You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘East Coast’ category.
If I go cold-sixth-boro-turkey and don’t inhale the harbor air or take in the sights steaming in from all corners of the globe, I get jittery, feel constrained.
There’s lots that fires up the imagination for me, but what really stokes my machinery is
the names. Following is a list of names I’ve seen on on East Coast US AIS the past few days . . . some in far-off places but what evocative names!! I’m NOT talking yachts. These are container ships, tankers, and bulk carriers.
Red Lily, Angelic Power, Tango Sea, Atlantic Tramp, Silver Soul, Ivory Girl, Pink, Billion Trader, Romantic . . . Wow!! There’s nothing routine or lackluster or sinister about those. Who in a company comes up with these? I’d love to hear what “off the air” commentary gets expressed about these names. What is the most memorable vessel name you’ve ever seen?
Do you have any favorites?
Bear with me here . . . you’ll understand the title in a bit. But first, any sense of the difference between these first two fotos A and
B?
It turns out that the person who sent these fotos to me has since also used them . . . and put them first in his post, just as I had chosen to before seeing his post.
Nearer vessel below is Terrapin Island, taken just outside the Narrows in May 2012. Vessel in the distance is Ellen McAllister.
Here are more closeups of Terrapin Island.
At some point since May, she headed down south to southern Georgia . . . northern Florida coast.
Next fotos come from JED. That’s Terrapin Island in the background.
To see what JED does with the above fotos and many more, click here.
Many thanks to JED for the first two and last fotos. The difference between A and B is eight knots v. twelve.
First, check “parrotlect flickrstream” along the left margin here for my favorite 45 fotos from the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner Race last week. I had posted some of them earlier, but put them up in the moment and without the benefit of my “foto-cleanup” tools.
Here is the real predecessor for this post . . . small specialized East coast designs. And here’s a question . . . guess the loa and beam of this vessel. Answer and fotos follow.
Some small craft are just beautiful . . . sweet
not to emphasize the “just” there. Seriously sweet lines here.
And here. And nearby but in the shadows was a twin called Puffin. And that vintage Johnson Sea horse 18 was attached to the
the prettiest motorboat I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that Johnson comes with the blender attachment seen here!!
This is Silk. Silk is a pushboat. Believe it or not, it’s the prime mover for a 65′ skipjack, and while hauling for oysters, Silk needs to be hanging high and dry. I regret I didn’t get a chance to look at the engine.
Stanley Norman dates from 1902. And that boom looks impossibly long.
And here’s a surprise, maybe. The vessel in the top foto here is a restored 1925 Hooper Island Draketail named Peg Wallace, measuring a belief-defying 37’6″ loa with a beam of only 6’8″!! I’d written of local Chesapeake and southern boats here almost two years ago, but this was my first encounter with a draketail. Scroll down to pete44′s comment here to learn his sense of the origin of the design.
I’d love to see her move through the water.
Draketail . . . named for a duck. Make way!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
About a year ago, bright-eyed bowsprite caught a glimpse of USAV LCU-2011 running through the sixth boro. Last week I knew another LCU was heading northward in the Chesapeake as the schooner race proceeded southward. Little did I know I’d intersect with it at several points as I returned to the sixth boro myself. The first visual contact I made at Fox Point State Park, along the Delaware between Wilmington and Chester, PA. Fox Point’s namesake is S. Marston Fox, who inspired the Park’s creation from what had previously been a riverside dump, and of course many more positive things before that. See the LCU way in the distance?
And this is looking back toward Wilmington (and the Delaware Memorial Bridge) from near where the previous shot was taken.
I hope you didn’t think that mere speck above was the only view you’d have of Brandy Station.
The Commodore Barry Bridge and Philly Skyline are visible here. I’d never have guessed the Commodore Barry was younger than the Verrazano.
To my surprise, a few hours later . . . I arrived at Penn’s Landing, et voila!
The Army has 35 of these vessels.
That’s the Ben Franklin Bridge in the background.
Our third encounter happened the next morning . . . as Brandy Station arced across the river and headed back to . . . . the Chesapeake!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’s back in the sixth boro.
For an LCU high and dry, click here. For LCUs worldwide, click here.
When this event happened on Memorial Day in the sixth boro, I wrote about it as “cast.” The New London cast right after the 4th of July was quite different. All these fotos come with thanks to Birk Thomas, now at sea. Ferry New London is automatically part of the local and daily cast .
Thames (rhymes with “james” ) Towboat Company’s John P. Wronowski (2004) was built in Florida.
Gwendolyn (1975) was built in Louisiana.
USCGC Eagle began to take shape in Hamburg in 1936.
USS Carter Hall had her keel laid in Louisiana in 1991.
Adam uses her 450 hp mostly around the Thames Towboat Company yards, where it was built.
Patricia Ann came out of a Louisiana shipyard as a YTB on hull #758 . . to Hercules #766, now in Nigeria.
Figureheads need inspection.
John P. and Paul A. Wronowski (1980 in Connecticut) assist USS Carter Hall into its berth. Paul A. was one of the first z-drive tugs ever built.
Ticonderoga (1936 by Herreshoff in Boston as Tioga) begs to be seen from closer, much closer.
Ferry Race Point is cast, even if she’s really working the run to Fisher’s Island.
Behold Wolf . . . she flies the flag of the Conch Republic, where I found myself exactly a year ago!
Cisne Branco . . . like Eagle was in the sixth boro almost two months ago.
Schooner Brilliant, 1932 in the Bronx, is truly brilliant.
Schooner A. J. Meerwald, 1932 in South Jersey, homeports in Bivalve . . . yes the village is truly called that.
Wisconsin-built YP-700 had its keel laid in 1987.
Another shot of Paul A.
It’s Amistad (Connecticut with a 2000 launch) with its unmistakable rake.
Again . . . many thanks to Birk for these fotos.
First . . . a foto from Cape Town thanks to Colin. Any idea what purpose the wire coils around the bulwarks of Teliri serve? Answer at end of post.
Next, from French mariner Herrou Xtian, a LeHavre-based rotor tug RT Claire, now working in Bremerhaven. For a sense of what she looks like below the waterline, click here.
Also from Xtian, it’s a huge salvage tug Abeille Bourbon. Xtian’s has a model-building question later in this post. And I hope to have fotos of a huge tug myself in the next few days.
And from Dave Chappell, Mobro’s Rio Bravo (ex-Gus Candies, 1973) towing a scow through Jacksonville, FL.
Also from Dave, two old tugs (anyone identify??) travel under the Ben Franklin swing bridge near Charleston, SC.
Teliri has been laying cable in pirate/gangster? infested waters, so it could be construed the coils of barbed wire intends to discourage unwelcomed visits.
And here’s Xtian’s question, stemming from his work on Crowley’s former vessel Centurion. On his model, the lighter strips represent the keel coolers. How far do the ones marked A and B extend, and what exactly do they look like.
Here are fotos I took of Centurion high and dry on Mighty Servant 1, about to leave NYC’s sixth boro for Nigeria. However, the portion Xtian wants to see is obscured in all my fotos. Anyone help?
Final shot, also from Colin . .. who’s following the progress of Alwyn Vintcent inland from Cape town on a 90-wheel rig operated by ALE. Here’s a previous ship-haul job by ALE.
I won’t post tomorrow or friday most likely . . because I’ll be gallivanting “on assignment.”
Thanks much Colin, Xtian, and Dave.
x
Shuttles and warships and barks come and go, but the work in the boro never quits. Greets to all the crew on Falcon (1970),
Crystal Cutler (2010),
Kimberly Poling (1994),
First Coast (1968) and Grace D,
Mary Turecamo, barge Tennessee, and Explorer of the Seas in the background of several of the shots above,
Cecilia Miller and an unidentified WaterTaxi over by Brooklyn Ferry Landing,
All fotos by will Van Dorp, who will be “on assignment” for a few days.
Meanwhile some ponderables:
Movies to see: Terraferma (maybe Wednesday night) and Beasts of the Southern Wild . . .
A new radio show to create called Boat Talks . . . now that Tom and Ray are parking it . . .
Tugster does not strive to be a “shipping news” site, but each time I walk or ride my beat, I DO keep an watchful eye for change, novelty, well . . . new sights. Certainly this was true yesterday: let’s start with the orange vessel to your left. You’ve seen the colors before, but is that a “hole through the stern above deck”?
I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a bit more of Swan in the next few days. And I trust lessons have been learned from last spring’s Blue Marlin saga.
So Beauford Sea has begun its Kirbyfication. As has Norwegian Sea, but I was too far off to get a good foto.
Resolute‘s foredeck seemed to be carrying a lot more than deckhands yesterday. And is that a movie camera? And what were they all looking at?
How about this unusual equipment on Ellen? Is MOL Earnest that tough a customer?
Iron Eagle is not new to the harbor, but the Conti name is . . . at least to me.
Rosemary Miller? New too. I wonder what has become of Sorenson Miller.
With spring comes the sailing season, and America 2.0 . . . I last saw closeup here last fall.
And one last “newby” I was lucky to catch yesterday was Mark Moran, headed south to . . who knows where? Mark‘s so new that even on Birk and Harold’s excellent site, there’s only a drawing of her.
Followup on lots of these soon. All fotos taken yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
For the news from the Narrows between Detroit (which means “the narrows” in French) and Windsor, click here for Isaac’s site and some great fotos from Wade. The surprise there for me was Zeus, who worked the sixth boro a bit a few years back. Also, there are more shots of DonJon’s huge Great Lakes ATB unit.
Also, of course please vote for tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79. The fact that they’re not in the top few places should NOT be a reason to give up; we have a daily vote until the 21st.
I was delighted to learn that Birk Thomas had taken these last week. They are golden hour fotos of a highly unusual transit up the East River. That’s Queens on the left and a varying Manhattan skyline on the right.
In the past, this blog has published fotos of covered submarine parts headed south to Newport News, like here and here . . . ( read Les’ comment in that first link) but Birk caught the uncovered and partially assembled cargo headed north toward Connecticut.
A large part of what motivated me to start fotoblogging the traffic in New York harbor, which I started to call the sixth boro, is the diverse and intriguing traffic on the waters. No single person I met knew the whole story or appreciated all the details. New York is no simple river town where one person could sit on the bank and see everything that passes. So to all of you who’ve collaborated on this tugster project in some way, I really appreciate it.
Here, in Hell Gate, Birk Lyman and Sea Shuttle look to be a whole different tow, given that the late afternoon sun is now behind the camera. Here’s my first posting of submarine sections on tugster almost three years ago.
Many thanks to Birk, who started this amazing resource. Lyman belongs to Gateway Towing based in New Haven, CT. Check out the Gateway Towing page.
Here and here are two previous “submarines in the sixth boro” posts.
I like collaboration. Number nine was a week and a half ago, but I do appreciate fotos like the ones here.
Ken of Michigan Exposures took this one up in Bay City, MI, a hundred plus miles northwest of Detroit. Any guesses on the vintage of this attractive tug . . .55′ loa x 12′ ? Answer follows.
Staying with vintage Great Lakes tugs, this foto comes from Jason LaDue, who recently sent these fotos from upstate. The foto below was taken in Oswego, NY, in late 1998. Three tugs had been sold south by Great Lakes Towing. The tugs below are from RIGHT to left, Gull (1952 ex-Jennifer George, Galway Bay, Oregon), Sea Tractor (1951 ex-Messenger, Patricia Hoey, New Hampshire) and the one I’ve called Grouper, whose entire saga you can find by using the blog search window to the left. Gull and Sea Tractor were both built in Louisiana at Alexander Shipyards.
At this point these fotos were taken in December 1998, all three tugs were headed south, but Grouper has never left the Erie Canal yet . . . in the past 13 years. Did anyone catch Gull and Sea Tractor coming through the sixth boro in early 1999?
Here’s Gull working the icy Great Lakes as Gaelic’s Galway Bay, and
Sea Tractor in the same green as Patricia Hoey. Note the wheelhouse design of Patricia.
When these tugs had first come to the Great Lakes, via the Mississippi/Chicago River, they looked different. Tug on the far right is Messenger, before becoming Patricia.
Which brings us to the present. I’m told that Gull was scrapped last year in Virginia/Philly (?) as American Pride. Anyone have other fotos? Here are two by shipjohn. Thanks, shipjohn.
And Sea Tractor (then called Shark) was reefed a year and a half ago near Miami’s Haulover Artificial Reef site in September 2010. I’d LOVE to see fotos of her in her last years, maybe even of the scuttling. Anyone help? Here’s a poor quality foto of Shark being hauled out to be reefed in 255′ of water.
No news currently on Grouper in Lyons, NY, but I wish the restoration of the 100-year old tug success.
Thanks much to Jason and Ken for these fotos.
Jill Marie, 121 years old!! Built 1891.
Recent Comments