You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category.
Here was 9.
But this post presents a mystery. Maybe someone knows how (or through whom) to find the answer, possibly in US Coast Guard archives. A group of veterans who spent their time in the Dutch Navy serving aboard the vessel below want a reunion but have lost their ship, possibly to Davy “drug-smuggler” Jones.
Wamandai A870 was launched in the late 1950s from Den Helder. From there she went to the Dutch New Guinea, where she worked with Wambrau A871. When the Dutch left the colony to Indonesia in 1962, Wamandai and Wambrau returned to the Netherlands. Wambrau then was Netherlands-based as Sea Driver II until she was sold to a private company in Toledo, OH!! where she works as Josephine to this day. Click here (and scroll through) for some fotos.
Wamandai remained in the Royal Navy and in 1964 traveled to the Netherlands Antilles. As a navy auxiliary vessel, she worked there until January 1986, when she was decommissioned and sold to a resident of Curacao.
According to Sea of Grass: The Maritime Drug War 1970–1990, by Charles M. Fuss, Jr., she may have become a “mothership.” Here’s a quote from pp. 226-7 that has an unsatisfying ending to me and to the Dutch Navy vets who called it to my attention: ”…The routine transportation of multi-ton loads of marijuana through the northern Atlantic ended in 1987. The 90′ stateless motor vessel Wamandai with 22,000 pounds was one of the last motherships seized. A Coast Guard C-130 from Elizabeth City, NC, found the suspect 105 miles southeast of Bermuda on 2 September, 1987. A marathon air surveillance began that lasted until 5 September, when the cutter Gallatin (WHEC-721) finally arrived after being released from a navy exercise. This was definitely one for the Airedales. ” The next paragraphs switch to the 1987 drug interdiction campaign in the Pacific.
The question is: What happened to Wamandai? Would it have been scuttled then and there, or is there a chance that it was sold either as scrap or vessel?
Previous mention of motherships on this blog dates back to this post from 2008. For recent fotos of Gallatin in the sixth boro after Sandy, click here.
OK . . . I fail here. Which Moran and which McAllister are those in the Sunday morning chop?
Quick post: Shelby 1978.
Evening Tide 1970.
Jay Michael 1980 doing a re-enactment of my December 15, 2012 post here (scroll to third foto).
Long time no see . . . Superior Service 1981.
North Sea 1982.
Laura K. Moran 2008.
Resolute 1975 and Discovery Coast 2012.
All fotos taken in April by Will Van Dorp, who’s feeling it’s significant that so many of these are stern shots . . . i.e., I’m struggling to keep up today.
Actually, this is a reprise of a post I did earlier this week . . . Ferry Coursen carried trucks. 
Mary H pushed a creek-size barge.
Winter fishing continued apace aboard Eastern Welder.
I got a close-up of Mary H.
Brendan Turecamo headed out for an assist.
A slightly different angle on Sorensen Miller shows the yellow as strapping.
More shots of John P. Brown moving railcars over to New Jersey.
A Moose boat on patrol barreled right at me.
Hunting Creek got light at the mooring.
And a USACE boat practiced bathymetry.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. For fotos of Hamilton (ON) harbor delights, click here. Here’s more info on the 1935 tug he shows. It’s for sale for less than a loaded Escalade. Unrelated . . . another blog I read these days is Ohio River blog with good inland rivers fotos here. And since I’m all over the place today . . .check out this Flickr page by Guillermo Barrios of southern South American tugs and towboats. And finally check out these fotos of the old bridge in Bucksport, ME. I haven’t crossed that bridge–about to be demolished– in over two decades . . . .
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 300,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 5 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!
Yesterday close ups . . . today zoomed outs, like this. There’s something eerie about a bulker named Tigris (2003) headed up the Hudson, for Yonkers and then Aruba, but I’m glad bowsprite caught this foto, which suggests how narrow the North River here is. I’d seen Tigris but been unable to get a foto.
Likewise, Ocean Morning . . . I saw her on AIS over in Port Newark, but . . . only thanks to John Watson do I have a foto of her leaving here for Boston.
Great Eastern (2005) I caught several times . . . and by now, like Ocean Morning, she’s in Boston.
Yuan He (1994) also heads from here to Boston; this German-built vessel seems
to be showing her segments overly so distinctly I could be convinced she’s about . . . to molt!
Maersk Willemstadt was here last week and is already outbound from Savannah, Miami as next destination.
Likewise, Turandot (1994 , is Georgia bound tonight. Turandot, like other WW vessels, carries an operatic name like Don Juan and Traviata.
Conti Larimar (2011) may still be
loading scrap in the sixth boro.
What ship is this? Maria T
is actually a barge, a dry cargo covered barge whose contents are suggested by the name . . . LaFarge, and if that sounds French . . . well, it is. And I believe it’s pushed by Doris Moran.
Passing in the KVK here are Advance Victoria, escorted by Gramma Lee T. Moran, and
Valle di Granada, 2006, 2002, and 2005, respectively.
And to conclude, dramatic vessel with a forbidding name . . . Cape Wrath (1982), named for this wet and wild desert . .. of sorts, getting serviced over at GMD Bayonne.
Fotos 1 and 2 as attributed; all others by Will Van Dorp.
Unpacking a suitcase or knapsack I like to be fast; unpacking my head after a trip I like to be slow. The foto (doubleclick enlarges) below I took Christmas morning 7:57 am . . . Hiwassee River under I-75 . . . it was so moody, so unwelcoming of Christmas scenes that I stopped the car on the shoulder just beyond the bridge and ran back to get this foto. I know you’re not supposed to do that, but . . .
Notice that I’ve added many new fotos to the Flickr show on the left side of this page, all taken at Old Car City in White, Georgia, a place of ghosts like this one of Hernando de Soto. His face here looks as disoriented as I felt walking through the
4000 cars haunting this woods. The image below is interactive.
Obviously I saw cars here, in various states of degradation, but I also saw people from my past. No . . . I’m not really a lunatic, but seeing a De Soto I think of the great-uncle who sponsored my father to this country. Seeing a Hudson I remember Ernie, the farmer from across the valley who drove one unless he was sitting on his Minneapolis Moline face flushed from a combination of sun and hard cider he made himself.
My parents drove me home from my birthplace/hospital in a Plymouth.
Cadillacs and almst all the cars of my youth were massive, chromeplated, and evocative of greatness with their artdeco decorations. I could go on, but check the Flickr shots.
I’ve said before . . . Wilmington is a place I’ll go back to next December if not sooner. Meet Log Dog, launched 1953, (ex-D. E. 51) and
Isco . . . Here’s a foto of Isco from the bank of Eagle Island.
Pelicans . . . I still need to get a foto of a squadron of these guys wingtips skimming the water. Help me out here: I recall someone telling me of a pelican sighted on Jamaica Bay last summer. Anyone see it or hear of it?
Last ones . . . my March 2011 shots of Vinalines Queen has been getting lots of views the past few weeks.
I’m not sure why, but here are a few I hadn’t published. I’d love to hear from you.
So . . . the unpacking continues. Hope you enjoy the new Flickr shots.
. . . not nearly so catchy a mnemonic as “right red returning,” but it means the same thing. Thomas J. Brown green left returning,
McCormack Boys green right going,
Kristy Ann Reinauer green port returning,
A nameless Caldwell truckable tug green starboard going,
Miss Gill with scow GPR (green port returning),
NJ State Police GSG,
scow GPR . . .
Miriam GSG,
Atlantic Salvor and scow,
That green 9 in the KVK is a great place to set up fotos, but IMHO, it’s best to stick with “right red returning” as a memory keeper.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Here was Pairs 3, a series I decided to revive when I saw this rough if felicitous pairing of hormone-intoxicated geese one springy morning last weekend.
A pair of eagles atop two Dalzell boats. More Dalzell boats can be found in video #8 here, thanks to Bellboatbob.
A pair of Moran tugs (James Turecamo and Jean Turecamo) help River Elegance do circles off the Statue of Liberty.
A pair of Weeks tugs (Robert and Kathleen) move Weeks Crane 533 eastbound out of the KVK.
Amy C and Charles D McAllister head back to the yard after a shift.
Susquehanna and Quantico Creek partner Doubleskin 59 into a dock.
Brendan J and Rhea I Bouchard do the same with B. No. 215.
Ah! springtime seems to compel pairing. Merry Mardi Gras!
All fotos except number 2 by Will Van Dorp. Special thanks to Allen Baker and Bob McLaren for the Dalzell foto.
Featured many times on this blog: McAllister Responder (ex-Exxon Empire State, Empire State) launched in 1967 in Jacksonville. Note the deckhand’s communication. If my info is correct, then ghosts
live there today. Here’s a haunting timeline and set of b/w fotos. That’s tanker Lian An Hu in the background.
Weeks tug Robert (ex-Emily S, 1982) stands by Crane Barge 532 in midstream off the Financial District, awaiting more “erosion mats.”
Austin Reinauer (1978, ex-Mobil 5, Morania No. 1, Tamarac) heads across from the KVK toward Erie Basin.
Jill Reinauer (1967, ex-Ranger) southbound past Ellis Island, the place the Lenape knew as Kioshk . . . or Gull Island.
Peter F. Gellatly (delivered just over a year ago) heads in the same direction as Jill Reinauer.
Eagle Service (ex-Grant Candies, 1996) and crabber Alexa J off the wintry dunes of ”Konstapel’s Hoeck.”
Jakobson-built, 1967 Ruby M, ex-Texaco Fire Chief, pushing fuel barge Fire Island. Now if you didn’t know this to be the name of local geography, wouldn’t such a name as “fire island” make you nervous?
Lincoln Sea, used to be blue, anchored off Red Hook a few days ago. Off to the left, Moran barge Massachusetts anchors.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Actually I’m creating the mystery, but I uncreate it after the fourth foto. You might try to guess what’s happening. I put in some lovely distractors. What was happening on Coney Island this morning between 7 and 930 am? Man with red shorts, a swimmer, and tug Edith Thornton (1951, ex-Signet Defender, J. K. McLean).
SUNY Maritime’s Empire State--all flags flying– returns from its three-month summer training cruise to the Mediterranean.
Man with red kite in the air; black spot in between.
Man with green bathing cap wades in as a brace of jetskis bobs nearby. So far, it’s all men with head gear, but
then Bowsprite approaches with camera; yellow kayaks and NYPD as background. She didn’t say, “We have you surrounded.” This could mean only one thing: click here and find out. Here’s the site for CIBBOWS.
Swimmers in green caps (warming and limbering up) did the 5 km race.
Long Island City Community Boathouse spotted, as did the jetskiers.
Cristian read the rules.
And the first wave went in, heading for the first
turn around the buoy.
The second wave (white caps) began their one-mile race to the Coney fishing pier and
back.
Bowsprite served as beach-spotter at the finish line, where here arrive the first finishers in green caps. After
five kilometers in one hour and 18 minutes it was this close.
Now the man with the kite . . . that speck was a camera. Click here and here to see Scott Dunn’s amazing photography with kite-suspended camera.
Empire State and Edith Thornton . . . their role was to bless the race with their beauty.
This was my first swim race; I plan to attend the one in November. About the Aquarium, it served as venue for registration and celebration; as we prepared there for the race in the wee hours before sunrise, I overheard some flush pinnipeds wagering their fishy breakfast on race outcomes.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
And here’s another swimming organization to learn about: Swim Across America. Recall the 2009 swim post by tugster . . . uh, me? And someone’s unconventional techniques?
Recent Comments