So many ships waiting in Vancouver anchorages

[koliver]

This morning's count of ships in the Port of Vancouver, including Roberts Bank and Fraser/Surrey, both at dock and in anchorages, plus those waiting in anchorages in the Gulf Islands: 74 bulk cargo, 1 car carrier, 4 tankers.
The majority are empty, waiting in anchorages: 18 in English bay, 30 in the Gulf islands, 3 in Vancouver harbour.

Over the years, the number has grown, but this year it has shot upwards. Maybe due to Covid slowing the loading process? As most of the loading of bulk carriers is not labour intensive, it may have nothing to do with Covid, at least at this end. At the sources of the bulk commodities perhaps? These ships carry coal, sulphur, wheat, potash, oil, logs and likely other products.

Until about 5 years ago, it was a rare sight to see a Vancouver bound bulk carrier anchored in the Gulf Islands. Now, the available anchorages are mostly full. In fact there are a pair anchored off of Departure Bay, north of Nanaimo this morning, the first I have noticed there, though others may have seen them there in the past.

[rsn48]

Although there are all kinds of negative repercussions from a shipping or port strikes, the harbour looks great when there is a high ship count in the harbour at Xmas.

The weirdest location for a ship I just recently saw roughly a week and a half ago in Desolation sound was a ship moored, abandoned, drifted along the channel between West and East Redonda Islands (to lazy to go look up the name). This ship was some kind of freighter looked around 15 - 20 tons.

Now if we could just get those ships to put on some xmas lights.

[JDCAVE]

A freighter at 15-20 tons?

[ssobol]

Originally Posted by koliver

...Over the years, the number has grown, but this year it has shot upwards. Maybe due to Covid slowing the loading process? As most of the loading of bulk carriers is not labour intensive, it may have nothing to do with Covid, at least at this end. At the sources of the bulk commodities perhaps? These ships carry coal, sulphur, wheat, potash, oil, logs and likely other products....

More likely the economy crashing due to Covid.

[psneeld]

Unless I read G-Captain wrong, container shipping had a banner beginning last year, a summer slump but picked up with early demands for the winter holidays.


A lot of bulk continued because people still needed basics whether they paid for them or not (economy).

[rsn48]

A freighter at 15-20 tons?

There are small coastal freighters that really aren't that large, nothing like the ocean crossing big jobbies. Here is a Wiki link to West Redonda Island, almost no population, in fact none is listed. There will be a very small number living in Refuge Cove, but down the Waddington Channel, the area between West Redonda and East Redonda there is almost nothing there. And yet there in middle of no where was this smaller coastal freighter.

West Redonda Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Redonda_Island

East Redonda Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Redonda_Island

[koliver]

Originally Posted by rsn48

A freighter at 15-20 tons?

There are small coastal freighters that really aren't that large, nothing like the ocean crossing big jobbies. Here is a Wiki link to West Redonda Island, almost no population, in fact none is listed. There will be a very small number living in Refuge Cove, but down the Waddington Channel, the area between West Redonda and East Redonda there is almost nothing there. And yet there in middle of no where was this smaller coastal freighter.

West Redonda Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Redonda_Island

East Redonda Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Redonda_Island

None of the many I am seeing on AIS are that small. Most are 600 to 750', 40000 to 75000 tons capacity. The big container ships don't generally have to wait, so rarely occupy any of the Vancouver Harbour, English Bay or Gulf Island anchorages. Those ships are 1000' or more. Some container ships that frequently come into Van Harbour are among the giants, owned by Maersk or other big container lines.
Those that are in anchorages, waiting, tend to be all from different owners and ports of registry.

[Lollygag1]

Read somewhere that there is a shortage of rail cars on the west coast to move freight. The situation was likely to continue through November. This has likely impacted Vancouver shipping. The bulk freight business runs on a tight schedule so if there is a hiccup it causes a ripple effect down the line.

[Lollygag1]

Here is the article

https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/articl...ions_in_canada

[Lepke]

There's a backlog of ships because there's more cargoes arriving than shipping out. So if they're not waiting to unload, they're waiting for a cargo. If they have to wait too long, some will go coastwise in ballast to where they can get loaded sooner.
It costs about $10,000us/day for the ship to sit.

[koliver]

Originally Posted by Lollygag1

Here is the article

https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/articl...ions_in_canada

That seems to be all about container ships. There are few to none of those big guys in the anchorages.

[Comodave]

After 911 off the port of LA/LB it looked like a parking lot due to the wait on CG inspections.

[GoldenDawn]

These are almost all bulk carriers, waiting to load coal or grain. Not Christmas presents for North America . . .

[Nikko]

Ocean Lady has been there for years - she's part of the fish farm and has quite the storied past. But she's not moved in a very long time, guaranteed she's getting thinner and concerns are growing that she soon may be an environmental disaster...

Ship details

Originally Posted by rsn48

A freighter at 15-20 tons?

There are small coastal freighters that really aren't that large, nothing like the ocean crossing big jobbies. Here is a Wiki link to West Redonda Island, almost no population, in fact none is listed. There will be a very small number living in Refuge Cove, but down the Waddington Channel, the area between West Redonda and East Redonda there is almost nothing there. And yet there in middle of no where was this smaller coastal freighter.

West Redonda Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Redonda_Island

East Redonda Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Redonda_Island

[Pcpete]

Several years ago I was surprised to find several bulk freighters anchored in the Saanich Inlet and Cowichen Bay. Please excuse any spelling errors.
When my dad lived in West Vancouver I would visit and spend all day just watching the ships and not getting a darn thing done.

[Catimann]

Originally Posted by GoldenDawn

These are almost all bulk carriers, waiting to load coal or grain. Not Christmas presents for North America . . .

Christmas stuff shows up early. Right now is the typical late fall slow down. Happens almost every year to some degree. COVID hit in March and shipping dropped off like the stock market. Lasted about 3 months or so and has crept back up. Delta Port has had lots of work from Aug on. Car ships picked up over the summer too. They built a new grain loading facility in Van but I heard a silo collapsed and that has delayed the new one on the river. We just put in a new ship loader at FS. Here is a video link and some others.
https://vimeo.com/472239147?ref=em-v-share
Rain will also delay a lot of bulk operations and we are in the rainy season.

[Catimann]

Here are a few shots of that new Agri ship loader. I'm not sure why a reduced size photo changes orientation but uploading it raw and allowing the site to reduce the size made it upside down. I'll figure it out over time.

[clyde]

to golden dawn, are those trolling poles, or stabilizers...my dad had a 40ft "troller, crabber, gillneter, i was his crew!...we lived in Wrangell, alaska way back...that`s where i learned to steer! my dad took a lot of naps when we traveled!...clyde

[TollerTrawler]

Virtual town hall on Dec 3 about this matter https://www.vicnews.com/news/mp-to-h...horages-issue/

From Yellow Point last week I counted 6 freighters anchored with in eye-sight.

[Lollygag1]

Read today another issue causing backlog is a lack of truck drivers and vehicles to move stuff from the off load area. This is causing headaches for the retail as there are containers full of toys and other consumer goods that cant get offloaded.

A few years ago I had a business trip purposely stayed at port of Long Beach to watch the ships offload and the logistics involved.