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September 1, 2023

September. The approach of fall. And also, the approach of The GTS Chronicles, currently tucked away deep in the hold of the Siem Confucius car carrier. I had been continuing to monitor its progress, and on September 1, it loitered just off the entrance to Halifax harbor, presumably waiting for clearance to enter.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 1, 2023, 12:16 PM
Our ship appears to have entered a sort of loitering mode about 30 nautical miles from Eastern Passage autoport

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 1, 2023, 12:17 PM
maybe waiting for a particular clearance or timeslot

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 1, 2023, 1:16 PM
some interior shots of the Siem confucius for your waiting pleasure:


From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 1, 2023, 1:16 PM
taken on first ever loading in Emden, in 2020

September 2, 2023 - Landfall

Continuing with my obsessive surveillance, I scoured the internet for any sort of webcam feeds of Halifax Harbor. And watched, and.... early on Saturday morning, September 2, the Siem Confucius came into view on several feeds in Halifax Harbor. On the interactive tracking maps, I could see two smaller ships, which turned out to be tugboats, closing in on the car-carrier. Presumably they would help place the huge ship into the right position at the Autoport (The Autoport is a specific facility near the Eastern Passage in Halifax harbor that deals exclusively in automotive vehicle shipments).

September 2, 2023 - 8:02AM EDT. Siem Confucius carrying the GTS Chronicles nears the Halifax Autoport.


From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 2, 2023, 8:11 AM
The two tugs Atlantic Bear and Atlantic Willow are shepherding the car carrier into the autoport.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 2, 2023, 8:31 AM
docked

September 2, 2023: The Siem Confucius car carrier, docked at the Halifax Autport, Nova Scotia, Canada.

...and.... within an hour, Luke confirmed that the Airtags are pinging again... in CANADA! Woohoo!

September 2, 2023, 10:00am - The GTS Chronicles have been unloaded into the holding lot at Autoport Halifax.


September 3, 2023

Our surveillance was not just limited to ship tracking and Airtags. No, no... we had contacts on the ground (who shall remain unnamed) and they reported that they could see the cars in the parking lot at the Autoport. They also reported that they were uncovered (there was no protective wrap on them), were in good shape and clean, and were secure.

September 4, 2023

What to do now that our two 718 GTSes were on Canadian soil? Well, figure out when they might move closer to us, of course. I knew the next phase of travel was via rail, and I know that in Canada - especially eastern Canada, that means Canadian National Railways (CN). So I spent a good chunk of time poring over websites, looking for info on how and when cars got onto CN trains leaving from the Halifax Autoport. Overall, it seemed like the shipping time for vehicles from Halifax to Toronto varied from between four and ten days, depending on which day CN received the shipment (cars in this case).

CN Railways transit calculator for the Halifax to Toronto shipping route. Basically, shipments revolve around a repeating, seven-day cycle.


I did some quick mental math, and shared my estimations with Luke:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 5, 2023, 9:33 AM
Looks like based on the CN transit calculator, the shipping time from Halifax to Toronto varies from 4 to 10 days, depending on which day you give CN the shipment.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 5, 2023, 9:33 AM
And their schedule seems to imply that they "deliver" a load into Toronto every Friday (basically, once a week).

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 5, 2023, 9:34 AM
If you ship from Halifax on a Monday, your stuff arrives in Toronto on that Friday. Else it will arrive the next Friday.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 5, 2023, 9:35 AM
So we've already missed the Monday, so our cars will arrive in Toronto a week from this Friday... as long as our cars get on the train before next Monday.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Sep 5, 2023, 9:36 AM
so that would be Friday September 16


Separately from the train shipping research, Luke and I were investigating our options regarding getting our cars insured here in Canada. Neither of us had ever tried to insure such expensive cars before, but our research did turn up some companies offering pretty good deals to drivers in our age bracket and with good driving records. In the end, Luke and I both secured insurance for our cars that amounted to less than one hundred dollars per month.

September 11, 2023 - Stalled Shipment

Ten days had gone by since our cars had arrived at the Autoport in Halifax and been unloaded. Repeated checks of the Airtag locations revealed that the cars had not budged. They had not yet been placed on a train. We started to worry about the effluent from birds.

Fortunately, our on-the-ground surveillance team was able to provide us an update:

[redacted contact] can still see them in the distance across the street in the private lots, but it's restricted access and patrolled at night by security with much higher fencing. They do stay uncovered, but all lots are lit from around the edges with no light standards to allow birds to nest. There is also no food or garbage onsite so they rarely see birds at all.

[redacted contact] said that regular commercial sale vehicles just ship out by oldest VIN, but he is unsure how private lots work. Commercial had a huge backlog due to the July flooding, but they are almost caught up now.

[redacted contact] doubts any delay would be left on the private side from that event, and that they are now at the mercy of the Porsche logistics loop. But he said a couple of weeks is not definitely not uncommon to gather a full load."

[redacted contact] can also attest there has been almost no sun since they arrived and none in the forecast.

All very reassuring words (and pictures, but I'm not permitted to show you those). Now it was just time to wait for the cars to start the next leg: a freight train ride from Halifax to [presumably] Toronto. The shipping had been proceeding at a decent clip but now seemed stalled. Might we possibly get our cars back to us in September? That was looking less and less likely with each passing day. We had hoped that we would have some prime fall driving time before having to put them away for the winter -- and to organize the special GTS Chronicles visit to Luke's parents in New Brunswick, to surprise them with an out-of-the-blue appearance of a shiny red Porsche Boxster GTS. A Porsche Courtesy Delivery to the Halifax dealership would have meant we would already have our cars by now. But, our dealership had said "no" (along with reasons that did not seem to align with the Courtesy Delivery requirements), and we had basically no power to change that decision.
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