Road Fotos 18

Ironically, Road Fotos 17 were taken where this post ends up.  And I had planned NOT to post today, but . . .  time affords posting, and posting makes a drive more like a gallivant.  Given that I drove to Hampton Roads, it’s interesting to reflect on what scenes are absent from this post.  Three hours after locking my house door, I was on New Jersey at the southern tip on NJ, looking

across Delaware Bay, where I narrowly missed a close up

with a Kirbyfied . . .  can you guess? . . . .

Greenland Sea.   Lots of other vessels anchored just outside the channel, here looking roughly toward the northwest.

Entering Lewes, we met a dozen or so dolphins . . . who all managed to evade

my camera, which seems to be more skilled with stationary objects like this pilot boat.

I’m guessing a fish boat, although I’ve not seen this configuration before.   It reminds me of an updated version of a menhaden boat?

The Cape Charles light is a skeleton a quarter mile inland.

The lights at Fort Story in the background, and Trabzon and Red Iris anchored outside Hapmton Roads.

This might be USS Samuel Eliot Morison foreground and USCGC Legare farther away.  And then again, the nearer vessel might be something else.

And finally, any guesses what Atlantic Dawn is towing into the mouth the the Chesapeake?

Cutterhead dredge Illinois!!  If Illinois makes it all the way to the sixth boro, you know who will have more opportunities to perfect her rendition of the toothy snouted machine.

And the reason for this gallivant–other than gallivanting for its own sake– will be clearer tomorrow.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp today.

@#$#!! . . . as I write this, USAV Winfield Scott is passing the precise location Atlantic Dawn was 90 minutes ago.  To see USAV Winfield Scott, check Jed’s most recent post here.

Clues

Here’s a game:    I show part of a foto, and you might try to identify the vessel . . .

an answer of Marion C. Bouchard would have been correct.  Doubleclick enlarges most.

Let’s start here.  Although I didn’t take this foto, I did refer to it recently on this blog.  Note the logo.  Any guesses?

Unusual exhaust location . . .

“training wheels”

those can’t be superhigh steamer stacks, can they?

angular hull profile

tiny tires as fenders, or  …

Terrapin Island has a stack forward of the house.

Ellen McAllister, of course.

The unique Odin tailed by Ross Sea over by the Goethals Bridge.  Ross Sea seems to sprout a massive starboard stack here.  Anyone know whose stacks those really  are?

Lois Ann L. Moran

Huge tires, actually, on the gargantuan Atlantic Salvor.

And here’s the final one.  It’s Break of Dawn.  When I read that the tug that had the misfortunate to take the job of towing Mobro 4000, I assumed it was a local independent tug, not a fleet sibling of Dawn Services.    This blog has run fotos of Baltic Dawn and Atlantic Dawn.

For a fuller story of the motivations behind the “garbage job,” read this, starting from p. 243.

For the artistic story behind the children’s book, see this link for the series of decisions and sketches involved in creating the story.  As a disclaimer … I haven’t read the book and realize some controversy surrounds it, but check out the Amazon page video about the author’s process in creating the artwork.  To me, one important story here is an honest ambitious  crew doing a job that captures them, transforming them into pawns of a diverse, far-flung, and powerful interest groups.

The Break of Dawn fotos come thanks to Harold Tartell.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  I just added a blogroll link to Lars Johnson’s site on Swedish tugs and other vessels.    Thanks much to  Björn Wallde for sending these along.  Check out his comment for fotos!

And talking about being pawns . . .  my account of my time as a hostage in Iraq exactly 20 years ago is reaching its climax on the Babylonian Captivity site.  If you’ve not been reading it, my detention lasted from August until December 1990;  to read the account in chronological order, see the note upper right on the homepage.