My timing was off, and the Atlantic Sun cleared the bridge bound for Fairview Cove while I waited for the light to change on North…
SO the Dockyard. In the foreground HMCS Toronto. Behind her is HMCS Montreal undergoing a work period. Tied up 2 abreast, HMCS St Johns and HMCS Halifax
the Bridge is a great spot for photos – As seen below.
The 3 consortiums that submitted bids for the CSC had their final Submissions due last Friday on the 20th. this final submission allowed them to clean up and clarify portions of the submissions based on feedback from the federal government and Irving.
The Three Bidders Are:
Canada’s Combat Ship Team – composed of Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and CAE, MDA, L3 Technologies, and Ultra Electronics – submitted their proposal based on the British Type 26 Global Combat Ship. the British are currently building this ship, though it is not yet in service.
Alion Science and Technology-led team with a proposal based on the De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command frigate which is in service with the Dutch Navy. The combat system solution is based on the world-class capabilities of ATLAS-Elektronik and Hensoldt Sensors
The third bidder is Spanish Navantia with its F-105 frigate design. The company will partner with Saab and CEA Technologies to deliver the ships should it be selected. The F-105 is a variation of the Spanish Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates and is the basis for the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen class, and the under construction Australian Hobart Class. The ships use the American Ageis system. Their CSC Proposal is fitted with a 127mm main gun by Leonardo, a CEAFAR2 radar by CEA, 2x RAM launchers by Raytheon, 2x 35mm Millenium CIWS guns by Rheinmetall, 48x VLS and 8x RBS-15 Mk3 anti-ship missiles by Saab
A Late Arrival tonight, Jona tied up at pier 41 just after 7pm. Jona is actually running for Melfi Lines, despite carring CMA-CGM branding. Jona arrived from Lisbon and is due at Mariel Cuba on August 1st.
The ship carries 3 x 45Ton cranes, and is rated for 1853teu. She was built in Ningbo, China, and entered service in 2007 as CMA-CGM Togo.
Jona is among recent charters, joining the Melfi service in December 2017. Catharina Schulte has canceled her August 06 Call, Making August 21st Maiden call of Julius-s the next stop for the usually bi-weekly Melfi service.
2 ships got off the Dock at Halterm just before Noon today. Skogafoss (Above) sailed for Portland, Maine from Pier 42. She was followed by Oceanex Sanderling (below), Who was moving to Autoport from Pier 41.
(Above) Cayman Islands registered Nimbus left Palm Beach Florida in May, And headed up to halifax. Since then she has done a couple of trips to Burgeo and Grey River Newfoundland.
NIMBUS is 30m in Length, built in Netherlands by Moonen and delivered in 2011. Her top speed is 13.0kn and she boasts a maximum cruising range of 4500.0nm at 9.0kn with power coming from two 600hp Caterpillarengines. She can accommodate up to 8 people with a crew of 3.
She was designed by Rene Van Der Velden with Diana Yacht Design developing the naval architecture, and the interior design was created by Art-Line.
Time For Us sailed this morning bound for Annapolis Maryland. She spent the Spring in Bermuda, then sailed to Charlottetown, arriving in Halifax July 16th.
The 122.05ft /37.2m yacht was built in 1997 by Delta Marine and last refitted in 2013. This vessel’s design and engineering are the work of Delta Design Group. Previously named Phaedra her interior was designed by Claudette Bonville. She will sleep 8 in 4 cabins with a crew of 5.
She is available for charter – 1 week Starts at $70,000 + expenses.
Small Change to the Site – We have Gone (Mostly) HTTPS. this means our pages will be delivered to your browser securely with encryption. If your browser gives you warnings about insecure content – Just ignore them.
For latest port conditions, Including Weather,Wind, Tides, Arrivals and Departures be sure to visit the Port Report
1.Navy Movements
HMCS St. Johns returned from her 6 month Mediterranean deployment on the 23rd.
HMCS St. John’s returns to Halifax after a tremendous deployment! #BravoZulu for your professionalism and commitment to #ExcellenceatSea. Thank you to the families of the crew – your support directly contributed to this great success. pic.twitter.com/c27NjRb8py
— VAdm/Vam Ron Lloyd (@Comd_RCN) July 23, 2018
HMCS Moncton Visited HMCS Haida in Hamilton on her Summer Lakes tour.
2.One
the 3 Japanese shipping companies, NYK, MOL and K Line have merged their container businesses and form ONE – Ocean Network Express. its hard to miss their containers which recently started showing up in Halifax – they are pink. They have also started rebranding ships – I cant wait to see one – its a bold Look.
3.Drill Baby Drill
BP has been permitted to restart Drilling after spilling 136 cubic Meters of drilling mud due to a loose connection in a line.
4.Ferry
Passenger numbers on the Yarmouth ferry for June 2018 declined 13% from the June 2017 numbers — 7,677 to 6,701. Nova Scotia doesn’t release the numbers but Bay ferries is required to report them the the city of Portland, and they are required to release them. Halifax Examiner has the Full report from Portland.
5. UK Halts Type 31 Frigate Procurement
Janes is reporting the MOD halted the Type 31 Frigate Procurement citing lack of compliant bids. the type 31 are meant to be a lighter class of frigate compared to the type 26 currently under construction (A variant of which was submitted for the CSC)
6.Duck Boat Update
the Duckboat that Sank in Branson Killing 17 has been raised from the lake by the USCG. Halifax’s own Harbour Hoppers are well maintained, Regulated, and more capable vehicle. We wrote about Previous incidents and Hopper Safety
https://youtu.be/02m3ELkvBnA?t=220
this twitter thread is brilliantly hilarious – a history of the military use of the Selfie Stick.
The #selfie stick: a military history thread.
Selfie sticks have, of course, been around as long as the wheel. But despite this, their use in the military can only be traced back to the 17th century. pic.twitter.com/hhi4Zy7qNr
— Spitfires of the Sea (@SeaSpitfires) July 22, 2018
July 25 1797 -Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson loses his right arm during the unsuccessful attack on Santa Cruz, Tenerife. After taking a Musket ball to the Arm, Nelson demanded: “Dr, I want to get rid of this useless piece of flesh here”. The severed arm was disposed of overboard
July 23 1963 – The Bluenose II was launched in Lunenburg.
July 22 1883 – The Clipper Ship Marco Polo ran aground on PEI, she was a total loss
July 17 1840 – Steamer RMS Britannia arrives in Halifax 12.5 days after leaving Liverpool England. She was the first ship of the Cunard Steamship Company.
If you have 15 minutes, give a listen to the latest episode of the Podcast 99Percent Invisible. It Talks about BBC Radio’s Shipping Forecast, and how its become a cultural phenomena in Britain. The Podcast discusses the origins of Marine weather forecasting, and the efforts made by Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who commanded HMS Beagle on Darwin’s trip to the Galapagos, to predict the weather.
The Following is Release from Damen Shipyards, plugging their containerized workshops. Damen supplied Volvo Ocean Race team AkzoNobel with two workshop containers that were leapfroged to alternate stopovers during the eight-month 11-leg race, thereby ensuring the shore team technicians have their own workshop available at all times.
I thought these were pretty cool. I kinda want one.
Recently, team AkzoNobel completed its first Volvo Ocean Race, concluding the final leg in second place and finishing fourth overall. The team finished on the podium on six of the eleven legs. During the race, the team was supported by two Damen Workshop Containers. The two containers leapfrogged each other across the 11-legs and 83,000 km of the round-the-world race, ensuring that team AkzoNobel had onshore support every step of the way.
The provision of workshop containers was a natural way for Damen to offer support to the team. The shipyards group has extensive experience in logistics and in the provision of services to ensure optimal vessel performance in terms of both safety and efficiency, from its shipyards and Service Hubs all over the world.
According to Simeon Tienpont, team skipper and double America’s Cup winner, the containers enabled the team to compete with those who had prior existence of the race.
“Even the appearance of the set-up was good, the containers looked fantastic – a lot of people noticed this.”
In fact, in the spirit of collaboration often employed by Damen, the team on occasion shared some of the equipment with their competitors.
“We were the best equipped team in the race,” continues Simeon. “In a campaign like this, it’s important that everything must come together – and it did. The partnership with Damen enabled us to compete with teams, some of whom were on their eighth Volvo Ocean Race attempt.
“The containers were actually luxurious – they were like a second home to us. We even used them to host guests for drinks one evening! And they certainly helped with our performance. You are only as safe and efficient as your preparations. Partnering with Damen we were able to come up with a solution that matched our needs perfectly.”
And the team certainly did perform; on leg 9 between the USA and the UK they set a new outright 24-hour distance time for the Volvo Ocean Race, covering 602.51 nautical miles.
The Volvo Ocean Race is a grueling round-the-world yacht race, held every three years. The 2017-18 edition started in Alicante, Spain in October last year. The course circumnavigates the globe, crossing four oceans and more then 80,000 km before culminating in The Hague, the Netherlands in June.
The 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race marked the debut of the Dutch team. The team’s principal sponsor is a leading global paints and performance coatings company and major producer of speciality chemicals supplying assorted ingredients, protection and colour to industries and consumers worldwide.
On Thursday, a Duck Boat, capsized and sank on a lake in Branson Missouri. 17 are dead, and of the 12 people who survived, 7 are in serious or critical condition. Questions are being asked about the safety of these craft, and given Murphy’s Ambassatours operates several, its worth a look. There have been several incidents involving amphibious vehicles in the last 20 years – in 1999, another DUKW sunk in Arkansas, killing 13. Closer to Home, the Lady Duck Sunk in the Ottawa River, killing 4 in 2002.
The DUKWs involved in the Arkansas and Branson Incidents are actually a modern replica of a World War II design. Ottawa’s Lady Duck was a modified Ford Pickup. Halifax’s Harbour hoppers are military surplus Vietnam Era LARC’s, so there are significant differences in terms of the vehicles involved, however a review of the Investigation reports into these incidents reveals similarities.
A Transportation Safety Board report into the sinking of the Lady Duck revealed that the vehicle was registered as a motor vehicle only, and not as a small vessel, thus it fell into a regulatory vacuum, and was not in compliance with marine regulations. Additionally, Small vessel regulations were very different in 2002 then they are today. Harbour Hoppers are regulated as Both a Bus (by the province), and as a Vessel (by Transport Canada) and are registered as vessels.
The TSB Report into the 2002 sinking of the Lady Duck, echoed some of the recommendations from the NTSB’s report into the Arkansas sinking, and actually included a portion of the report as an appendix. Specifically both the TSB and the NTSB recommended requiring the vessels posses enough reserve buoyancy to stay upright and afloat when flooded, and to remove canopies, or use canopies that will not restrict horizontal or vertical escape by passengers. Additionally, both reports cited a lack of maintenance to the vehicles, specifically surrounding pumps required to remove water from the vessel.
The main cause of death in both the Arkansas and Lady Duck incidents was people getting trapped by the canopy, and being unable to escape. Photos of the Stricken Duck boat from Branson seem to show that the passenger area was fully enclosed on top and on the sides. the Harbour Hoppers use a awning, which is open on the sides. as well as they are registered vessels they must meet construction and stability regulations.
I have also been informed that the Hoppers are pulled from the water the moment the wind gusts reach 22 knots / 41 km/hr. That’s a hard cutoff that both the company and Halifax Traffic (the MCTS center that controls ship traffic in the harbour) enforce strictly.
The Hoppers are also required by Transport Canada to stay within 150 meters from shore. This is mostly to keep them out of the way of the larger commercial traffic, but it doubles as a safety net where the Hoppers are never more than 30 seconds from a floating dock.
Witness reports indicate that waves on the lake in Branson were hitting 6′ in height at the time of the incident, due to a fast approaching thunderstorm. Ultimately the report into this incident will likely sight Weather and the decision to sail, the enclosed canopy, and a failure of regulators to implement recommendations from the 1999 Arkansas incident as the causes.
