Other People’s Fotos 20

Here was 19.

From  Towingline.com, a foto I’ve long sought:  NYC prison barge Resolution leaving the sixth boro (East River portion) on Giant 4 in 1997, assisted by ITC Towage tug Suhaili. She traveled to the UK, where she became HM Prison Weare.  It seems that less than a decade later, her use as a prison was discontinued, although I’m not sure the vessel has been scrapped.   Credit for the foto goes to Hans van der Ster and to Smit.    Currently the sixth boro is home to prison vessel Vernon C. Bain.

The next fotos–updates on T-ATF 172 Apache come compliments of Mark Helmkamp, Ocean Tug & Salvage Ship Class Manager for the Military Sealift Command.  The foto below shows the handoff of the decommissioned sub USS Philadelphia from Apache to Sioux at the former Rodman Naval Station.

Note the sub on the wire on the Pacific side of the ride.

The next two fotos show Apache towing the sub through the Miraflores Locks.   It’s rainy season at the Canal.  Many thanks to Dianne Woods-Olvera Cavness for these fotos.

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And finally, from Cape Town and thanks to Colin Syndercombe, a followup on Mighty Servant . . .  here carrying an unidentified oil rig.

And if I’ve whetted your appetite for workboats hither and yon, check out what Jed located in the BVI here.

This compilation from Will Van Dorp, who’s back in the sixth boro after a family gallivant.  For fotos, see the top 100 fotos on the Flickr show along the left margin.

Meanwhile in Narragansett Bay . . .

Of course, here’s another approach to lifting smaller boats onto a transport deck.  All fotos here are compliments of Rod Smith, about 10 days ago.  Rod operates Narragansett Bay Shipping, where I know him best for his tireless documentation of vessel construction at Senesco Marine.  (Doubleclick enlarges.)

It starts here, as Ocean Freedom enters the Bay, passing Castle Hill Light, Saturday, May 5, 0740.   Ocean Freedom works for Intermarine.

And here’s the cargo.  A recent Workboat article discusses the deal:  four new Army ferries bound for the Marshall Islands, specifically for the Reagan Test site.  The builder is Blount Boats, which I did posts about here and here.

Sunday, May 6, 1313h.

Sunday 1436h.  Note the diver in the water directly below the port prop and rudder.

Sunday 1448h.

Monday, May 7, 1035h.  In the foreground is Conanicut Island;  Newport is in the distance.

Monday 1038h

Monday 1039h.

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All of which answers a question:  given my recent obsession with the Panama Canal, I was wondering if Ocean Freedom carrying possibly the latest government boats might cross paths there with a US government boats on its last voyage.  The vessel is USS Glacier, and it is in tow by Rhea and the company that recently towed the Artship (also with South Pacific connections)  to the scrappers.  .  . but according to marinetraffic, as Ocean Freedom heads into the Pacific, Rhea and Glacier are following Baja California.

Many thanks to Rod Smith for the fotos and to David Hindin for the info on Rhea and USS Glacier.

Kraken and Diggin’ the Bottom

Yesterday’s post featured a dredge that vacuums diamonds off the seabed.  I’d thought this remained mostly still the stuff of Jules Verne, but here’s a fairly recent assessment from the Economist, a half-decade-old article from Der Spiegel, and a southern African treasure trove of several sorts.  Dredging in the sixth boro allows trade worth billions to proceed in orderly fashion and without  . . . groundings.  Here MSC Emma heads southbound out of Newark Bay and toward the Bayonne Bridge, KVK, and …  the Atlantic.  Notice the tallest building in NYC (as of today) about seven miles away in distant Manhattan across the peninsula of Bayonne.

For outatowners, check out the lower left of the AIS screen capture below; doubleclick enlarges.  See Elizabethport?  Move toward the right along the bottom . . . see Kraken?  The foto above was taken roughly where Maurania III appears.   Now move across Bayonne toward the upper right and you’ll see lower Manhattan, where 1WTC is located.  The sinuous body of water along the lower center of the image is the KVK, the west end of which is crossed by the Bayonne Bridge, which you’ve seen at the top of this blog since post #1.

Below is the backhoe dredge Capt. A. J. Fournier, represented by the lowermost left magenta diamond.  Elizabethport’s St. Patrick’s Church is in the background between Capt AJ’s spuds, which appear of different heights because one is implanted in a deeper portion of the channel than its mate.

Notice the red clay,

overflowing buckets of it, 105% full

buckets of it.  On the south side of the gantry cranes at Port Elizabeth near the Horizon Lines vessel, another

dredge is working.  Foto taken from F. J. Belesimo showing self-dumping scow looking west and

east, again toward Manhattan.

Finally, here crew inspects the swivel motors inside the cabin of F. J. Belesimo.  Notice the diameter of drums that control the clamshell bucket.

Again, many thanks to Frank Belesimo for this tour of Cashman’s  Newark Bay/Arthur Kill project.    Any errors are my own.

And all this dredging relates to all the digging down in Panama.

Unrelated:  Note the new button . . . upper left.  Tug Pegasus (1907) and Waterfront Museum Barge aka Lehigh Valley 79 (1914)  have teamed up in a grant application for $$ for preservation work each vessel needs.  As a component of the decision-making about who gets the $$, Partners in Preservation have a “socialmedia-meter” running from now until May 21.  To help Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79 register high on this “meter,” you can do two things from wherever on the planet you may be:  1)  befriend them on Facebook and get dozens of your friends to befriend them as well, and 2)   vote DAILY here.    DAILY!  Seems like a crazy way to run an election, but  . . . that’s social media and in this case, the cause is worthy.

Here’s the Facebook link.   For some background on Pegasus and its captain Pam Hepburn, watch this great video from almost 20 years ago.    And you must watch this. . .  a video made last week in which Pam and David explain their project . . . most compelling.

Random Tugs 92

Note: If you’re new to this blog and wondering what resources provide “pedigree” of these vessels, a fantastic reference work in progress is tugboatinformation.com       Start out by clicking the letter of the company name to find the fleets, present and past.

This is what a “Kirbyfied” Barbara C looks like today.   Scroll through to the bottom of that Kirby Corporation link to see their string of acquisitions.

Barbara C (now Arabian Sea) used to be sibling to Donald C (now Med Sea);  as Seas, you could call them once-and-future siblings.  If you squint while looking at Med Sea‘s stack, the shadow outlining one side of the logo board there almost looks like a crescent.

How long til Med Sea loses its green for white?

Will all the former K-Sea boats, like Aegean,  be repainted .  .  .  ?

Or Tasman and

Taurus?

Another tool is the NOAA documentation registry.  Here you just type in vessel name. You’ll find, e.g., that Maria J used to be called Jesus Saves.   I took this fotos last Thursday in the rich colors of 7 am near Howland Hook container port, one of my “offices,”  where NYK Constellation was having containers shifted.  By now, Constellation has been in and back of Norfolk and Savannah and is heading ultimately through the Canal and out west . . .

Best fashions-in-fur award goes to Resolute, which stated tools here says has been called that since 1975.

All fotos in the past week by will Van Dorp.   Time to head to my bread-and-butter job, two hours early, so that I can show some face time along the KVK.

Sixth Boro Details

I zoomed in on details in some Panama posts here and here, so how about closer to home . . . .  All of the following fotos were taken in New York harbor, except one.  But that one could just have well been taken here.  Can you identify it?

Otherwise, just enjoy the fotos.  Doubleclick almost always enlarges.  For me, pleasure maintaining this blog comes from the locale and endeavor. I respect the livelihoods.  But things the camera helps me see I admire also for the sculptural beauty,

the play of light and shadow over diverse surfaces,

qualities of suntime and angle,

texture and weathering . . . aging,

universality and timelessness,

employ of color and volume,

imagined or real vignettes,

power and evocation of sound and temperature,

coexistence of natural and industrial,

labor’s wear and erosion,

tirelessness,

elegant design . . . .

Since I deliberately wrote these captions quickly, spontaneously recording what I associated with each foto,  I could have captured something different no doubt upon examining each,  . . . but then again . . . I’m interested in what they evoke in you.  And here I invite your response.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp . .  . in the past month.

The bottom foto was taken in Panama of a container ship I’d seen in the KVK earlier in March.

Government Boats 20

Whatzit???  Answer follows.

Note what’s on the deck of USCGC Mackinaw WLLB-30, built in Wisconsin and homeported in Cheboygan, MI.   Foto thanks to Kyran Clune.

Now here’s my favorite local government boat, although

I’ve been unable to find any info about its age and place of

origin.  If I got a yacht, it would look like this.  Anyone help here on Hudson?

Maintenance o aids to navigation is needed wherever and whatever those aids be.  Note the Roncado crew on

the buoy.

Anyhow . . . here’s the bigger context on that top foto;  USCG 49405 seems to have more

buoys on her “to do list” than

her stern can accommodate.

This is NOT at all a government boat, but I snapped this a few weeks ago.  Upon further examination, I’m wondering about the barge and  . . . is that a portside offset upper house?

Last shot . .  again, no government boat is this, but exactly a year ago today, Papillon came ashore . . . prompting many hours of visitation of government employees . . . if not boats.  Here and here are two of my posts;  go back to the April 201 archives for many more.  Ironically, I have never been able to find out what became of the vessel.

Happy April!  Again thanks to Kyran for his Lake Michigan foto.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Other People’s Fotos 14

The newly named Patrice McAllister, sixth boro bound, experienced a fire near Kingston, Ontario.  For the story, see boatnerd here.   The Shipwatcher has the story here.  Bowditch, ex-Hot Dog and here the rescue tug, was featured on tugster here back in 2010;  see second foto from the end.

Several thousand miles south, Harding is an older tug still in use in the Panama Canal named for Chester Harding, not Warren G.

Foto taken almost 25 years ago from aboard sugar bulker Sugar Island, northbound in the Panama Canal.   Being a sugar-dedicated bulk carrier would make this one sweet vessel.

Top foto from USCG via boatnerd;  next two thanks to Allen Baker.

I’ve now also added Ship Watcher to my blogroll.

Also, check out photosbytomandpolly, who shoot from not far away along the western end of the St Lawrence Seaway.

Two Canals, Two Ships

So here’s the question . . . two locks, almost 3000 miles apart, Miraflores Esclusas in the Panama Canal and Poe Lock in the Soo. . . each recently traversed by a large vessel,

CSAV Suape in

the Panama, and then

Mesabi Miner in the Poe.

Question . . . without looking it up, which of the two vessels is larger . . . CSAV Suape or Mesabi Miner?

And let the record show that I would have gotten it wrong, but although their beams are the same,  Mesabi Miner is 39′ longer than CSAV Suape!  Mesabi is named for the mountain range it is involved in hauling away.

Here’s more info on the Soo.  Mesabi Miner fotos come thanks to Ken of Michigan Exposures, where more Mesabi fotos are available here and here.

Panama fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Panama Tugs

Here’s a link to the entire fleet, but for my experience of them, see below. Built in Louisiana or China, they look quite alike.

Rio Indio,

Veraquas 1,

Dolega,

Pacora,

Cacique,

Near to far, Cacique and Calovebora,

D. P. McAuliffe,

Farfan

and back to Veraguas 1.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Panama Details 2

The hat here is not misplaced.  On the job here

a pilot guiding

Histria Coral through the Canal.    She’s less than half an hour ahead of Cap Palmerston

in the adjacent chamber.

Canal employees (v. vessel crew) can be identified here by their

blue uniforms.

Histria Coral is a six-year-old vessel, built in Romania.

Note the plants in the wheel house, sunshade over the bridge wings,

and color-coded manifold.

Ship’s officers?

Once this chamber empties, Histria Coral will be in Pacific waters.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

A few postscripts:

like . . . fotos from the perspective of a Panama Canal pilot, click here.

Ms Pilot, a Panama Canal hawsepiper

and an incomplete tolls caclulator . . . here