Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2012 c

Three vessels at the roundup this year appeared there for the first time .  . well sort of.   The red one, aka Augie, was in fact there for the first time.  The other . . . on the left, Frances, has been there before but with very different appearance.

Here’s a closeup of Augie, who first made a show here and here.

The surprise newcomer at the roundup this year was Wendy B, but with a bit of search, I’ve found this blog about here journey from Toronto to DC seven years ago, by the previous owners.

Click here for the specs at the time of her last sale.  Talking with the owners, I learned she was delayed in the sixth boro–on her recent northward passage–by the 4th of July 2012  fireworks.  Does anyone recall seeing her in town?  Here are my fotos of the spectacular illuminations that day.

Here’s Augie, nestled up to Cornell, in current colors.

When I saw Frances this weekend, I first assumed I was looking at Margot, currently working on Lake Ontario.

Here’s how Frances looked two years ago.

I’m enthusiastic to see Frances (1957) covered in new paint that just exudes vitality.  Soon she’ll be working like Margot, her one-year-younger sister.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated but thanks to Barbara for sending this link along:  South Street Seaport in the news.

Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2012 b

Canals are like bridges . . . points of connections, although “bridge” gets used much more as the verb for “crossing the otherwise uncrossable.”  As with bridges, canals create clusters . . . centers of

communication and cooperation.

Archways can easily be created.

Within canals you find vessels passing through with connections from many different places, like White Horse and

Telluride?!!

and

Norfolk by way of Montreal . . .

and Florida . . . nearing its highest point of navigation…

Vermont, and

and Albany by way of Owen Sound, Halifax, and the Potomac . . .

Roundup tales to be continued . . . .  Will Van Dorp’s fotos.

Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2012 a

Here are a, b, c, and d from two years ago.  As I write this, the Roundup has not yet finished.  What’s left is the fireworks extraordinaire, the grand finale.  But the Roundup begins with a parade up from Albany northward.  On the west side of the river is I-787, and by parading along the Interstate at homeward rush hour Friday night, like a circus parade promenading past the farms, mills and markets of yore, this curious group of vessels is designed to convince weekend-planning commuters to hang out at the Waterford waterfront parts of Saturday and Sunday.

The Rensselaer side of the river (or maybe this is North Greenbush) looks fairly wild in places . . .  with vestiges of industry,

but Troy is proud of its present and

and past.

Once through the Federal lock,

The flotilla makes its way to Waterford.  more on that the next few days.

Amen .  . . thanks to the sponsors!!  And I enjoyed meeting so many new people.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Solstice Post 3

This is the work and play post . . . the real connection is that although we all have to work, an important secret is to enjoy what you do.    Imagine this enthusiasm in a  co-worker or yourself on Monday morning, whether you’re struggling to finish a group report or

like the Villiersdorp farmers and ALE and their associates moving Alwyn Vintcent on 80 functioning wheels–at least– around Table Mountain.

If you don’t enjoy it . ..  or relish the challenge and execution,

you won’t even start the job.

This is the only way to get through obstacles that stop your progress . . .   Revel in the task  . . . like

the folks at NYS Marine Highway, now shipping corn–yes–corn–out of Ontario and into the Erie Canal.    How long has it been that agricultural commodities have been shipped on the Erie Canal . . . how long have people talked about shipping same on that waterway that revolutionized NYC . . .  or international shipping entering the Erie Canal, but Margot (over a half century young) and its crew

is actually-as we speak–

doing it!  Bravo to the folks at NYS Marine Highway.   Click here for lots more fotos of Margot.

Sun dancing is great, but the spirit that drives the dancers also animates folks

who dance with ships and lines and

get one task done safely and then move to the next and the next.

So whatever you do, whatever I do . . .

I know that if I can do it in a way that gets me satifaction and pleasure,

the better.

South African fotos come compliments of Colin Syndercombe;  the Oswego/Erie Canal fotos,   . . . Allan and Sally of  Sally W,   and all the others by Will Van Dorp.

Related:  Here’s another ALE job.

Unrelated:  The longest marathon swim starts tomorrow morning over 100 miles up the Hudson.

Jets Along the Mohawk

When I was in high school upstate, I had to read this novel about drums . .  and history.

Now imagine this interior monologue . . . our speaker doesn’t read much . . . he works and then goes to the river to fish with his best friend the bottle . . . a riverine Rip van Winkle.  He slings in some bait, he dozes, he hears an approaching engine . . . and he sees this!

He shuts and reopens his eyes . . . and it’s closer.  He rubs his eyes .  .  .  and it’s still there.  He flings the cursed bottle into  . . . nearest recycling bin (of course), swears to mend his dissolute ways, and runs along the bank yelling  ”OMG!!  It’s a Douglas F3D Skynight!!”   He just happens to “favorite” that aircraft of all the ones ever developed . . .  because of having built a model of one as a boy.

Our Rip has found new purpose.  The 2012 Erie Canal season has delivered the vehicle to turn his life around!

He vows to walk or run or bicycle along the Erie Canal as far as he needs to in order to see where this jet will land.

Then he hears another noise … another DonJon blue tugboat pushing a scow laden with

OMFG!!  He has no idea, and all the life-remedying he’d promised minutes ago . . . is in danger.    He turns and walks back to where moments before he had enjoyed the bliss of fishing along the Mohawk.  He stopped once and

looked back at Cheyenne and the scow.  ”Nah . . . that never happened,” he decided.  Never.

Downriver some 100 plus miles, the day before, another blue DonJon tug had been pushing this dredge spoils scow toward the Bayonne Bridge when the 747/Shuttle flew past.

To be serious, the wonderful fotos above come compliments of Don Rittner, of the Onrust project, about which I did many posts a few years back.  Here are a few representative Onrust links:  2010, September 2009 (see the last foto), May 2009, and 2008.    Use the search window to find many more.  Last foto is by Will Van Dorp.

The aircraft –a Skynight, a Mig-15, and a Supermarine Scimitar–have migrated from Intrepid Museum, which needs to make room for the Shuttle display, to ESAM, an upstate aerosciences museum.   The blue tugboats have all appeared here before; in order they are Empire, Cheyenne, and Caitlin Ann.

Canal Corp Boats

Quick and dirty . . . since forces are pulling me every which way these days.  Between the Great Lakes, which Joe is warning me about, and the sixth boro, which I call home, is the Erie Canal.  And some classy vessels populate it, like Governor Roosevelt.   See my latest foto here.  Thanks to Jason LaDue for this shot of a very substantial ice-breaking hull.

Lockport here assists Day Peckinpaugh.  I hope to get to Lockport in spring.

More recently, Seneca was on the hard in Lyons.  So . . . was she the one built in 1932?

Thanks to Jason for the fotos attributed to him.  Here’s a foto of sister Canal Corp  vessel Urger in the drydock last spring.

Grouper Saga

Thanks to Jason . . . first two fotos by Franz Von Riedel.  During the early 1980s, the North American Towing Company bought the Green Bay, renamed her the Oneida and moved her to Duluth, Minnesota.  This foto comes from her time working the Twin Ports (smoking away) until roughly 1987, when

Wellington Towing purchased her for work around Sault Ste Marie.  Great Lakes Towing bought out Wellington Towing about 1990 with the tug going to Cleveland as the Alaska.  This is a 1998 Alaska foto by Franz.

Here she was in Lyons in 2000, foto by Jason LaRue.

At this moment , November 2011 she awaits her one-century mark in Lyons, NY.   As the crow flies, she’s only a dozen miles from Lake Ontario.

I’m hoping the Kahlenberg fires up soon.  I’m routing for you.

Bottom two fotos taken yesterday, November 28.

More Detroit fotos soon.

Grouper as Iroquois

Next week I might pass through the Erie Canal town of Lyons, NY, where Grouper again appears forgotten, bereft of a future.  Last spring had brought some hope, but  . . .

These fotos come from Jason LaDue, who knew her while he was growing up in the vicinity of the Soo.  Foto below by Troy Wilke.  Jason writes, “That rare (and large) Kahlenberg smoked like no other but always delivered the power.  I was onboard her several times when moving saltwater vessels to and from the Algoma Steel facility in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.”

Next year 2012, Grouper has a one CENTURY anniversary, 100 years of life, the last decade and a half of which she seems in a coma.   Here was my original Grouper post, followed by 67 comments!

These fotos by R LaDue show what spirit this vessel had as Iroquois

in the Soo Tug Race, 1989. 

Many thanks, Jason.  I plan to use more of your fotos soon.

Kristin Poling 2

Actually this is Kristin 3, counting the mystery vessel post.  Let’s start in the wheelhouse, aka ship’s office, looking to port.  Notice the gauging equipment, sound-activated telephone, all the manuals.

Over on the starboard side below the controls, here’s a closeup of the pushbutton engine order telegraph, which corresponds to

this twin in the engine compartment, the engineer’s station looking forward.  The light down here is provided by portholes above.

Here’s a closeup of the starboard EMD 16-645-E2–if I recall–12-567

I’m guessing that Schoonmaker was a parts/service company?

Superchargers

Looking down/forward from the fiddley at port engine

After getting this foto of Kristin Poling just north of the Tappan Zee in May 2008, I wondered what I’d see through the portholes above the stern, and now

I know it’s a naturally-lit out-of-the-weather access area to the rudder machinery.

Note the folding joint on the mast.  What lies below these portholes is

the galley.  Again, the natural lighting is remarkable.    A note about these fotos . . . Kristin has been idle for several months now, and no attempt was made during this foto shoot to “spruce-up” any of the areas.

Large wooden door leads to the freezer, and the smaller door beside it  opens a defacto fridge.

Any guesses what lies beyond these portholes on the port side?

One of the crew’s quarters with sink, locker, and

bunk.  Is this color an off-white, yellowed with age, or was this “institutional buff”?

And these covered portholes on the forward port side of the “stern island” leads to

the engineer’s cabin.  The two recessed “bookshelves” are the interior of the portholes above.  I wonder the vintage of the desk and

(as seen from the portside porthole) the bunk with shelving beneath?    Excuse the blurry foto.

Corresponding portholes on the starboard side lead to the captain’s cabin.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of Kristin as much as I did.

A near-twin of Kristin–Chester A. Poling–was my introduction to the name Poling, although it was another company.  I heard about Chester A. in the 1990s from a diver in Cape Ann, MA.  Like Kristin, Chester A. was launched in 1934 from the shipyard in Mariner’s Harbor.  Originally 251′, both were lengthened by a 30-foot midsection in 1956.   From this foto, it appears the bow bulwarks on Chester were less protected.  Click on the image to get to Auke Visser’s fabulous site, from which the foto is taken.  Take your pic here from a wealth of video by folks diving on Chester.

Again, many thanks to Ed Poling and Jim Ash for the opportunity to see/foto Kristin in her dotage.    Thanks to you all for reading and commenting.  Special thanks to Johannah for the info on all-welded construction article and to Sachem1907  on the identification of the locks, which confirms operation by these vessels onto the Great Lakes.  I welcome more info and further history on these vessels of past era.

My all-time favorite fotos of Kristin were taken here less than a year ago by Paul Strubeck and “lightened-up” by  tugster.

Kristin Poling 1

Harold Tartell got it right, again:  the mystery vessel yesterday was indeed this now retired Kristin Poling (ex-Poughkeepsie Socony  (PS), Mobil New York, Captain Sam).  I’ve posted on her here, here, here, and elsewhere.   Kristin was built just over a mile away in Mariner’s Harbor at United Dry Dock.

Here’s a previously unpublished foto I took of her in 2009 passing Red Hook containerport.

From this, it appears her gestation period was a month shy of three years!  Delivery date 15 Dec 1934 . . . I can’t fully imagine the ways that was a different time.  If this “history of welding” is accurate  (???)  … albeit it sporting a wrong date, she was the first all-welded vessel built (See timeline for 1920s stuck between 1919 and 1920.)  Here’s the main site.  Was there a previous Poughkeepsie Socony built in the 1920s?

Appearance alone always led me to suspect the house on Kristin could be lowered since she operated on the Erie (Barge) and Champlain Canal.  Click here for an article about Kristin (PS) tied up in Fulton, NY, over the  July 4 holiday in 1956 as a precaution against a fireworks-caused catastrophe.  Below, the house is down.  Anyone recognize the double locks?  I don’t.

Here’s said house, and here

port aft corner is a track it once rode in.

From the house, a catwalk leads toward the stern.

From atop the house, looking forward, notice the breakwater aka delta.

Although I never heard them, the horns (notice my blue hat to the left) are formidable.

From the portside aft quarter looking forward, notice the portside pump engine and a gauge part of the way forward along the catwalk.

Closeup of the gauging system.  Masts on house, like all masts on Kristin, can be folded down for greater clearance.

Closeup of the starboard pump system looking aft.

Looking forward, closeup of the engine driving that pump

Details of piping and valves.

View into one of the cleaning and de-gassed holds.

Looking aft.  The portholes in the foreground allow light into the engine room.

Looking farther aft.  Portholes over the galley, Kristin‘s trademark picnic table, and folding mast.

In the next post, we go below.  All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who wishes to thank Ed Poling and Jim Ash for generous access to Kristin Poling.

Unrelated to Kristin but offered as counterpoint to this series . . . click here for a tour of a small Russian tanker of similar vintage.