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Firebird - cutback
CNAV Firebird, the HMC Dockyard fireboat, has been cut back from 24 hour a day manning to a Monday to Friday daytime operation. Belt tightening in navy operations is cited for the change. In addition...
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Water Barge
The Halifax Port Authority provides potable water to ships at a variety of hydrants located on most of its piers. However, when a ship at anchor needs water, it is barged out on vessels such as...
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Mersey Pride - new work boat for Halfax
A new to Halifax workboat arrived today in tow from Liverpool, NS. Mersey Pride arrived in tow of Dominion Victory, which was dispatched yesterday to fetch the craft.Built in 1987 to their own account...
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Beverly M 1 - night time tow out - updated (again)
McKeil Marine's Beverly M 1 made its first call in Halifax just at dusk this evening. Too bad for picture taking.The purpose of her visit is to tow outĀ McNally Construction's crane barge Derrick#1 with...
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Ryan Leet to the rescue
As a kind reader of Shipfax pointed out, it is ironic that when then bulk carrier John I lost power and ran aground off Rose Blanche, NL on March 15, that the tug Ryan Leet was the tug to take the ship...
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Gulf Spray - badly damaged
The classic small tug Gulf Spray and a companion workboat have been badly damaged. Both boats were tied up in the lower Burnside / Wright's Cove area of Dartmouth when they were apparently smashed...
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Pointes now Oceans
When Groupe Ocean acquired the two Sept Iles based tugs Pointe aux Basques and Pointe Sept-Iles from Switzer last year, it was apparently their intention to re-deploy themĀ after refit. Now that Pointe...
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Mersey Pride refit
Dominion Diving has started an out-of-the-water refit of the tug/workboat Mersey Pride. The former Liverpool/ Brooklyn, NS based boat was alongside for a time, but has now been lifted out on the shore....
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Gulf Spray update
As reported the tug Gulf Spray was damaged and moved to pier 24 for repairs. I have since learned that apparently the ship was sheltering from last week's storm at pier 9B when it was blown under the...
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Gulf Spray - update #2
Today was lift out day for the damaged Gulf Spray. After a large crane was set up on the brow of pier 24, crews rigged slings under the hull and the crane lifted the tug out, placing it on a specially...
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Ocean Basques sea trials [update]
Ocean Basques will not be with us in Halifax for very much longer. TheĀ former Pointe aux Basques Ā has been alongside the Svitzer Canada dock all winter, awaiting her turn for refit at Industrie Ocean...
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Docking at Halterm
Given good conditions, one tug is all that is needed (and a good bow thruster) to dock a 41,000 grt ship at the Halterm container terminal in southend Halifax. The same maneuver is carried out several...
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Same forest - different trees
A photo published in Shipfaxon Sunday April 27 showed "a forest" of five Atlantic Towing Ltd tugs tied up at the IEL pier in Dartmouth. Today there was still a forest, but some different trees.From...
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R.I.P. Farley
Farley Mowat, May 12, 1921-May 6, 2014Farley Mowat was many things, to many people. For some, his 1958 book Grey Seas Under, a tribute to the tug Foundation Franklin, its crews and managers, was the...
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Tugs for seismic
The tugs Atlantic Fir and Beverly M 1 are tied up at pier 324, nose to nose, readying for BP's 2014 seismic expedition off Nova Scotia. The are is so heavily fenced and secured, that photography poses...
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Belle D at work
The small tug Belle DĀ has become busier with the start of cruise season in Halifax. The tug is used to handle a barge for ship's garbage and waste. The benefit of using a barge, as opposed to trucking...
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Beverly M 1 hangs back
When the nine ship seismic fleet sailed from Halifax last night, the tug Beverly M 1 remained in port. I t moved from pier 24 to pier 25, and as of this afternoon the crew was on deck doing some...
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Halmar - on the go
Although I have featured the tug/workboat Halmar before: http://tugfaxblogspotcom.blogspot.ca/2012/05/big-tug-little-tugs-at-pier-9.html, it never hurts to look again at one of the busier boats in...
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Dominion Diving Flotilla
The annual Dominion DivingĀ work in Bedford Basin began this afternoon when the barge DD 2000 was moored in the #10 anchorage area. A small flotilla of DD tug/workboats towed the barge from Dartmouth...
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Tugs on display and tugs at work
As per Shipfax, the tugs Atlantic Willow and Atlantic Oak were at work today berthing ships, but they broke off for a spell early this afternoon to perform a display for a certain royal personage at...
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