2018 saw Halifaxshippingnews.ca turn 10 years old. I also began writing a weekly column in the Chronicle Herald in early September.

Navy

The navy’s interim supply vessel NRU Astrix arrived in Halifax for the first time, and after workups, sailed for the Pacific.

HMCS Athabaskan was consigned to the scrapers in January, and was towed from the Port for the last time on March 29^th. 

HMCS Oriole was reassigned to Marlant, after a winter refit in Esquimalt . HMCS Sackville spent the summer undergoing extensive restoration work at he dockyard, and returned to the water in the fall.

Visiting Ships, USS Little rock, after wintering in Montreal due to ice, HDMS Ejnar Mikkelcson, USCGS Mobile Bay, USCGC Legare, Submarine USS Toledo, RFA TideSpring, USS Hue City, USCGC Katmai Bay, French submarine FS Amethyste, USS Wichita, USS Sioux City, BASH Rhone, USCGC Abbie Burgess , USS Arliegh Burke

Container

The port began expansion of pier 42, to accommodate two ultra class ships at the same time. Equipment upgrades also continued at Halterm with the arrival of 3 new RTG’s

In a bid to Cut costs, ZIM Started a New Canada Florida Express service, and stopped calling in halifax on the ZCP Service. The ZCA Service remained unchanged, while ZCI service began being marketed by The Alliance as AL7, after they canceled the Halifax call of their competing AL6 service.

Maersk added a New weekly Med/Montreal Express (MMX) Serivce with a call in Halifax with its first call in early august. Halifax was dropped from the service in November. 

Other Commercial

Grimaldi Named a new Car Carrier Grande Halifax. Grimalidi group is the parent of ACL, one of the port of Halifax’s first container customers. 

Dominon diving purchased dominion warrior, a workboat

Leeway marine added the leeway Striker to their fleet.

The final New Dartmouth Ferry, the Rita Joe was delivered in October. the Vincent Colman was delivered in January, and entered service in February.

Norwegian bliss made a stop in Halifax April 30th on her maiden voyage, heading to spend the summer cruising Alaska. Fram was the first Cruise ship of the season, arriving 8 days earlier on April 22nd  

Theodore Too summers in Saint John. Then broke down on his return to Halifax. 

Ocearch came and tagged sharks.

CSS Acadia had funding announced for its restoration, which will take place in 2019. 

Shipbuilding

The Boa Barge 37 arrived to facilitate launching of the AOPS at the shipyard at the end of April. The first ship received its final coat of paint in August, was launched in September, and  was named HMCS Harry DeWolf in a Ceremony at the shipyard. AOPS #2, the future HMCS Margaret Brooke, had the Center and stern megablocks rolled out and joined at the end of September, and the keel laying ceremony for AOPS #3, the future HMCS Max Bernays was held December 5^th. The feds also announced they were going ahead with a 6^th AOPS, after splitting the Halifax Class Maintenance contract between Halifax shipyard and Davie. 

Davie completed the conversion of the former Vidar Viking, into the Medium Icebreaker CCGS Captain Molly Kool.

the Coast Guard began taking delivery of its new Bay Class lifeboats.

Incidents

The CCGS Corporal McLearn MMV was damaged after someone cut the cables securing the cradle the vessel was sitting on at the CAE Shipyard in Sambro Head, causing it to become partially submerged. 

In June 3 men were arrested with diving gear after drugs were found in a sea chest of the container ship Aracia. The ship was operated by CMA-CGM on the the maersk CAE service.

the Akademik Ioffe ran aground in the arctic.

The Norwigan Frigate, KNM Helge Ingstad sunk after a collision with a tanker. The Norwegian accident investigation board’s interim report suggest the hull has a design or construction flaw, which caused the loss of the ship.

In July a dump truck operator was killed, after his truck ended up in the harbour at the infill site next to Fairview cove.

In August, the Tufts cove power plant spilled bunker C oil into the harbour. The cleanup took months. 

Planes, Trains..

Halifax saw 2 derailments in 2018. the first in Rockingham yard saw a number of cars go off the end of a track. the second, at the south end terminals, saw 2 cars damaged as they split a turnoff.

A Skycube 747 crashed at the end of the runway at YHZ after overshooting on landing. there were minor injuries. the plane was scraped onsite.