Tanker traffic in Halifax harbour usually concentrates on the Woodside area on the Dartmouth side of the harbour where both Irving Oil and Imperial Oil have terminals for refined product. Ships docking at these terminals are difficult to photograph due to their distance from Halifax, and inaccessible vantage points.
On February 25 the Jessie Glory arrived at Imperial Oil from Philadelphia / Camden with a cargo of refined product. It tied up at the newly refurbished dock #3, using mooring buoys for its head and stern lines. Dominion Diving provides a line handling boat for docking and undocking at the jetty.
Meanwhile at Irving Oil the Canadian flagged East Coast made an unusual move from Woodside to Pier 9B. A regular caller, it distributes Irving Oil products from the Saint John, NB refinery to Charlottetown, PE and St.John's, NL with occasional forays to the St.Lawrence River and nearby US ports.
It is very unusual to see this ship in the Narrows, but like the previous caller at Pier 9B, the Algotitan (see February 25 post) it is likely that the ship will undergo some maintenenace that could not be accomplished at the oil dock. (A boom truck was waiting at the pier.)
The ship was turned, by the tugs Atlantic Willow and Atlantic Cedar, off Pier 6, then backed down to Pier 9B.
The several notable features of the ship became more visible; the large exhaust gas scrubber system which was retrofitted aft of the original funnel; the ice knife in line of the rudder and the initial "E" on the superstructure immediately below the funnel. Each of the Irving Oil tankers has the first letter of its name similarly positioned, presumably as some form of quick identification.
The East Coast was built by Hyundai Mipo in 2005. A 23,552 gt, 37,515 dwt ship, it sailed as Nor'Easter under Marshal Islands flag and operated between Saint John and US ports until brought under Canadian flag and renamed in 2014. It joined sister ship Acadian to serve Canadian ports.
