Sunday, September 10, 2017

Hornbeck Offshore in Halifax

The first Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc (HOS) ship to call in Halifax tied up at Pier 9 C on Saturday September 9.


HOS Red Dawn  was the first of a series of supply boats in the HOSMAX 300 class and was built by Eastern Shipbuilding of Panama City, FL in 2013. With a  deadweight tonnage of 5,000 and large clear deck space, they are suitable for numerous offshore tasks.

The ship is also diesel electric powered, with a four Cat engines mounted well forward, working through a GE system to drive two Schottel Z-drives mounted aft, giving 6,704 bhp . They also power the usual transverse thrusters. The resultant lack of shafting maximizes below deck tank space for dry and liquid cargoes. The 3911 grt ship, has berthing for 50 in 17 staterooms and features DP2 and numerous other state of the art systems.


It appears that the ship is fitting out for cable transport, since a number of gray painted steel fabrications arrived at the dock at the same time. HOS has several ships that lay communication and data cabling for offshore energy projects. Since this ship is US flagged, the work will likely take place in US waters.
Several ships have loaded cable tank frames here in the last year or so, and then proceeded to Newington, NH to load fibre optic cable manufactured by Tyco.

HOS is a major US flag supply boat operator, based in Louisiana, and currently has a fleet of around 70 vessels although several may still be laid up as a result of the US oil industry slowdown. In 2016 they had reportedly "stacked" more than 30 boats, which represented 80 % of the fleet.

In 2013 HOS sold their "downstream" fleet of nine ocean tugs and tanker barges to Genesis Energy.

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