Today, June 6, marks another time when there is more than one ship from the same owner in the Port of Halifax. (See recent posts on Desgagnés duos).
McKeil Marine, headquartered in Burlington, ON, has spread its wings in recent years. From the operator of small work boats in the 1950s, to tugs and barges and now into adding coastal tankers and bulk carriers the company's activities have expanded beyond the Great Lakes to Atlantic Canada.
On Tuesday June 3 the tug Beverly M 1 arrived with the barge Glovertown Spirit and tied up at the Cherubini Metal Works dock in Eisner's Cove. A shoreside crane was soon at work loading wind generator tower sections.
By today there appeared to be only two or three sections left to load. In April fleet mate tug TimMcKeil with the barge MM 161 was also in port to load the first shipment of tower sections. They were offloaded in Dalhousie, NB. See Tugfax April 25.
The BeverlyM 1 was built in 1993 by Imamura Shipbuilding in Hiroshima, Japan. The 4200 bhp ASD tug originally served in Hong Kong as the Shek-O to 2004, then Hunter to 2006 and Pacific Typhoon until 2013 when acquired by McKeil.
The barge Glovertown Spirit is a 2073 gt, 4900 dwt (or so) deck barge reinforced for heavy loads of 20 tonnes per square meter. It was built in 2012 by Damen Gorinchem, Netherlands.
McKeil frequently uses the word "spirit" in its ship's names to commemorate important persons in the company's history, or in this case the namesake is a community on the east coast of the island of Newfoundland. It is the location of a bustling shipyard which is the likely connection with McKeil Marine. McKeil tugs and barges have supported the major offshore petroleum projects in Newfoundland for many years.
Today's arrival in the lower harbour is the tanker Wicky Spirit from St.John's. A member of the McKeil Tankers Ltd fleet since 2019, it was built by Gisan Shipyard, Tuzla, Turkey in 2008. The 8660 gt, 13,947 dwt ship carried the name Turquoise T to 2019 and briefly Turquoise - I in 2019.
Since the start of the St.Lawrence Seaway season in April of this year the ship has been shuttling between Hamilton, ON and St.John's, making three trips. It will be moving to the Halifax side of the harbour when a berth is clear, presumably for some maintenance or refueling, as it is obviously not carrying any cargo.
The ship normally carries product for Petro-Canada, and its namesake is Robert "Wicky" Wickens, a race car driver sponsored by Petro-Canada Lubricants.
Not far away, in Eastern Passage, it was a totally different sort of ship as the autocarrier Way Forward arrived at Autoport.
To avoid encountering deer ticks I am staying out of long grass, but I will soon need an elevated platform to see ships at Autoport.
It is another in the new series of ships built for Wallenius Marine on long term charter to Volkswagen. Sister ship Future Way was here February 5 and has all the same specifications and characteristics:
It was built by Yantai CIMC Raffles, Longkou in 2024 and features gas / diesel / synthetic diesel fuel
engines, can sail fully loaded with no ballast water, has a shore power
connector and can be converted to add battery power. It reduces fuel
consumption by prop design, hull shape and aerodynamic features. The 62,432 gt, 18,565 dwt ship has a capacity of 6500 CEUs.
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