The container ship CMA CGM Françoise Sagan made an "ad hoc" call in Halifax today - the second for a CMA CGM ship in the last month or so. By ad hoc, I mean that the ship's call was not a regular one on the Premier Alliance schedule, but appears to be a trial run - or demonstration - to see if calling in Halifax is a good fit for the Premier Alliance AT3 service from North Europe to US and Mexico.
The first ad hoc caller on the AT3 was the CMA CGM Molière on May 3 (I missed that one due to fog). Although ONE is nominally running the service, their Ocean Alliance partner, CMA CGM, is providing the ships. (Oddly, the CMA CGM Françoise Sagan is a former NYK ship.) The AT3 port rotation is Southampton, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, (Halifax), Veracruz, Altamira, Houston, New Orleans, Southampton.
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The tug Atlantic Maple is preparing to make up on the ship's starboard side, and will soon be hidden from my view. The Atlantic Ash is trying to make up on the port bow, and is steaming full astern. Due to the ship's extreme bow flare, the tug neeeds to take care to avoid contact with its superstructure when working in close.
It then appeared that the Atlantic Ash would instead take a heaving line from the ship's bow, but the heaving line may have fouled the anchor. The ship was moving quite fast and was soon hidden from view, but it was eventually turned and brought alongside Pier 41.
Fallout from Hapag-Lloyd's exit from the forner THE Alliance, and re-forming of the Premier Alliance with ONE, HMM and Yang Ming is still settling in, with MSC playing an odd card too.
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