From the Line Locker 14

Here were 11, which clarifies the title . ..  I hope.

I’ve had these fotos from Seth Tane for quite some time.  I looked at them today while culling fotos from my library.  Foto shows Foss tugs moving the Sauvie Island Bridge span into position near Portland, Oregon.  Foss tugs visible are (I believe)  the larger PJ Brix and Jim Moore.

This foto also shows Daniel Foss. The bridge move happened in late December 2007;  see page 6 of this Foss publication.  Looking up info on the Sauvie Island Bridge, I stumbled on the clever Flickr assemblage of fotos with the string “island bridge” in the name.  Try playing with it to see bridges with those two words juxtaposed from everywhere.

Like I said, I was scrolling through and culling my 2008 fotos.  Joan McAllister . . .  haven’t seen it in a long time.

Ditto Crow.  Has she been scrapped?

Here’s a summer 2008 treat, tandem pushing Aegean Sea and Caribbean Sea, although still on Roehrig colors.  The K-Sea colors on both have yet to come and by now both have been repainted.

Later in summer 2008 I took this, M/T Great Gull . . . now operating near the Panama Canal.

And  . . . last one for today, Odin passing the stern of ITB Groton, also sold foreign. ITBs like Groton, obsolete now, were technically catamaran tugs.  Just forward of where the stream of water is exiting the hull is the “bow” of the tug;  look above it and you’ll see the “seam” where tug and barge conjoin.   I posted about ITBs here back in late November 2007, and since

I’ve been enhancing my fotos on this blogs, let me add a few to that post here.  Here I’m looking between the “hulls” of the catamaran and toward the stern.  Note the portside prop.  For scale, note the size of the “lift basket” and yard worker.  The aftmost portside portion of the “barge” fits into the groove.

Here’s the aftmost port starboard side of the barge.  These two fotos were taken in the Brooklyn Navy Yard GMD November 2007.

Thanks much to Seth for starting this 2007/08 flashback.  I feel like a veritable John Titor after this glance back at how much the harbor has changed in five years.  All fotos except otherwise attributed, are mine.

And totally unrelated . . . prepare to laugh yerself buttless  bad lip reading the NFL.   This one is a guaranteed laugh-producer too . . . what they really said in the first debate.

Really Random Tugs

Thanks to Amy Bucciferro for the first two fotos here taken in San Francisco in early May.  From left to right here, Japanese training barque Kaiwo Maru II, unidentified AmNav tugs, and SFFD fireboat Guardian.  The AmNav tugs are either  Independence (farther) and Patricia Ann (nearer).

Below is 1914 tug Eppleton Hall, seaworthy enough in 1970 to travel from the North Sea to San Francisco via the Panama Canal.  For a foto of “Eppie” under way, click here.   (I love the “save the Eppie” art, for the aesthetic of the late 1960s.  Anyone know of a larger, more detailed version?)

Crowley Valor is bow escort for Vancouver Express into Seattle.

Foss Pacific Star awaits the signal to ease Cosco Antwerp off the pier, bound for sea.

Andrew Foss glides northbound toward bulker Tian Yu Feng.

Log bronc Skillful finds haven on Lake Union near Center for Wooden Boats’ Northwest Seaport.

Truckable tug Lynx stands by in Newcastle harbor.

In Bremerton and behind a fence, it’s YTB 828 Catahecassa.  Read the sign on the fence?  Catahecassa was a Shawanee chief.

Also behind the fence is YTB 779 Manhattan.  When I thought to try to get a closer, unobstructed foto, I

saw another sign, clearly, that reiterated what I couldn’t quite read on that other sign.

First two fotos by Amy Bucciferro;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Not random but unrelated:  at PortSide NewYork in Atlantic Basin on July 22 (830 pm), the movie Random Lunacy will be shown, featuring a transAtlantic crossing by Poppa Neutrino aboard Son of Town Hall.  Read about Bonnie’s encounter on Jamaica Bay this weekend with a vessel made with parts of Son of Town Hall.

Salish Sea 4

I leave Seattle today, reluctantly.  But days to come will feature more fotos I took here.  From this angle, can you guess this one?

If you couldn’t read the name or recognize the clipper-bow profile, it’s Garth Foss with all her 8000 hp moving through her VSP.

And Pacific Star, between ship shifting jobs.

Shifting from green to orange, it’s Chief and

Valor, lying in wait for

Vancouver Express.

Ocean Titan, second foto in a few days, is a thing of beauty here shrunk by the snowcapped Olympics.

And along the Ship Canal, here are Western Ranger and

(left to right) Flyer, Hornet, Wasp, and Fearless.  For more info, see the Western Towboat site here.

Closing shot for now:  Arthur Foss (ex-Wallowa, 1889), movie star and much much more.  I don’t know the small vessel beside her.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Salish Sea 3

More from Seattle:  Leschi and Chief Seattle . . . next to the ferry docks.

Olympic Tug and Barge’s James T. Quigg preparing to bunker Cosco Antwerp.

Over in Bremerton (an hour away by ferry) is USS Vincennes, CG 49, of the 1988 incident.

Bremerton deserves several posts, but for now, here are a line of attack subs (SSNs) slowly processing through the SRP “recycling” program.  671 is Narwhal and 696 is New York City.  Click on the SRP link to identify others here.

DD951 Turner Joy has to be the most significant US naval vessel of the 1960s.

Scenery shot from the ferry ride back to Seattle:  Rainier–2.5 hours away by road– dominates everything.

I wish I’d seen this from close:  this resembles my favorite exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.  Anyone know the story here?  Two of these headed north from West Seattle.

Western Towing’s Ocean Titan heads south from the Ship Canal and

Andrew Foss assists Sanmar Paragon into the Pier 86 grain terminal.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who has so much to see and so little time.

Salish Sea 1

Salish Sea is an inclusive term like the sixth boro, where on day 1, I’ve walked nearly a dozen miles.  Special thanks to Meryll and Tom, and their newly launched Coot, sporting colors inspired by W. O. Decker.  New Yorkers . . . we have much to learn on waterfront coexistence from Seattle.

Just a listing for now:  Andrew Foss (1982, 4000 hp) over by the stern of Katie Ann and Pier 90.  Thea Foss, founder of this company,   . . .   now there’s a story of a determined mail-order bride, the original Tugboat Annie.

Alaska Titan moors in the Ship Canal in Ballard.

Pacific Star, wearing Foss colors, docks right across the Canal from Titan.

K-Sea’s footprint is just to the west is marked by  Pacific Pride and Sirius.

Out on Lake Washington, it’s Sea Prince pushing a spud barge.

And Lake Union, just in from the Ship Canal, has lots of houseboats and tugboats converted into yachts, like Owl.

Or maybe in the process of being converted, like Pathfinder.

Lake Union is home to Lake Union Drydock Company, where  Cape Flattery waits and Crowley’s Wisconsin-built Coastal Reliance (2003, 9280 hp) is high and dry.

More boats along the Lake include Triton and

Newt.  I’m curious about this name for a tug:  nature or Shakespeare?

Final shots for now . . . air harbor?

Check out these flying boats at Kenmore on the north end of Lake Washington.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, now too eager to see more of the Salish Sea to further research any of these fotos.  Research . . .  that’s for rainy, cold, stormy weather . . . not today.

Special thanks again to Meryll and Tom.

Unrelated . . .  check out GMG Joey’s homie float and Moveable Bridge Brian’s report on the 234th 7/4 in Gloucester!