Big Tow 2

 The fire damaged container ship MSC Sao Paulo V arrived in Halifax 2 as a dead ship in tow from Quebec City.

The Groupe Océan tugs tasked with the tow may not be familiar to Halifax, but are worth noting as previous visitors.

Océan Taïga is one of two 8,000 bhp, 110 tonne bollard pull Lloyd's Ice Class 1A Super F.S. arctic class tugs, with fire fighting capability (the other is Océan Tundra) built to work in the high arctic and as escort tugs on the St.Lawrence River. It was lead tug in towing the 53,324 gt ship.

Letting up the slack on the tow line, April 2.

Despite its Quebec City and Baffin Island work routine the tug has been in Halifax before. It stopped over here in 2018 en route to Jamaica to work temporarily in Groupe Océan's Kingston tug fleet. (Note the extra wires to secure the tire fenders for the ocean passage, and containers of spare gear on deck.)

The second tug in the MSC Sao Paulo V tow is Océan Raynald T., a typical 5,000 bhp Robert Allen design tug, built by East Isle Shipyard in Georgetown PE. Completed in 2009 it was originally the Stevns Iceflower (the second of the name) then Svitzer Nerthus from 2009 to 2017.

With its sister tug Svizer Njal (ex Stevns Icequeen and renamed Océan Clovis T. in 2017) it also visited Halifax before. The two tugs were brought to Canada in 2015 when Svitzer attempted to break into the tug business in Montreal. The venture was not a success and Groupe Océan acquired both tugs and assigned them to harbour duties in Quebec City.

Océan Raynald T. acted as tethered stern tug to provide steering during the tow from Quebec City. It cast off and its place was taken by the local tug Atlantic Bear off Halifax.

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Big Tow

A big tug arrived in Halifax March 26 in preparation for a big tow.

The tug is the ALP Sweeper, classed as an anchor handling tug, it is equipped for long distance tows of very large vessels such as FPSOs and oil rigs. It is an ice class 1B ship with FiFi II and DP II capability and produces in excess of 300 tonnes bollard pull. Built under license by Niigata Shipbuilding in Japan, it is an Ulstein SX157 design with the patented X-bow.

The Dutch company ALP Maritime Servcies has a fleet of eight long distance towing vessels. A relatively new company, founded in 2010, it filled a gap when older established companies got out of the ocean towing market. Ironically it was announced last month that one of those companies, Royal Boskalis Westminster BV, has acquired ALP from its parent Altera. 

Boskalis, primarily a marine construction and dredging company, purchased Smit Salvage in 2010.*

The ALP Sweeper (tugs are named for football [soccer] positions) arrived from Ponta Delgada, Portugal and tied up at Pier 26 in Halifax. It will await arrival of the fire damaged MSC Sao Paulo V from Quebec City. The 53,324 gt container ship had an engine room fire March 3 on the Lower St.Lawrence River when outbound for Sines, Portugal. The ship's cargo was not damaged, so it seems that the ALP Sweeper may tow the fully loaded ship to Portugal.

The MSC Sao Paul V departed Quebec City March 22 in tow of the tug Océan Taïga (8,000 bhp / 100 tonnes bp) with Océan Raynald T (5050 bhp/66 tonnes BP) as stern tug. It is now due in Halifax March 29.

* Addendum:

Royal Boskalis BV acquired Smit International of which Smit Salvage is only one of several divisions, among them: Smit Transport, Smit Fleet, Smit Holding, Smit Engineering etc..

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New Life for the Tidal Pioneer - updated

 The Neptune Eurocarrier workboat Tidal Pioneer has found new work after its original owners declared banktuptcy last year.

 The "Swiss Army knife"of workboats is bristling with winches, thrusters and cranes to perform all sorts of marine construction work. Built in 2021 by Neptune Shipyard in the Netherlands, the 2 screw, 179gt vessel is a proprietary design of the builders. It is equipped with Dynamic Positioning 1 and develops a bollard pull of 34.7 tonnes.

It was acquired by Sustainable Marine Energy Canada Ltd (SMEC) to work with their tidal power project, which due to funding issues was halted and the company entered voluntary receivership in May 2023. The Tidal Pioneer was laid up in Dartmouth at Dominion Diving's base and listed for sale. (It has been maintained in working order.)

The vessel has now been sold to Leask Marine, an international marine contracting company based in the United Kingdom. Its Canadian registry was closed February 2 and it has been registered in the UK under the new name C-Horizon.

Leask Marine, through Nova Innovation CAN Ltd, has applied for a coasting license to use the boat to move a (submerged) tidal turbine from Meteghan, NS and install it in Petit Passage (between Digby Neck and Long Island, off Tiverton, NS). Citing the unique characteristics of the boat and the need to use experienced personnel (presumably not Canadian) a coasting license will be needed to use a non-Canadian vessel in Canadian waters. Although Eurocarrier type vessels are common in Europe they are rare in Canada, and no Canadian flag vessels are available for the work.

The work is to be carried out in March so that the C-Horizon can take up another contract in the UK by April 30.

Update:

As it turned out C-Horizon did not carry out the turbine move, and the vessel will be relocated to Europe on the heavy lift ship BBC Topaz late in March. See copmanion blog Shipfax for more news.  

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