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Over six years ago, here was the last time I used this title. At 09:23 this morning, E. R. Denver was at Howland Hook as an outbound tanker eased by. E. R. seems to have been created by erasure from MaERsk.
. . . nine seconds later, it’s
Mount Everest.
This is serious, precision navigating,
with even less tolerance of errors because of the channel work, and
surrounding traffic, like Kristy Ann Reinauer and Paul Andrew and dredge units.
This short stretch of Arthur Kill, where serious dredging is enlarging the channel, were featured here and here (a blast!!) back last October. I’m not given to playing video games or using simulators, but if such a thing were available, I can imagine spending time playing “games” imitating professionals piloting different types of vessels through ports of the world in every sort of conditions. Hats off to the professionals.
All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.
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Previously I’ve alluded to growing up on a working dairy farm, and the aging farm boy in me immediately recognizes the bundles there as some quite weathered straw. Cut the twine holding them together and there’s still some serviceable bedding in there for cows. But what structure is this?
Can straw and hay be a product of transshipment through the sixth boro . . . transferred by those cranes? Don’t those cranes look like the ones in the Brooklyn Navy Yard?
Surely this would be the largest hay barn I’ve ever seen. What’s going on here?
Falconia works in the livestock trade. Click on the link in the previous sentence to see her itinerary. Here and here are previous posts I’ve done on this enterprise. And this particular vessel, I first saw in the Port of Wilmington back in mid-October; whatever was happening, she entered the sixth boro over a month ago under tow, as captured here by John Watson.
The white-red-blue flag here is the banner of the aptly-named Corral Line. Search around that link a bit and you’ll find views of the interior of the vessels, scenes I’d love to see.
Falconia is the saltwater version of the Amazonian livestock carriers pictured here . . . fotos 11 and 12.
My uninformed guess is that the 1973 Norway-built Falconia is here with propulsion issues. Click here for what may be a fairly new foto of the vessel.
Click here for many fotos of livestock vessels. Meanwhile, I’ve got to get to the movie Life of Pi, which–if the book is any indication–has scenes of a ship transporting a zoo, unsuccessfully.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp, who still has many fotos from the Mississippi Valley.
Here was 15.
Cargoes of all sorts move through the harbor. One that has always surprised me is this ore from the Congo in the first half of the 20th century.
Here’s a vessel–certainly empty as it was towed to drydock in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard earlier this week. I missed it but John Watson caught it. Any ideas? I believe I saw it in Wilmington back in mid-October.
It’s Falconia of the Corral Line, adapted to carry things that go “moo” in the night. Stephanie Dann and Ruby M act like drovers to get Falconia into its own private East River corral. Having grown up on an upstate NY dairy farm, I’d love to see a Corral Line vessel loaded and at sea; even better, anchored on a calm night in a comfortable harbor.
Here’s an additional shot of the cargo barged in last week from Canada, powered by the inimitable Atlantic Salvor. The cargo, if you missed last week’s post, is antenna sections for the World Trade Center.
Look closely at that patch of blue on Stolt Emerald‘s port side.
Although not cargo, it is truly unique application of paint . . . surfing penguins.
And finally, look at the frontmost cargo on Zim Virginia.
Here’s sideview of two Ford tow trucks, ones to be operated by wrecker drivers rather than towing officers. And that’s Barbara McAllister running alongside.
Many thanks to John Watson for the Falconia fotos.
The forward portion of a new cruise ship? Yes, I smudged the identifying marks a slash here and there.
Nah . . . almost 39 years ago she was launched as New Zealand Bear, one of two C-7 S-88s launched in Baltimore for the Pacific Far East Line.
Today Horizon Producer is one of a few dozen Jones Act containerships. Here’s a foto of her leaving a drydocking at Brooklyn Navy Yard, a fact I heard about but never saw close up.
Compare bows here and
sterns. Here‘s a recent itinerary for Kobe Express. More comparison: Horizon Producer is 721′ loa x 95′, 25644 dwt. Kobe Express is panamax . . . i.e., 964′ loa x 104′, 66,700 dwt. See the 11th foto here for a panamax vessel shoehorned into a lock in Panama. Tugs are Kimberley Turecamo and Laura K. Moran.
If you fancy beam-on profiles, click here.
As an aside, yesterday morning Producer passed this sad derelict launched from the same shipyard 82 years before our vintage containership, Philip T. Feeney . . .
All fotos within the past three days by Will Van Dorp, who’s mulling over a gallivant tomorrow.
Speaking of the Jones Act, here’s a recent NYTimes article about American shipping companies like Liberty Maritime not getting a fair share of US shipping. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never heard of this company.
And shipping containers adding up to condos, check this out. It’s threesquared.
Yesterday a goal was to get a better look at this vessel, Ternen.
Her odd posture resulted from some marine variation on a flat tire.
And while I watched, this familiar bulbous bow appeared, headed for sea. Alice!! she was in town almost to the day six years after I started this blog.
Almost exactly four years ago I posted this, with a tallying of statistics about two years of watching/studying the empiricals of New York harbor aka the sixth boro.
Thanks to your continued encouragement in the form of reading, commenting, correcting . . . I’m still watching life on the most important boro of this port city.
The buffleheads are back, and when I asked, they let on they were really happy they were not gallopavos of any sort.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
By the way, no matter any info to the contrary, tomorrow is Blue Friday. Why blue? DonJon blue . . . of course. Atlantic Salvor will be arriving back in the boro towing sections of the WTC antenna. You can track it here.
How I spent Thanksgiving 22 years ago . .. in Basra, Iraq . . . click here.
I first used this title over five years ago here . . . back when I still put captions underneath fotos. My preference now is to put captions above because of how you need to scroll down to read a post. Sorry about the confusion.
SeaEden . . . sounds like it’s designed to make crew think conditions are idyllic . . . .
Foto comes from bowsprite . . . Dole Colombia. . . as blotchy yellow as a banana skin.
Adriatic Wave . . . movement of water or shape of energy or a social trend or a hand signal?
Asian Grace . . . as I pursued her a few weeks ago, I wondered what she was . . . Little did I expect a RORO, here assisted into the port of Wilmington by a tug mirage that appears to float of the water with a ball-shaped hull. Tugs might be Sonie and Sally.
Grand Champion . . . makes a recently stripped bicycle racer come to mind.
High Seas . . . looking calm. I’ll be there’s no vessel named “international waters,” although I once saw a rowboat with mare liberum painted on the bow.
I’ve never seen a vessel–not even this one–sans name. Actually this is Atlantic Pearl.
What attracted my attention to Himalaya was the spare prop, but the name memorializes a place as far from sea level as is possible.
Here’s a shot showing Puffin and Huffin together.
Ah . . . hand signal . . . so that’s how one might do the Adriatic Wave?
With the exception of Dole Colombia . . . all fotos by Will Van Dorp.
This was the Narrows at 0730 this morning.
I joined the ‘scapegoats for morning contemplation . . . to the east and
north. That orange tanker down there, they said, had a name I’d find interesting. But I couldn’t read it yet.
Below us, yacht Dofle Dust was bound for sea past Ratna Shalini.
A closeup showed this was Dodge Island, not Padre Island, as I’d supposed.
The camouflaged goat was too busy scratching to notice that the herd had headed down the slope.
Wow! SKS Tugela . . . what a name. i should have gotten a closer-up shot. And without google, I’d never have know a river by that name exists.
October dawn light is unique as it paints the stern here of Sea Valour.
Here’s a shot looking south . . .
and another as I walked to catch the ferry.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who was actually hoping to catch anything but also Crowley Innovation, which sneaked into the Kills via Raritan Bay.
More accurately . . . I could call this “off Duty’s starboard,” as all this traffic passed Duty in a 45-minute period while she was herself “off duty” and on the hook in Gravesend Bay. Less than 24 hours after I took these fotos, Duty raised the hook and sailed off south.
Two years back I snapped this foto of Duty out of the notch. Here, if you doubleclick to enlarge the foto below, you can see two smudges on the horizon, one on either side. Currently off Duty‘s starboard is a dredger . . . probably Padre Island. Off her port is a Zim container ship.
And something astern of that . . . and
that!
Zim Tarragona is a regular in the sixth boro, although I’ve possibly never posted/identified a foto of her.
Following her is this array, and
outbound, meeting her is MSC Pilar, now Europe-bound.
Together those two vessels carried a lot of containers . . .
Next into the Narrows and meeting MSC Pilar are APL Garnet and a ketch (?) named Bee, about which I know nothing.
Pilar (okay . . . I just like that name) moves under the Bridge at 13 knots . . .
And as they move into the Upper Bay, APL Garnet and Bee meet
Histria Gemma, a sister of whom I included here some six months back.
All this traffic went unnoticed by this fisherman, who . . . by the way . . . caught nothing from the depths either.
Next vessel in was the speedy Atlantic Compass, itself carrier of some mighty interesting cargoes.
And the final vessel of this 45-minute flurry of traffic . . . . Bow Clipper, previously featured here. Out beyond Bow Clipper is the slope where the ‘scapegoats do roam. Click here for a sense of her own roamings.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who . . . during all this traffic, was wondering what was happening on Duty.
What I’ve ben reading lately? Check out the Arthur Kill deepening project/blasting as negotiated by NYTugmaster here.
Happy 5th anniversary and the demise of Oriental Nicety at Oil-Electric here.
And how does a wind turbine blade arrive in Gloucester? Check out Joey’s blog here.
Finally . . . from the NYTimes, a new museum in Antwerp looking like shipping containers here.
The glimpse I caught while crossing westbound on the Verrazano Bridge told me to head for Fort Wadsworth: fog with defined geographical boundaries lay at least 175′ deep over the waters’ surface at the Narrows. Once standing on the overlook at the fort, the stacks of two vessels (l to r) Stuttgart Express and Celebrity Summit seemed not unlike the sails of two submarines, sub-fogs in this case.
Celebrity Summit was crawling forward bellowing like a lost bovine and
as it sank deeper, left a distinct wake.
When I say geographical boundaries, I mean dynamic ones, and they expanded upward as I watched.
Keeping watch over this shifting masses with me were the previously mentioned ‘scapegoats, the ones minding the grassroots, poison ivy roots, . . . any sorts of roots on the slopes near the Fort.
After convincing the watchers that I was no more interested in their political predictions as in anyone else’s, the spokesgoat suggested I follow Celebrity Summit‘s path to the stable, as he phrased it.
And this seemed as good a location as available. Ongoing bellowings from the vessel confirmed my choice.
Celebrity Summit moves stern first into BCLCT.
The rising sun began to cut through the fog and project a golden sheen onto the low clouds lying on the waters of the Upper Bay.
Pegasus (last seen here last week) makes for the North River . . . taking the Celebrity Summit‘s bow. Here’s a foto of Celebrity Summit sans fog and post-Irene.
Guiding Summit through much of her voyage through the fog is Laura K. Moran (I believe).
All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
Guess what this is? I’ll call it T-time on Kraken.
Then this is T minus five minutes. Note the orange mass just forward of the channel marker.
T minus five seconds!
Believe it or not . . . this is T PLUS five seconds. So, there was a thud that resonated through the concrete barrier I braced myself behind on shore at least 600 feet away, and then the sound of spray seen in the first foto above. But five seconds beyond . . . mist had dissipated and some gurgles formed in the water.
T plus fifteen seconds . . . the first bird arrives and the water turns muddy.
T plus a half minute, the gurgles have grown, appear grainy and muddy, and a yellowish mist forms.
One minute beyond . . birds have heard the dinner bell . . . er . . . blast.
I wonder what the cormorant on lower right of center is thinking . . ..
Two minutes beyond . . .
And the zone reopens to traffic. All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who has a blast every time he goes down to the water. The last blast depicted on this blog–taken in Panama–was the final foto in this post from back in March.
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