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Although quite common for tugboats and other smaller craft, New York is a rare place of registry in large vessels today. Horizon Trader belongs to the same aging Jones Act fleet as Producer, Navigator, Challenger, . . . Crusader now scrapped.
I’m way out of my depth in bringing up the Jones Act, a set of statutes regulating maritime commerce dating from 1920 sponsored by Senator Wesley Livsey Jones. But here is a fact: 35 years old is the average fleet age of Horizon’s container vessels . . . a large if not the largest Jones Act carrier. That compares with 12 years . . . for the international container vessel fleet. Source for these ages is here.
As an untrained observer of the industry, I can state that Horizon Trader looks all of her 40 years, and again . . as a fervent but unconnected news consumer, I’ve heard/read nothing that blemishes their safety record.
And here’s the newest development . . . Horizon will cease their commerce through New York, substituting Philly instead.
Technically Trader is a Type C6-S-85a designed for Farrell Lines by George G. Sharp, a firm with a stellar list of vessels to its name.
Enjoy the 40-year-old details. I’d love to hear from someone who’d been onboard.
She looks small beside Laura K. Moran. All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
First, thanks to Birk Thomas . . . Ice River currently in Philadelphia. Here’s the reefer fleet list.
And thanks to Mike Abegg, Alice Oldendorff, currently in the sixth boro, the vessel that started this blog over 2000 posts ago.
Also, still in port, Asopus.
And just out of the repair dock, it’s Stena Primorsk, having spent weeks in or around the harbor.
And finally . . . NYK Joanna leaves town yesterday. Watch between tug and ship, starboard side,
here, for what has to be one
of the more dangerous jobs on the water.
It’s the docking pilot leaving the vessel as it heads for sea.
Perusal of the NYK fleet shows names like Mark Twain and William Shakespeare. I’d love to see them come to town.
Unless otherwise attributed, all fotos by will Van Dorp. Thanks here to Birk Thomas and Mike Abegg.
Foto from Birk. I never noticed before how much the colors of a McAllister tug and Santa Claus are alike. Now all Alex needs is to sport white fabric bow pudding, you to squint, and . . . et voila! To the right . . . I think that’s she who did a last waltz this past July.
Christmas decorations on USS New Jersey? Except this foto was taken in October.
Tugboat Lizzie with reflections . . . and made by a frustrated retired jeweler friend of John Ericsson.
a gold- and silver-plated copper tug! Trophy material. See more at the Independence Seaport Museum, not where the road has taken me but well worth a visit.
Top foto by Birk Thomas. All others by Will Van Dorp, who’s quite inland and equidistant from the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
Sandy? Of course, if you live inland from a beach, you may be scoured by the stuff.
These signs appeared along the NJ Turnpike today.
I had to return to the sixth boro from a little time spent in Philly. I saw Lois Ann L. Moran (2009, Washburn & Doughty) pass quite close to Penn’s Landing, but she was way up by Fishtown by the time I could grab my camera.
High Roller (1969, Jakobson) passed also, but the light hardly allowed Roller‘s brilliance to show. Scroll through for a foto of High Roller and her siblings with unique names in a post I did here over two years ago. The dome is the Camden aquarium, where some float-through-and-over-anything hippos live.
Two weeks ago, these small craft bobbed resplendent in summery sunny, but now a storm that should be called stormy or squally or even super-tempestuous dulls their colors.
For now, get to high ground; otherwise, batten ‘em down. Dog’em. Double’em up.
All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s some sixth boro area tempests of past years. As I post this (1700 hrs), Queen Mary 2, Maersk Kentucky, and Yasa Golden Dardanel are among the last large vessels leaving boro6 for the safety of sea.
gCaptain comments on vessel heading counter-to-trend with paramount urgency . . . here.
Foto below was taken on July 3, 2012. Charles D. McAllister . . . featured here dozens of times, was assisting British Harmony (see name on lifeboat) out of IMTT Bayonne . . . for sea. Where? Doubleclick enlarges fotos.
Related: note the follow-though handwork demonstrated by the line thrower below. Where is he? He’s not throwing the line to anything belonging to British Harmony, but he is in the same watershed.
Ditto this tug and barge. Where it it? Notice the water color. Notice the name on the barge.
MANAUS on the tug is the best clue.
All fotos in this post except the first one were taken by my daughter, Myriam, who’s on the Amazon all summer as a grad student. I bought her a camera and said . . . “tugster needs you,” and she’s been following through since mid-May while I’ve focused mostly on my end of the sixth boro, not hers. More on this later in this post. That’s a sweet ride below.
She’s based in Macapa and took this and all the others from her workboat. No, she doesn’t drive it.
Cargo moves by vessels like this, and
this. Right now Ikan Suji is Shanghai bound with a hold filled with Amazonian raw materials, I’d bet.
My guess (and I’m often wrong) on this cargo is navigational aids in the making.
I wish she’d caught the rest of the ferry . . . but there are fewer possibilities for a bow than a stern. I’d never imagine this house/stern arrangement.
NYC’s sixth boro . . . as all areas . . . have their
government boats.
Behold two Amazonian “rebocadores ” Excalibur and Merlin. Click here for Smit Rebras including some interesting newbuild fotos. Thanks to Harold Tartell for suggesting looking here.
But, not unexpectedly, vessels on the Amazon and its many fingers are as diverse as the population of that great country.
This could be the Mississippi,
as could this.
From Macapa to Manaus upriver is 500 to 600 air miles. Stadt Gera, in Macapa today, was in the sixth boro and on this blog a year and a half ago.
And here’s why I put the foto of Charles D. McAllister and British Harmony first: British Harmony is about halfway up the Amazon to Manaus as I write this. One really can get anywhere watery from the sixth boro. Knowing that and having concrete reminders like this are not the same.
From fishermen, people with cameras along the KVK, and Macy’s barge waiting for the 2012 Independence Day fireworks . . . to kids in wooden boats like this . . . all seen by crew on British Harmony on the same trip . . . I find amazing.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of another watershed. Myriam certainly has the gallivant gene. Here’s some self-disclosure. 39 years ago (!!) I traveled to my first professional job about 500 miles up the Congo River on a huge tugboat named Major Vangu, pushing four deck barges. The tug had 8 or 10 “staterooms” and a bar/restaurant for paying first class passengers. Second class were on a barge with shade, and third class slept among the cargo (barrels of fuel, trucks, crates of beer, misc . . .) on the other barges. It took four days and nights to get from Kinshasa to Mbandaka, near where I spend the next two years. The reason for the choice of a tug was the airplane was non-functioning and roads to get there would have taken weeks. Making this realization today suggests the need for a long river trip next year. . . . hmmmm . . . .
This post is inspired by Jed’s extended resume of last April here, and a “lightbulb” comment by Maureen. Thanks to you both.
Related: Several times I tried unsuccessfully to find good profile shots of Major Vangu, which sank in 1979. Anyone have ideas on finding fotos of the old Onatra vessels like Major Vangu?
Related: In writing this post, I stumbled onto this blog by an artist in Belem, a major Amazonian port.
Today marks the end of the four-day historic ship festival and the official opening of Pier 25. Friday and Saturday I worked on Pegasus. Click on that link and you can find details of her history, starting from her inception as Standard Oil No. 16, including a time when she sported the flying horse on her stack. 1907 was a recurring number in the history-oriented tour: the date of Pegasus launch in Baltimore and the date of the opening of the Kenneth M. Murchison-designed Hoboken terminal of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.
Drydock tug Hoboken dates from 1963, but
Yankee ferry, the only surviving Ellis Island ferry, entered service in 1907. Click here for much more about the Philadelphia-built Yankee.
Here’s a view of Union Dry Dock & Repair company . . . from Pegasus.
Also giving tours on the water was the historic John J. Harvey. Type Harvey into the search window on this blog and you’ll see more fotos I’ve taken over the past five years.
Folks including me took fotos of Harvey from Pegasus, just as folks on Harvey zoomed in on us. In the cowboy hat, it’s Mitch . . . of Newtown Pentacle.
Over 150 folks enjoyed a FREE!@#@! Hudson River ride on Pegasus Saturday. Lucky them!! I’m just saying . . . this is a rare treat, and you could make it less rare by joining in this way or that. FYI . . . the engine burns about 35 gallons per hour, if I recall correctly.
If you’re in or around the sixth boro tomorrow, you may see this scene above. I took that foto about a month ago.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who yesterday befriended MV Algolake. a bonafide facebooking, literate ore carrier! Be the first among your FB friends to befriend an ore carrier; for me it’s therapeutic, helping me forget the bulk carrier Alice that has made distance between us!!
Maria J (ex-Jesus Saves) . . .63′ loa (length overall), you’ve seen her here at least once before; since that link mentions vhf chatter, you must see bowsprite’s latest creations and transcriptions. Maria J was quickly overtaken by the three Brants. Remember, for most fotos, doubleclick enlarges.
Crystal Cutler . . . 67′ loa, all new and shiny . . . has been in the harbor now at most . . . three months.
Recently I saw OSG Independence . . . 131′ loa pushing barge OSG 243 .. 557′ loa, in the sixth boro for the first time.
Swarming here from left to right: McCormack Boys … 73′ loa, Austin Reinauer … 110′ loa, and Bohemia … 95′ loa with barge GCS 235 … 285′ loa.
The venerable Crow, a Brooklyn-built Bushey tug …. 86′ loa. I believe Crow first appeared on the blog here, almost three years ago, back when she was “crow red.” To hear Crow‘s horn and see its ability to raise/lower the wheelhouse, click here and see the embedded youtube at the end of that post.
Freddie K. Miller passes by in its latest colors. Remember when she was orange and also when she was white with black/orange trim and operating for the same fleet as …
Erie Service … 98′ loa, and Eagle Service … 115′ loa here? Beyond Eagle Service, might that be Scott Turecamo … 116′ loa?
Here’s a light Norwegian Sea .. 131′ loa and here she is
deep in the notch of DBL 103 … at least 381′ loa. Any guesses on the build date of DBL 103?
2005 was launch date for that, from Bollinger Marine Fab. Click here for the main Bollinger site.
Finally, here’s a mystery tug moving a deck barge through KVK last weekend. Snow covered up the name, and it’s a tug I
can’t recall seeing before. Help?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’s happy we’re in the short winter month now.
Unrelated: If you didn’t read Megan Fraser’s comment in Non-Random Tugs 5, she embedded a link to all the photos in the exhibit at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philly. Here’s a shortcut to the link to these fabulous images. Thanks, Megan.
Fundraiser TONIGHT Dec 1, 2010 for the tug Pegasus!! It’s unfortunate that I have to work elsewhere tonight.
A short post today . . . it’s December and just to call it windy out is an understatement along the lines of saying that in winter the sixth boro is less hot than in June, that sex is just exercise, and that this video is a fenderbender.
Oh, well . . . enjoy these fotos: Specialist II slings a string (strings along a sling?) of rock scows into the confluence of the East (so-called) River and the Hudson. That’s
Red Hook container port in the background, with the nose of Mary Whalen protruding from behind the blue warehouse.
And here’s a catch-up from my Philly posts of last week: when Captain Dann towed the Lockwood 2002 barge south-bound the cargo looked
all boxed up like this. Maybe something headed south or east for Sinterklaas?
Nah.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Thanks to Carolina Salguero of PortSide NewYork for calling that video to my attention.
And since I’m linking to videos today, see this one, a music video that uses the Witte scrapyard as backdrop. I really like the music, but I think the ship remains in the Arthur Kill location should be the main event, NOT the backdrop.
The last milestone was the 1000, but this one, post 1280, goes up exactly four years (well, I’m three days late, actually) after my first ever post. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours of free time educating and entertaining myself, touring other folk through the sixth boro,
interacting with passersby in ports wherever they beckon–ports like the sixth boro,
Baltimore (and many other places …) and more I hope to come. Thanks to all for your tours and advice and feedback.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying this blog more than ever, learning to see, fishing
(sometimes in extreme conditions) for
flights of fancy and
all manner of lore and historical info about the sixth boro and all the waters connected to it.
Like yesterday, I was reading about Alice L. Moran, her marvelous feats, and wondering if she’s still called Amsterdam and working in Bahraini waters. And I was reading about PY-16 USS Zircon (later a pilotboat named New York and previously a Pusey & Jones steam yacht Nakhoda), predecessor of pilotboat New York.
I’ve enjoyed these first 1280 and will be continuing. Meanwhile, here’s another interesting thing I stumbled upon yesterday on page 12 of the Spring 1966 Tow Line magazine. I hope no one is irked by my printing a screen shot here. Enjoy. Letter 1 with request on left and response on right.
Thanks for reading this blog and commenting for four years. The ride goes on.
Photo credits here to Les, Allen, Carolina, and bowsprite. Greets to the guys on SKS Tyne.
Meanwhile, a few words about the MWA Waterfront Conference tomorrow: ”
New York, NY: On Tuesday, November 30, senior officials and representatives from over 14 government agencies will join over 500 waterfront advocates, educators, and planning experts for the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s 2010 Waterfront Conference at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center.
Dozens of agency officials, politicians, and other experts will be on hand to offer their perspectives on the future of the NY-NJ Harbor, including: NYC Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, Bob Martin of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Col. John R. Boulé II of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Capt. Linda Fagan of the US Coast Guard, Peter Davidson of the Empire State Development Corporation, David Bragdon of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability, Adrian Benepe of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Amanda Burden of the NYC Planning Commission, Cas Holloway of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and Seth Pinsky of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.”
Thanks to Pat Folan of Pelican Passage . . . a new Cutler boat? See another foto at the end of the post.
Also thanks to Pat, a new Vane Brothers boat . . . Quantico Creek. See fotos of the launch of the 3000 hp tug here.
A fairly new Wilmington Towing vessel, Capt Harry, brother of Sonie.
Odin, seen here many times before
Marion C. Bouchard, 1979 built.
Bohemia, a 4200 hp Vane boat.
And thanks to east river, the tiniest ATB power unit towing barge Massachusetts . . .
Clearly not a tug, but I wonder if anyone can identify this self-described Black Pearl . . . .
Finally, as promised, another view of the first vessel: Crystal Cutler, a 1600ish hp newbuild rcently arrived in the sixth boro. Welcome!
For more of Pat’s great fotos, click here. All others by Will Van Dorp.
See you at the MWA 2010 Waterfront Conference on Tuesday. For details, click the icon on left side of page.
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