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I saw this vessel tonight as I drove home from work, drove exuberantly into spring break 2012. I’m through with cubicles and classrooms for a while. But seeing the “boxaceous” stern of Grande Morocco from the Goethals Bridge gives one pause. Said stern is supremely boxy, quite different from the bow, here
bathed in first morning light.
These fotos were taken before seven a.m. Thursday. Click here for a partial cutaway of that stern. As of Friday morning, fleetmates of this class Grande Gabon has recently left Ghana, and Grande Guinea (good view of the stern here) has passed Cape Verde on its way to Senegal.
From here, she goes to the Gambia, Senegal, Cote d”Ivoire, Guinea . . . oh! I’d love to travel along, even if it goes nowhere near Morocco. Surely, there’s some role I could play.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Do I sound like a victim of wanderlust?
Unrelated . . . or maybe not: Warren Zevon’s Roland the headless gunner.
I just hoped the weather forecast was wrong, that the sun would appear. Instead . . . a lot of overcast. But no matter, the sixth boro is a space of many moods, like a lot of people. And beauty or at least points of interest can be found even under brooding skies. Like Mississippi-built Brendan J. Bouchard . . .
or Maine-built Laura K. Moran . . . both less than an hour after sunrise.
Before 0800, Miriam Moran and Kimberly Turecamo, both built in Morgan City, LA, prepare to
prepare to shift Chang Hang Tan Suo, built in Huludao, China. Note the spare prop on deck.
Bering Sea moves DBL 27 out the east end of KVK, as
Brendan Turecamo (like Bering Sea . . . built in Houma, LA) moves west. Note the distortion of distant lights right above Brendan‘s exhaust gases.
By 0900, clouds have turned the harbor colors many hues of gloomy, and Kimberly has moved on to the next assist. By then, the local constabulary have asked me to move on . . . possibly wondering why I’d be taking fotos of of such a somber scene . . .
Chang Hang Tan Suo moves to an anchorage, and
Taurus (also out of Houma) moves into the Upper Bay. And for me, second breakfast and some really hot tea.
So is my restlessness showing? All fotos this morning by Will Van Dorp.
Chang Hang Tan Suo has appeared on this blog before.
Totally related: Here’s random traffic from December and August.
You’ve probably seen some version of the “what I really do” meme. I’ve seen some good ones on Facebook. If you want to use the template, click here.
But . . . being a person who can’t exactly follow the drum beats of others, here’s my version.
What my mother thought I do.
What bowsprite caught me do.
What some friends think I do.
What my parrot (Nigel) thinks I do.
What I wish I could do . . . if not everyday, then at least twice a week . . . and what kind of access I wish were possible. The foto shows John A. Noble.
What my grandchild thinks I do.
What I think I do . . .
What I really do . . . at least on rainy or very cold days off.
Happy Leap Day!
In case you’re wondering about the second foto from the end, that doorway with the gothic window is part of new construction at the KVK eat/drink/foto spot formerly known as R. H. Tugs, which I’m eager to see reopen. A friendly conversation with the new owners the other day confirmed they understand the attraction for many of us of that location. I use their door here as a generic portal, a pathway between one world and another. What I am gratified to hear some of you say is . . . my obsession as illustrated by this blog . . . helps you understand some of what you see in the harbor and draws you in to observe more carefully. Wow! Thanks.
All fotos today come from Isaac Pennock at various Canadian shorelines along the eastern Great Lakes. And an interesting set of vessels this is. Take James A. Hannah, foto shot in Hamilton. Look at her lines. You’ve seen a sibling of this vessel here before. Recall Bloxom here and in the graveyard here. More on James A. Hannah and siblings at the end of this post.
This foto of M. R. Kane was taken in Toronto. Kane appeared in the sixth boro on this blog three years ago in a foto Bowsprite took from her cliff. Finally . . . a closeup.
Wilf Seymour foto was taken Port Colborne. Seymour is Port Arthur, TX-built in 1961 and some of you may remember her as M. Moran! Here are more specs from the McKeil Marine site.
Salvor is Long Island-built former Esther Moran. Salvor, delivered in 1963, was hull # 417. To add some context here, K-Sea’s Maryland was also built at the Jakobson yard in Long Island, hull # 406 and delivered a year before Salvor.
There’s not much to see here, but I believe–Isaac asserts– is the Australian-built, Canadian-flagged K-Sea tug William J. Moore, taken here in St. Catherines. I’ve never heard of this vessel. I quote from Birk and Harold’s site: ”at one point she was dubbed the largest and highest-horepower tug in Australia.” Who knew?
I located this image in the photo archives of Marietta Manufacturing. Taken on May 20, 1944, it shows LT-650. Bloxom was launched a month later, same location, as LT-653. Two years later, LT-650 was sold to China, and current disposition . . . I’ve no clue how to trace. Is there an US Army tugs-in-China expert out there? James A. Hannah was launched a year later–July 1945 as LT-820. Fleet siblings of James are David E. Hannah and Mary E. Hannah, respectively LT-815 (April 1945) and LT-821. David E. appears to have been out of service since 2009, somewhere near Chicago. Birk and Harold have her series of names listed here; one of those former names was Kristin Lee Hannah, shown here, although the date of build listed as 1953 is wrong. Click here for a 2009 article on the demise/auctioning off of Hannah Marine. I’d love to see a current foto of David E. or know her approximate whereabouts.
Many thanks to Isaac for these fotos. Also thanks to the Point Pleasant (WV) River Museum pointing me in the direction of the Marietta Manufacturing photo archives.
It’s bowsprite’s drawing on the pin I’ll wear today. Send me an email and I’l tell you how you too can get one of these pins. Or send her an note . . . to the post she put up today. The original event/foto happened here in September 2008, but it took bowsprite to transform that contest into some universal depicted on a pin.
It’s love . . . can be warm and abstract as it is to a six-year-old; sometimes
filled with drama, pursuit-and-retreat-and-repeat….
It can be very high drama, perilous paroxysm, much more than hissy-fits.
It can just be bump-n-grind physical, rubber and steel til our eyes go askew as we
go through the process of trying on all shapes vaguely recognizable as hearts. But it’s all
amor valentinus. Here are my V Day posts from 2009 and 2007.
For me, the more dispassionate, the better . . . but I’ll tell everyone (and everything) I really love that I love them. Wanna try the same?
Inspiration for this post found me when I was looking at the WordPress homepage about a month ago and noticed a blogpost by a woman called Celine. She called it the “30 before 30 project.” At some point before she made a list of 30 things she wished to have done before she turned 30.
Tomorrow is my 21,900th morning on this earth, i.e., I turn 60! It’s stunning, traumatizing, but I have to get over it. When I was under 30, the way I imagined 60 is quite different from how it feels to me, but that’s another story.
I decided that what distinguishes the 60 mark from the 30 is that rather than looking forward to things yet to do, I feel drawn to reflect on what I’ve gotten from the 21,900 days behind me. So here’s my list of six lessons:
1. Ask. Cultivate curiosity. How could anyone look at this scene and not wonder what it is? Curiosity supports youthfulness, no matter your mileage or years.
2. Accept. Anomalies brush past everywhere. I’ve asked, but even if I don’t understand the whys and whos . . . of horned creatures munching atop walls under the VZ Bridge or . . .
full-rigged ships suddenly blooming, heeled over and zooming past vessels called Chance, or
vessels named Ever Diadem passing scows named Mighty Quinn, so be it. I know I’ve NOT done anything to hallucinate, so maybe in time I will understand. In fact, as I took fotos of Ever Diadem, clear as could be I heard the bow watch crewman shout out “Foto!” so I took one, will put it on the web, and whoever he is, he may or may not some day stumble upon it.
3. Act. Pulverize procrastination. But realize that running in competition with procrastination is triage. Some things will not get done first . . . might never get done at all, and those priorities could be fine. But act on what you want and need. Fred Trooster took this foto in Hellevoetsluis, downstream from the port of Rotterdam, last spring. Bedankt, Fred.
4. Smile. Whoop and overwhelm weltschmerz. I have my sources for smiles, and I go there when I need them to survive. It sounds silly maybe, but I’m as committed to balance in humor as in diet, work . . . .
5. Give. Give yourself, your humor, your urgency. Overwhelm some random person with your cheer. And although it’s not the motivation, whatever you give comes back many fold and in unexpected ways. Account ledgers, though important, tell only half-truths.
6. Relax. When I was under 30, I confused sleep with wasted moments. Relaxation allows wisdom to seep in. Here near the headwaters of the Hudson aka Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, a few minutes of nestled into the sandy bank rearrange priorities and expel dark humors.
The feline below left, less than six months old, gallops around the house more pony than cat. But it sleeps up to 18 hours a day. So does the 30-year-old parrot. Relaxation, re-energizing, a rovering spirit remain as much the prerogative of the over-60 as the under-30. Gallivanting becomes the parrot as well as the cat, although each does it differently.
So, where do I go from here? Tomorrow, my actual 21,900th day I don’t post. I work a 12-hour day at the bread/butter job. But in the breaks, I think of post-60 gallivants. Here are six that occur to me immediately.
1. the Panama Canal. It’d be just like sitting along the KVK, and I’d even see some of the sixth boro regulars, I’d bet.
2. the Erie Canal. I’ve motored it, but I have a 10-foot Hunter Liberty that I’d love to sail from Lyons to the sixth boro.
3. a freighter cruise. I’ve never been interested in big cruise ships. In my early 30s,I took a thrilling 60-hour ferry from Jedda to Port Suez.
4. the Amazon, and while in Brasil, I might stop in at Bebedouro. Maybe the freighter cruise could be up to Port Newark with holds full of orange juice.
5. the Mississippi, at least from St. Louis to the Gulf.
6. the Rhine/Rhone Canals from the North Sea to the Med.
So much for a list. Tomorrow some of these might differ. So what . . .
Here are some more lists . . mostly young people.
Today, in honor of all the wings folks will eat while watching balls move in various ways so that gold can enter the coffers of burly boys calling themselves patriots and equally burly ones calling going by “giants,” and inspired by bowsprite’s clarity and conciseness on the subject of balls, I thought to reflect on them myself.
British Mazel, moved here by Elizabeth McAllister, has one white ball up high that seems to exist as a major node in the vessel’s nervous system.
A full- and a half-ball serve
the same function high atop Affinity, on the arm here of Marion Moran.
USCGC Seneca WMEC-906 sports a communication ball as well, and then some
others, including one that’s slit, serve other mission functions.
My field notes include appearance of more balls–three of them–and in unexpected places, such as these on a pleasure cat.
Explorer of the Seas has four. Lacking bowsprite’s clarity and self-assurance, I’ll hazard a guess that ball quantity might vary directly proportional to crew size.
Ball color might relate to artistic intention, which could trigger a cease-and-desist.
Just as with the arcane rules of football, the ball code mystifies me here . . . uh . . . Artemis of Ephesus comes to mind here, or the fecund tomato plant that I’ve never had in my urban window garden?
The good folks in Detroit seem to have the right idea . . . make them gold. Put your local sports jersey on the statue. I’m sure that golden “ball” perforated by golden rods here . . is really a prolate spheroid.
I’ve failed to bring clarity to this topic, as bowsprite so artfully did. I’ll go on with my observations and quantifications. Spare me the entertainment and singers. Pass the wings, please. Lucas Oil Stadium . . . that’s along the KVK, right?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
I’m culling fotos these days, trashing lots. I’m sharing these never-used ones that caught my attention. .
And more surprises . . . this is a major wake raking the bank of the Harlem River!
This foto hangs at the Ear Inn. I liked the image until I noticed that this hair product advertisement uses a wrecked ship and locals looting supplies from said wreck. Now imagine a business did this today . . . .
A vessel aims to maintain equilibrium and productivity despite wind, cold, and isolation; arms spread here do what mine attempt while crossing a narrow gangplank. Life is full of such risk-takings.
I’ve used some of these White, GA, fotos before, but part of what attracts me to the car is the art of Jacek Yerka.
This foto accompanies a story in Yerka’s book with Harlan Ellison called Mind Fields, with over two dozen such images accompanied by short fiction.
Here’s another, marking the beginning of the calendar phase called Aquarius, what this post is really about.
Happy birthday, my fellow-Aquarians.
I introduced the term aframax here four and a half years ago. Relative to the sixth boro and the Kills, it means BIG, although by no means big by global standards. At 113,043 DWT, Southern Spirit is a minor vessel in relation to the now scrapped Knock Nevis (564,763 DWT) or also-scrapped Batillus (553,662 DWT).
No matter, in the frigid 21-degree morning today, finger almost too cold to trigger the shutter, I felt warmed to see her glide in, with Gramma Lee T. Moran assisting. Doubleclick enlarges.
In my observation, not many vessels navigate with KVK with a 5100-hp vector like Gramma Lee at the ready like this. Here’s a 2002 article about the background and training of the first captain of Gramma Lee.
Spotting the assist was Catherine Turecamo, astern of Gramma Lee.
On a cold winter day, this is what the promise of heat looks like. Can anyone help me figure out where this cargo–if it be crude–exited the earth?
As to promise of heat, if I were crew on watch, I’d be hoping for hot soup for lunch.
All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s a post I did five years ago with info on suezmax and capesize vessels and a foto of a very young tugster.
Unrelated: For a mariner’s reaction to the Costa Concordia collision with Isola del Giglio, read Hawsepiper Paul here. Another mariner, Peter Boucher of Nautical Log, weighs in here. I had the pleasure of meeting Peter last summer in Florida.
I’d planned something different for today, but then my inbox started to fill. And it makes me happy to feel a community building here. So . . . thanks all for reading and sending fotos and links. I wanted to go out taking fotos, but a pile of tasks told me to stay home.
First, Ann O’Nymous sent me a link to Tugboat Tales, a fabulous documentary made by the late Bart Lawson back in 1991. This first-rate documentary is divided into parts one, two, and three. A click gets you to youtube.
Next, harbor photographer extraordinaire John Watson went to check progress on Ambrose, and discovered the drydock had been floated out and reoriented 180 degrees, with the lightship on board. That would have been a sight to behold.
Now here’s the bow . . as seen from shore. Given the wind, the blue belly over the mushroom anchor is clearly a blue tarp.
Next, from Allen Baker, this foto of a lightship undergoing restoration two hundred miles . . . downeast . . . well, in Boston. It’s LV-112, which last appeared in this blog almost two years ago. That info back in 2010 was passed along by Matt of Soundbounder. Check this link (Thanks to Rick) for many more fotos of LV-112.
As I said, I stayed inside this morning, chomping at the bit because Orange Star was headed out. Had I realized that her sister vessel was coming in and that they’d cross not far from the Narrows, I would have “busted out.” Nothing could have kept me inside. Then, I got an email from bowsprite informing me that Orange Babe Wave had come into port, and I was beside myself. At which point . . . .
I got an email from John Skelson, with attached fotos of Orange Wave!!! If you’re new to this blog, I’m a self-professed orangejuiceaholic. Here, thanks to A. Steven Toby is a link to the technology of these juice ships.
And since this post has become a gallery of other people’s fotos, here’s another from Allen Baker. A little self-disclosure here: I moved to the Boston area in the mid-1980s. One day in 1986, I was walking near the Science Museum and saw two very tired tugboats there, Luna and Venus. The sad sight drew me in. To see these beauties in such an utter state of disintegration broke my heart. I thought both were doomed. Venus was clawed into matchsticks in 1995, and Luna very narrowly escaped the same fate. Read the much nuanced story here. Luna dates from 1930, the same year as W. O. Decker. I hope to see Luna again soon; too bad I didn’t carry a camera around back in 1986.
And Decker brings the post to South Street Seaport, which I’m thrilled isexperiencing early springtime, frigid temperatures notwithstanding. Also, if you’ve been in NYC recently, you know it’s been a snowless winter so far; this foto was taken last year. I’ve always know the vessel below as Helen McAllister, but now I’m embarrassed to note that she’s also the ex-Admiral Dewey and Georgetown. I’d never realized that. Further, she came off the ways into the KVK in 1900, built at the same yard that produced Kristin Poling! And this raises two questions: is Helen McAllister that last power vessel of that yard still extant? And, does anyone know of fotos of Helen McAllister that show her working during OpSail 1992. Which raises the question . . . am I the only one NOT hearing talk of planning for OpSail 2012 New York?
Both Ambrose and Admiral Dewey/Georgetown/Helen McAllister are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
It’s cold outside and tomorrow should be colder, so you could click on every link above and drink some hot tea. Did I complete many of my tasks today? No, but I had a ball with these fotos. Watching all three parts of Tug Tales will take about a half hour, but it is well worth the time.
Thanks to Ann, John, Allen, bowsprite, Steven, and John for fotos and info.
Finally, here are two other worthwhile places to check while emptying that pot of tea: Oil-Electric on “marine railroads” and a treasure trove of fotos from the National Maritime Museum on Flickr.
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