CCGS Jean Goodwill tour

I had the opportunity for a quick tour of CCGS Jean Goodwill last week. This ship is the former Balder Viking, an icebreaking Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessel that was built for offshore oil and gas service in 2000 and taken up from trade by the Canadian Coast Guard in 2020. There is a Wikipedia page on her here.  

CCGS Jean Goodwill alongside at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO).

The ship is alongside at BIO for a maintenance period.

CCGS Jean Goodwill alongside at BIO.

The tour was necessarily brief, and started by heading up to the bridge.

The ship has stairs both inside and outside the superstructure.

The bridge itself is located at the top of the superstructure and wraps around with full 360 degrees of view. The primary helm station has two chairs and is on the forward starboard side, while there is a secondary helm station inside the port bridge wing.

Primary helm station on the starboard side. Personnel are provided with numerous screens to show input from the various sensors, navigation system, and ship's systems.

Primary helm station viewed from port.

Primary helm station.

Secondary helm station on the port side - possibly for redundancy, to provide a better view when approaching ships or structures on the port side, or both.

Secondary helm station on the port side. The primary helm station on the starboard side is visible in the background of this image.

Looking aft on the starboard side of the bridge over the chart table and towards two more workstations. 

Built as an AHTS for supporting the oil & gas industry with a large working deck and a Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) to maintaining station, there are two workstations at the aft end of the bridge - presumably for working with loading and offloading supplies (or handling anchors) from oil rigs (but I didn't have the chance to ask what the Coast Guard might use these for). 

Upon purchasing these ships, the CCG added an accommodation module to the back end of the bridge superstructure, the top of which can be seen above with the railing around it (and which obscures the view of the working deck). 

After the bridge, we got a quick look at the galley and cafeteria.

The galley is on the left (port side) and the cafeteria is on the right (starboard side) of this image.

Looking to port into the galley.

Looking to starboard into the cafeteria.

Next, the tour went down to the engineering spaces, starting with the Machinery Control Room (MCR).

The MCR is located immediately forward of the engine room, and itself faces forward.

Built as an oil & gas tug, but with icebreaking capability and a DPS, the ship has a suitable powerplant and engineering setup.

This schematic appears on the bridge at the primary helm station, and illustrates the layout of the engineering systems.

Propulsion is provided by two sets of diesels, two 8-cylinder engines (inboard, Main Engines 2 and 3) and two 6-cylinder engines (outboard, Main Engines 1 and 4). Each pair is mated to their own gearbox (port and starboard) and propeller shaft. There are Shaft Generators (shown as SG1 and SG2) on each shaft just aft of the gearboxes to generate electricity, along with two separate diesel generators at the forward end of the engine room (shown here as DG1 and DG2). Electricity is generated both for ship's power as well as to power the three thrusters - fixed bow (BOW) and stern (STERN) thrusters, plus a retractable azimuthing (AZI) bow thruster.

Port side diesel engines, Main Engine 4 (left) and Main Engine 3 (right). The port gearbox is out of sight to the left of the image, and exhaust trunking can be seen in the distance. 

Port diesel generator located just forward of the engine room. 

The starboard diesel generator was disassembled at the time of our tour, and the pistons were sitting on the deck.

The working deck looking forward.

Unfortunately our tour was over at this point, and I didn't capture the sunset at its most spectacular due to the smoke from wildfires out west.

To my untrained eye, the ship looked in pretty good condition for a 25-year-old tugboat taken up from trade. 

Thanks to the various crew members who facilitated our tour!

Recent ship photos

 I usually only manage to catch ship traffic in the harbour during my morning and evening commute on the ferry, but occasionally catch ships at other times as well. I have managed to catch a bit of traffic over the last few weeks.

British Engineer at anchor in the fog on March 18.

A backlit British Engineer at anchor while discharging water overboard.

NYK Romulus inbound on March 17.

NYK Romulus inbound.

MSC Cornelia coming in alongside at the south-end container terminal.

Vivienne Sheri D.

Vivienne Sheri D.

MSC Brianna.

Atlantic Sun departing from Halifax.

Atlantic Willow heads north as Atlantic Sun (no relation) departs.

Oceanex Sanderling.

Reflection of Oceanex Sanderling 

Onego Bayou in the snow.

Atlantic Sky arriving in Halifax.

Atlantic Sky arriving.

NYK Virgo arriving at dawn.

NYK Virgo arriving at dawn.

The rest of these photos can be seen in my Ships gallery on Smugmug.

Old photos of St. John's and Harbour

 In scanning my grandfather's old slides, I came across some interesting images showing the harbour at St. John's, NL, between 1947 and the early 1970s. He seems to have travelled there several times over the years, with several trips to Newfoundland during the early 1970s. I'm assuming most or all of the images were taken by my grandfather, but it is possible some were purchased in a store at some point.

My grandfather would have arrived in St. John's by sea in both 1947 or so as well as in 1954 - the former while following his family who were travelling in the RMS Aquitania (only he stopped in St. John's, not the rest of the family) and the second crossing on the RM Ships Newfoundland and Nova Scotia with his family.

The first few images were taken from around Cabot Tower looking back up the harbour, and the first two were taken as early as 1947. The first two were processed by the Munshaw company, in contrast with all the rest of the slides, so I think the 1947 date is correct. Later slides from the 1950s appear to be Kodak, but using a different backing than the 1970s Kodak slides.

The quality of the older slides isn't the greatest. Compare the image above to the next image taken in the early 1970s.

The different lighting hides some of the contrasts between the two images, but the buildings along the waterfront certainly seem to have sprung up in the intervening years. I would love to know the name of what appears to be a tied up cruise ship.

A still later image than the preceding ones, though regrettably not taken from quite the same vantage point:

The following images appear to have been taken from a ship entering the harbour, but I'm not positive which ship nor which trip they were taken on. I'm assuming from the fact that these slides have Kodak backing, rather than Munshaw, that they are from the 1954 trip.

Taken from shore again, the next image shows al the fishing shacks and boats that used to line the harbour mouth.

The next two images presumably date from 1947 or so, and seem to show the same ship alongside. I can't make out a name.

The rest of the images are from the early 1970s. I believe this next image is of one of the French Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy Company's ships, Ampere.

The next two images from 1970 show a Portuguese fishing vessel, the Celeste Maria. Although the ship lasted 18 years under this name, which Nova Scotia's probably view as somewhat unlucky, she was lost to a fire at sea in 1972.

Look at the stacked dories!

The next cable ship, Northern, belonged to the Great Northern Telegraph Company. This photo was taken in 1972.

This final image is probably from 1954, and appears to show a back alley.