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Ten weeks ago I did this post about Kraken–the best named vessel in the sixth boro. That day, I sat on the west shore of Bayonne looking at Elizabeth. But yesterday . . . with many thanks to Frank Belesimo, VP of Cashman Dredging, I got onto the water for a close-up tour of the Kraken and masterful description of how it works. Here we approach the boat with our backs to Bayonne. That’s St. Patrick’s Church to the right. The red tug is Jay Michael (1980).
The orange /red tint to the water speaks of the red clay soil of the area as well as
the cords that conduct the blast signal into the charges placed below.
Three bore-platforms operate along a rail, drilling into the bottom and placing the charges.
In the background on the Elizabethport shore is the huge now-defunct Singer plant.
This is intense work.
Moving inside the house, notice Elizabeth Marine Terminal/Port Newark in the background, along with the peninsula of Bayonne and the cliffs of Manhattan beyond. And on the line stretched betwen bore-platforms, those nodes at the end of each orange signal cord will
ultimately be clipped together so that when the time comes, a coordinated blast will occur down below, cracking up the
whatever hard bottom material needs to be taken away to reach the contracted depth.
More on this dredging project later. All fotos by Will Van Dorp; getting the tour the same day the Shuttle flew over . . . I positive NASA wanted a close-up view of the project as well.
This foto shortchanges both Porto–container vessel at Howland Hook–and whatever aircraft flies above it. Which aircraft . . . you may wonder?
This one!! Or these ones.
Astride the Boeing’s shoulders is OV-101, the engineless shuttle that never entered space, escorted
by a T-38 chase plane.
They checked out the Bayonne Bridge and
scoped out progress on the still second-tallest building in Manhattan,
as closeup as they could . . .
and flew over Newark Liberty International before landing at Kennedy. The foto below is a clue to my special platform for these shots . . . to be revealed tomorrow.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Check out John Skelson’s fotos here. And great landing fotos here by John Huntington. Still more here by Mai Armstrong.
Ultimately,Enterprise will be barged upriver and be preserved as part of the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. To make room for OV-101, the museum has sent three aircraft upriver, literally: MiG-15, a Douglas F-3D Skyknight, and a Supermarine Scimitar. To see them barging upriver to ESAM, be at the Waterford Flight of Five tomorrow.
And on the subject of preservation, a request . . . tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79 need your vote to demonstrate the power of social media and, thereby, win a grant. Vote DAILY!!
Click on the logo below, register, scroll thru to find “Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Museum Barge,” and vote once a day through May 21. Ask your friends to vote too.
Yesterday I posted a foto of JoAnne Reinauer III: there was a 1 and then the 3 . . . I wonder what happened to 2. Not so with Maurania. I just looked and there was a 1 and a 2. Maurania 2 was launched in Brooklyn in 1952 and still operates in New London as Towmaster.
Maurania was built in Delaware in 1925. Click here to see her beefy hull on a beach after Hurricane Carol.
Maurania sounds like it’s the name of a country in Africa . . . but sorry: it exists only in science fiction. A beach in Mauretania is home to
one of the world’s largest ship graveyards. Here and here are some recent tugster fotos of Maurania III. Now what I want to know is . . . what became of the golden eagle that used to adorn her house . . . .
Unrelated: Two HUGE objects are Thialf, here floating into Rotterdam . .. and here .. . the way to move ship’s propellors quickly from a Bahamian warehouse to an Italian shipyard.
And for some small floating objects to offset the huge, consider these ocean-going vessels from a recent post from a Brooklynite on Ice.
Today minimal text prevails. I took these fotos in a total of nine minutes. Below is foto #1.
#2.
#3. Note the prop race on starboard side of Laura K.
#4.
#5. Margaret Moran helps Commander depart Howland Hook stern first aka
backing down. Foto #6.
#7.
#8.
#9.
#10. Note two of the charge towers (if that’s what they’re called) on Kraken, the bedrock cracker.
#11.
#12. Note Manhattan cliffs reaching over the flatlands of Bayonne.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Commander is Europe-bound. Previous backing down reports are here, here, here, and here.
Here was the first one, two years ago. Actually . . . this post should be called “waiting for Pioneer, ” one 1885 steel and iron schooner, said to be transiting through the Kills back to South Street Seaport.
But in the unpredictable ways of the sixth boro, this is the first Pioneer that showed up, stern first and
made securely to a McAllister–Michael J.–one I’ve never seen before.
Anyone know from whence? Actually Crowley Mars also arrived that way midday today . . . stern by bow of Bruce A. McAllister. More fotos of the Crowley visitors tomorrow. Anyone know what the plans are?
About an hour after Mars and Pioneer transited to the west, I saw the unmistakeable lines of a schooner . . .
the Pioneer I was expecting.
In the next month, volunteers will sweat and tie spars and sails onto the poles and
this vessel–so absent all throughout 2011–will again gallop or wallow across the Upper Bay.
This Pioneer had an Anacostia-escort for a few minutes before the schooner took the tug’s stern and
made for Manhattan. Meanwhile . . .
this vessel, Katherine G, a liftboat–not a tug–whose foto I took about a year ago here–had
a mishap over on the north side of Liberty Island and ended up like this. This foto was taken at 10:16 this morning.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Thanks much to eastriver for the heads up . . . .
For more on Katherine G, see what Newyorkology has to report.
And this Halifax-centric tugboat blog to check out . . .
Wow! It’s been over three years since I last used this title. Here’s S 15.
A few hours this morning evoked the sense of the sixth boro as a place for the likes of Harbour First and Charles D. McAllister, larger vessels from larger organizations,
as well as
others . . like Thornton Bros. Guess which of the five smaller tugs here is the oldest?
Or Maria J,
John P. Brown,
Gage Paul Thornton, here beside the resplendent Maria T barge,
0r Iron Mike?
How about another look at each . . . . Thornton Bros,
Maria J,
John P. Brown,
Gage Paul Thornton, with the beautiful stained wood door,
Iron Mike,
or . . . to throw in another,
Durham? That’s John P. once again in the distance passing the globe-trotting, Suez-transiting Advance Victoria . . . .
And you were right if you guessed Gage Paul Thornton, ex-Coastline Girls, launched 1943. Launch dates for the others, to the best of my info, are as follows: John P Brown 2002, Iron Mike 1977, Maria J 1971, Durham 1964, and Thornton Bros 1958.
On the southern end of Arthur Kill lie in barely perceptible disintegration two tugboats launched one year later than Gage Paul Thornton . . . namely ATR-89 and LT-653.
Unrelated: It looks like I’ll not be able to salvage Ryou-Un Maru . . . .
10:18 Note Shooters Island. Charles D. McAllister is on port bow, out of sight. An unidentified Vane unit (yellow front) stands off to allow the containership to round the bend. Maurania III is on starboard near stern.
Bergen Point is more than a 90-degree turn.
10:21 With the Zim ship through the turn, the Vane unit moves through. The tug upper right hurries toward the Arthur Kill for an assist there.
1036. It took me less than 15 minutes to get to Faber Park aka “the swimming pool” for these. In the meantime, a Bouchard unit rounded the point westbound after the Vane unit had passed eastbound.
African Spirit is next to round the bend.
10:37. Ellen (ex-YTB 793) on the port bow. That link takes you to Jed’s recent post about his YTB experience.
As it turns first to starboard and then to port around Shooters and into the Arthur Kill, here’s the surface governing a large part of the force.
10:39. The tow passes Laura K. about midway through.
Less than 20 minutes after assisting the Zim ship, Charles D. is on the stern of African Spirit.
10:40
By now . . . a little over a week later, the Zim ship is in Jamaica*, and African Spirit is out of AIS range, somewhere southward.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
* Not surprisingly, as of midnight, March 7 into 8, Zim San Francisco awaits passage through the Panama Canal at Colon.
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.
For a bit more context than yesterday’s post . . . I visited the AK twice yesterday . . . before my “shift” started and at a break eight hours later. Doubleclick enlarges fotos.
At 0651, I caught my first glimpse of Bayonne’s new landmark.
I know about the “green flash” at dawn and dusk; I don’t know if there’s a counterpart term for this yellow spear pointing to the sun’s track.
The foto below of Howland Hook was taken less than a minute after the one above; looking southwest v. east makes an amazing difference. And this difference is much more noticeable on fotos than to naked eye. I like the pink clouds in the orange morning.
Watching this diving bird (grebe) was part of my prep for a long work day.
At 1442, I took a break, and headed down the street to revisit the AK. Marie J Turecamo (1968, ex-Traveller) was southbound on the Kill as Matthew Scott headed for the dredge.
And another type of orange flowed onto the scene . . . 830′ x 144′.
Eagle Beaumont, escorted by Bruce A. McAllister (1974, ex-Ellen F. McAllister) and McAllister Responder.
Thirty-six feet of her below the surface of the AK,
regally she passed, a huge cistern
to be avoided by all traffic
all around.
By this point, I was about halfway through my break. More tomorrow.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Call this a 4000+ word post. Arthur Kill is the complement of the much referred-to KVK, and it’s gorgeous, here at sunrise, just before 7 am.
I hope you agree what they say about the picture-word number correspondence. If so, this post has about 4,058 words.
Coot?
Here’s a dismal afternoon, 14:45 brightened by Eagle Beaumont.
More fotos of Arthur Kill orange tomorrow.
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