anchor in Bedford Basin last evening, but was found to be dragging its anchor a couple of times today in the very high winds. Pilots were sent out to re-anchor ship early this morning and again early this afternoon.

Those winds have also caused delays in port activity. The economically named tanker Pag from Saint John for Irving Woodside has been holding off port as have Bomar Rebecca and YM Modesty. Pilotage operations were suspended for today and tonight and will be reviewed in the morning.

The only arrival has been Oceanex Sanderling which is self-piloted, so there was no need to board a pilot in dangerous sea conditions.

There are a couple of other arrivals scheduled for tomorrow that might have arrived today had conditions permitted.

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Yantian Express - following up

Will we be seeing this sight soon?
 

Yantian Express sailing into Bedford Basin (in 2013)

 
There is very little new news about Yantian Express. After fire broke out on deck January 3, the crew exerted their best efforts to fight the blaze, but bad weather and concerns for their safety forced them to abandon the effort. The nearest tug, Smit Nicobar arrived on the scene and eventually evacuated the entire crew.

Yesterday about mid-day the brand new Canadian anchor handling supply tug Maersk Mobiliser reached the ship. This impressive vessel, measuring an astounding 10,181 grt and with a 260 tonne bollard pull delivered by 14,400 kW (20,000 + bhp) main engines, has all the equipment needed to respond to offshore emergencies, including fires. By good luck it had only arrived January 2 in St.John's from the shipbuilders in Norway, and had not yet taken up its charter work.

The Yantian Express is well outside Canadian territorial waters, but since it was headed for Halifax it is logical to assume that the ship will be coming to Halifax  eventually, but many questions remain as to how that will be done safely.

If the fire has not reached the ship's accommodations and engines, and it is extinguished quickly, then it may be safe to have a salvage crew board the ship and perhaps even  make it possible to take back control. However if the fire cannot be put out quickly, and it spreads, it may be a very long time before the ship is in any condition to tow. Some container ship fires have smouldered for weeks, and it was therefore unsafe for firefighters to board and deal with hot spots.

Assuming that the ship does make for Halifax, there is still the question of  where and how to deal with the cargo - both the burned out portions and the rest which may or may not be damaged and may or may not present hazards.

Halifax is lacking in isolated port installations where the cargo can be removed far away from other activity, and without interfering with other port business. Removal of all the cargo without the use of long reach container cranes is almost impossible. Therefore one has to assume that the only place to do the work would be at one of the container piers. I am sure Halterm is not volunteering, and that Cerescorp's Fairview Cove terminal would be the only other possible location. It was the destination of the ship in any event.

Towing a dead ship through the Narrows and taking many weeks to offload at Fairview does pose some problems, since it could tie up the pier's big cranes when they will be needed for other ships.

Certainly an area would need to be cleared and quarantined for storage of the ship's cargo, some at least would be salvageable, and might be forwarded on to consignees by other ships. The large filled area outside the Fairview Cove terminal could be fenced and a temporary road connection could be made to access it if all the containers must be removed form the ship.


I suspect that the law of general average has been  or will be invoked.  A very old principal of maritime law, it means that all cargo owners and the ship owner will share pro rata in the loss of some of the cargo. In this case all the cargo may be written off. However each container would have to be evaluated, so a large inspection area would be needed in order to deal with insurance claims.

Then there is the issue of handling and disposal of  damaged or ruined cargo, some of which will be hazardous. A mitigation and transport loading area would be needed for this work too.

It will be a major headache for Halifax to deal with, if in fact the ship comes here at all. There are other ports along the US eastern seaboard better equipped to handle the problem since they have more space and are away from populated areas. The ship may end up going to one of those ports instead.

Damage to the ship itself is unknown at this time, but it is unlikely that it will be able to continue its voyage. Other arrangements will have to be made for waiting cargo - at this point it will have to be loaded on the next ship in the rotation until a substitute ship can be brought in.

Clarifications and Corrections:
 
The Port of Yantian
I fear I grossly overstated the Yantian port's container throughput. It appears that the widely published port stats include a far larger area - possibly the entire Pearl River delta area. Shanghai alone accounts for some 40mn TEUs per annum, and is the world's largest port. Yantian seems to handle more like 10mn TEUs p.a., making it the fourth largest in the world.

HAPAG-Lloyd
Shipping Lines certainly have strange names - often abbreviations or their initials. Lines such as MSC= Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA /CGM = Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement / Compagnie Générale Maritime have shortened their names for obvious reasons by using the initials. Some, like  COSCO = China Ocean Shipping Company, have found that the initials are pronounceable as a word. 

However HAPAG-Lloyd is a a bit different. It is an amalgam of initials and the names of the founding companies, but each is a little different.


HAPAG stands for Hamburg-Amerikanische Paketfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft, meaning Hamburg America Steam Packet Joint Stock Company. Founded in 1847 it was commonly known in North America as the Hamburg American Line [HAL] and was once one of Germany's two major transatlantic passenger lines. It was also active in general cargo work

HAPAG's major competitor was NDL = Norddeutscher-Lloyd (North German Lloyd) based in Bremen. Founded in 1857 it borrowed the Lloyd name from Lloyd's of London - the insurance market place of old. At the time the word "Lloyd" was used as a convenient synonym for "shipping company", and several companies, particularly of Germanic origin used.  It was not an indication of any financial connection with Lloyd's of London or Lloyd's Register of Shipping.
[Another company the Dutch Koninklijke Nedlloyd Groep.  (Royal Nedlloyd Group) merged with P+O before A.P. Moller-Maersk bought them out in 1997. PONL containers can still be seen on Maersk ships.]

The two companies, HAL and NDL, merged in 1970, joining forces to finance their investment in container shipping. Despite many changes of ownership and numerous mergers and acquisitions, it has steadfastly held with the HAPAG-Lloyd name ever since.

As for pronunciation I prefer Hay-Pag. Although there are variations such as Heh-Pag or Hah-pag, it is never Hah-Paj as I heard on one media outlet the other day.

Shoebox Oldie
In September 1966 the Wuppertal arrived with fire in the number one hold. The cargo was cotton bales, en route from Corpus Christi, TX to France. The ship's crew, longshoremen and Halifax firefighters removed smouldering bales from the ship and drafted seawater from the harbour to extinguish the fire.
This was before the founding of HAPAG-Lloyd, and the ship was owned by Hamburg-Amerika Linie as it was then called. The acronym HAPAG had not come into use yet.

Here are a few pictures of the operation:

The ship docked at Pier 9C. Aside from the vintage cars in the foreground, note the uninhabited hills of North Dartmouth, with Shannon Park to the right. The Shannon Park pier is visible just above the ship's poop deck.

That is the family Rambler on the left.

 

There was still smoke emanating from number one hold. 

The A. Murray MacKay bridge was in the planning stages and there was no sign of construction. 

BIO appears to the far left.

The four pieces of fire apparatus on scene, include a Bickle-Seagrave, lower left.

Note also the multiple railway sidings.

Two open cab Seagrave pumpers, dating from about 1964 were on scene, one drafting water from the Narrows. Curious bystanders wandered through the scene, and took pictures freely in the days before pier security.

Cotton bales were moved well away from the ship and doused with harbour water.

The Wuppertal was built in 1956 by Lubeker Flender-Werke and was a conventional engines amidship, four hold cargo ship with reefer capacity. Measuring 3280 gt, 5040 dwt, it had accommodation for twelve passengers and handled its cargo with one 60 ton, four 10 ton and eight 5 ton derricks. It lasted through the HAPAG-Lloyd merger, but was sold in 1971 and was renamed Morning Cloud, and in 1973 Siehhui under Somali registry. In 1976 it was purchased by China Ocean Shipping (ancestor of COSCO) and renamed Huang Shan. Its fate after the mid-1980s is unclear and it was finally deleted from listings in 1992.

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Break Bulk - and a throw back.

Non-containerized cargo at Port of Halifax facilities has been dropping steadily over the past several years, and is down to about 370,000 tonnes - below 2013 levels. [Cargo handled by National Gypsum, the oil terminals and Autoport are not included in that number.]

Therefore it was most unusual to see four non-container ships working at Port of Halifax piers today.

From  north to south:

CLI Pride carries a pair of 60 tonne cranes, and a large yellow spreader stowed forward athwartships.

CLI Pride was tucked in at Fairview Cove, and must have discharged its project cargo quickly. The 7138gt, 7821 dwt ship dates from 2011 when it was built by Dongfang Shipbuilding Group in Yueqing, China as Brielle. It became BBC Luanda in 2014 and took its present name in August last.
The ship arrived off Halifax Sunday from Rotterdam, and is returning to the same port. I am not envious of the return trip across the Atlantic in ballast in a relatively small ship.
The ship was in  Montreal as recently as the end of October. It was also on the Great Lakes in July under its previous name.

Crew members check the lashings on a pleasure craft stowed in its cradle on deck.

 It took an extra wide angle lens to squeeze Danzigergracht into one photo at Pier 9 c. As with many Spliethoff ships it has several pleasure craft on deck as part of their regular yacht delivery service from Europe to the Caribbean. However that was not the reason for the ship's call here. To the bottom right of the photo are the tips of three wind turbine blades that the ship offloaded this morning.
They would have been carried below deck and are as long as the space between the middle crane and the ship's bridge.
Built in 2009 by Jinling Shipyard in Nanjing, China, the 13,558 gt, 18,143 dwt ship has three 120 tonne capacity cranes and is specialized for heavy lift and project cargoes, but can also carry sensitive cargoes such as paper products.

Work continues on Thorco Liva at Pier 9c.

Although not carrying cargo, work continues in the holds of Thorco Liva. If its past visits to Halifax in 2016 -2017 are any indication, it is related to carrying fibreoptic cable. It is also multi-purpose ship, capable of heavy lifting. It was built in 2012 by Honda Heavy Industries in Saiki, Japan, rated at 13,110 gt, 16,901 dwt and fitted with a pair of 50 tonne cranes.

And at pier 27 there is another ship of the same type. Regrettably no photos are possible, but Onego Rio  is a 7576 grt, 10,300 dwt ship built in 2003 by Damen Okean in Mykolayiv, Ukraine. It carries a pair of 80 tonne capacity cranes, which it is using to discharge a cargo of rails for CN.

Throwback
The recent news about the Yantian Express* fire noted that the ship Happy Ranger was standing by the to assist if needed. When the tug Smit Nicobar arrived,  Happy Ranger was relieved, and continued its journey from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Trois-Rivières, QC. 

The ship visited Halifax only twice as far as I can recall, and on its first visit it loaded a very unusual cargo.

As part of the development of the Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP), the accommodation structures for the Thebaud field were fabricated in Dartmouth and Halifax. The ship used its 400 tonne cranes to load the blocks. They were then taken to Teeside, UK where they were mounted on the bases, then transported back to the Thebaud field for installation. 

Now twenty years after the first gas flowed, the project is being decommissioned, the structures will be removed and taken to Europe to be scrapped.

The ship was built by Schelde SNB, Flushing in 1998 and measures 10,990 gt, 12,950 dwt. Owner Mammoet is a division of Spliethoff's.


* Footnote
I am irritated by "the media's" continual mis-pronunciation of the name Yantian Express. Named for a city in China, the spelling should accurately indicate how it is to be pronounced. It is not "yan-TAIN" please! 

Just to give a sense of why HAPAG-Lloyd named a ship after Yantian - the Yantian International Container Terminals has an 8km long waterfront, equipped with 70 container cranes and had a throughput of 78.3mn TEU in 2013. (Halifax will likely squeak past 500,000 TEU again for 2018).

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Dark Arrivals

Short days are still with us, and it will be several weeks before they are long enough to catch most arrivals and departures.  There were two arrivals after dark today and there will be one before sunrise tomorrow - all first time callers.

There was just enough light to catch Spliethoff's Danzigergracht as it made it way in this afternoon to Pier 9c. Due to come in from anchorage tomorrow morning CLI Pride will be going to Fairview Cove. Both ships will only be in port for a short time, so there may be a chance of photos in daylight when they sail.

 Danzigergracht is coming up on the  Maugher's Beach reporting point, while CLI Hope' Pride's lights show over the breakwater from its anchorage position. (1700 hrs AST)

Also arriving late this afternoon, the cargo ship Onego Rio tied up at Pier 27 to off load rails for CN. No chance of a photo there - perhaps when it sails later in the week.

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Federal Ruhr - ghostly visitor (plus addendum)

The geared bulker Federal Ruhr made an over night visit at pier 26, and sailed this morning at 0800 hrs AST, in dense fog. While the ship's bow was visible, the stern was not, but the name was readable!

The ship is one of three built in 2016 and 2017 by The New Times Shipbuilding Co Ltd in Jingjiang, China for Fednav's Great Lakes trade. Federal Alster (2016), Federal Mosel and Federal Ruhr are Seawaymax size (199.918m x 23.753m), and 22,947 gt, 36,754 dwt. They are multi-purpose dry cargo ships with box shaped holds, and are fitted with four 36 tonne cranes that can use grabs. Fednav charters the ships from Canada Osiris Shipping Ltd, and they are managed by Intership Navigation of Cypress.

Atlantic Willow nudges up in the bow of Federal Ruhr as it prepares to sail at 0800 hrs this morning.

 
The usual trade of these ships is to bring in steel products, and take away export grain. Federal Ruhr made one trip to the Great Lakes in December 2017 to Oshawa, Windsor and Hamilton, but sailed in ballast - likely loading grain at a St.Lawrence port.

In 2018 the ship made four trips to the Lakes. On the first it unloaded at Sault Ste.Marine and loaded grain in Thunder Bay. On its way downbound in the Seaway May 15 it struck a Seaway workboat and jetty at the St.Lambert lock, but was not damaged itself.

The St.Lawrencxe Seaway snag recovery boat VM/S 002 appeared to be more or less intact when I saw it through the fence at St-Lambert in August.

On its second trip it unloaded at Gary, IN, and loaded at Windsor, ON in June.

On the third trip it unloaded at Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee and loaded grain at Thunder Bay, clearing the Seaway October 17.

On its fourth and final trip it had unloaded some cargo at Trois-Rivières, then entered the Seaway December 3, unloaded at Oshawa, Cleveland and Detroit and loaded grain at Thunder Bay December 18 to 22, and was exiting the Seaway on December 26. That leaves several days unaccounted for before its arrival in Halifax, so it may have had a mechanical problem or perhaps topped up its cargo at a St.Lawrence port. Its destination is Trieste, Italy.

This visit to Halifax, of less than eight hours, would likely have been to perform some sort of repair.

I didn't get a decent picture of the Federal Ruhr today, but did catch one of its sister ships this summer. Federal Mosel unloaded at Sorel but did not venture into the Lakes on that trip.

Federal Mosel is a sister ship of Federal Ruhr.

A few other arrivals and departures today were largely invisible. Somewhere out there in the lower photo Atlantic Sail was making its way round George's Island.

Addendum:

In looking more closely at the photo of the Seaway workboat VM/S-002 I can see some damage to the bulwark on the starboard quarter, which is why it was taken out of service.

The boat was built of aluminum by Eastern Equipment Ltd in Vile LaSalle, QC in 1977. That company built numerous similar  vessels for the Coast Guard and others, but only appears to have been in business for about eight years.
VM/S -002 [the initials stand for Voie Maritime/Seaway] is owned by the St.Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. As mentioned its primary use was as a snag boat, and here is photo of it in operation. Note the forward gantry frame is removable, and is rigged with lifting gear to haul the snags and other debris on board.

 

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Yantian Express in trouble

Fire has broken out aboard Hapag-Lloyd's container ship Yantian Express en route to Halifax from Colombo in the EC5 service. Due to severe weather conditions, the crew has suspended fire fighting operations. This is certainly a perilous situation. In view of several recent fires aboard large container ships, cargo fires are very difficult to fight even in good conditions and can take days or weeks to control. However there is little to prevent the spread of fire, particularly on deck, and if not contained quickly can race out of control.

When a ship is far offshore and away from external resources it is difficult to predict how the situation may evolve. There is only sketchy information available at this time, some conflicting, but most news sources agree the fire erupted Thursday, January 3, northeast of Bermuda in a container on deck and none of the 23 on board had been injured. References to the ship being 1200 km (648 nautical miles) off Halifax are not possible to verify without expensive satellite technology.


When the ship called here first in 2013 it was the largest ship to date to call at Fairview Cove. With a capacity of 7506 TEU (including 700 reefers) the ship measures 88,493 gt, 100,003 dwt. It dates from 2002 when it was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Ulsan, as Shanghai Express. It was renamed in 2012 to free up the name for an even larger ship.

 On May 20, 2013 Yantian Express made its way to Bedford Basin en route to Fairview Cove for the first time.

 

When Yantian Express called here on March 17, 2015, the port was still cleaning up from a 70 cm snow fall. It was not until March 21 that the ship was able to complete its work.

Trees were in leaf when the ship visited April 6, 2016.

A photo taken by a crew member and posted on line shows flames erupting from the top of a container a few bays forward of the bridge. The ship has reportedly turned out of the wind to keep the fire away from the accommodation block.

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