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Click here for my serendipitous fotos of WLV-612 under way a few months back. I traded those fotos for a tour. But the vessel immediately below is not 612 . . . it’s LV-87, 43 years older than the 612. Check out the riveted hull. Here and here are some previous posts on that Ambrose showing vintage in situ views and high and dry ones at Caddell’s last spring.
In comparison, here’s the bow of the 1950 Nantucket aka WLV-612.
The C covers a hatch which when swung outward is marked with a U so that from a distance, one would still read the name on side as Nantucket. I’m not kidding.
This is what a welded lightship stern looks like. But where is Nan, with whom I had the appointment to view the vessel?
A cellphone call brings movement to a forward portlight, and with the right password,
this hatch swung open. ”No, I’m not selling anything or giving away religion . . . I just being tugster. A tour maybe?”
Spirals still lead between decks, although I’m guessing that everything about this vessel has been redone to yacht standards. For the official site fotos of what’s below decks, click here. There are many more fotos on this listing . . for less than $7 m it can be yours. It will probably leave the sixth boro before the end of this month.
Prominently framed below, the builder’s plate. But how did WAL become WLV? Addendum #2 Here’s the answer.
This vessel was the USCG last working lightship until 1983, and it did “other tasks” until being decommissioned in March 1985.
For a PDF on many US lightships, click here. Two of them are abandoned on a riverbank in Suriname. For some haunting fotos of a similar 1910 Dutch lightship (Lichtschip Suriname-Rivier) along that same river, click here. It seems there is a restoration project underway, as filmed here in the past month . . . but in Dutch. Basically, the narrator says “don’t fall through the deck, vessel came here in 1911, here’s the washroom, the kitchen, the anchor machinery, the light tower . . . here’s the companionway heading below, yes . . . there’s water down there but we’re hoping to get her dry.” Come back when the job is done; meanwhile I am NOT going down below where some nasty critters might have settled in.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
. . . well it’s actually on the Bay, San Juan Bay. Coming upon this . . . I first thought an accident had occurred.
Note the two objects–helmeted heads–bobbing on the water in lower left.
Then a basket exits and lowers,
half a minute later it’s returning to the aircraft,
fifteen seconds later,
three minutes later,
and a minute later.
These vessels slowly left the scene. My conclusion . . . a drill.
But I’m not sure.
All fotos in San Juan harbor by Will Van Dorp.
My library for the time period January 1, 2012 until today contains 11,244 fotos. Starting from tomorrow, any 2012 fotos will be taken along the road. So I decided to choose ONE foto per month, quite subjectively and without regard for this foto having previously been featured here. I don’t claim these are the best of the month. Only 12 fotos, one per month.
January, Sandmaster . . . waiting to refuel. Today, Dec 22 . . . Sandmaster was out there doing what it usually does, mining sand.
February . . . Eagle Beaumont escorted in the Arthur Kill by Charles D. McAllister.
March . . . side by side, CSAV Suape and bulker Honesty, Pacific bound through the Miraflores locks, demonstrating graphically what panamax means.
April . . . red-trimmed Taurus west bound on the KVK, cutting past Advance Victoria. And just today, I saw Taurus, now blue-trimmed, heading north between Manhattan and Jersey City.
Choosing just one foto per month is tough, but for May, here’s Swan packed and almost ready to go hulldown toward Africa with these specimens of the Crowley, Reinauer, and Allied fleets.
June . . . Weeks Shelby tows shuttle Enterprise from JFK toward Manhattan.
July and an unforgettable 4th using Pegasus as subject under the rocket’s glare
August . . . and coal-fired Badger heads into the sunset . . . and Wisconsin.
September, and a parade of vessels including Urger and Buffalo leave the Federal Lock bound for Waterford. My inimitable platform here is Fred’s Tug44.
At the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner race, crew is setting sail on the unique tugantine Norfolk Rebel. In the distance, it’s Pride of Baltimore 2.
Coming into the home stretch from Montreal, it’s Atlantic Salvor delivering segments of the WTC1 antenna.
And December . . . it’s Stena Primorsk looming over the USCG vessels. At this time, Stena Primorsk was impatient to load that first hold with “north dakota crude,” only to experience the malfunction that has left her temporarily disabled upriver, its outer hull gashed open.
Tomorrow I hit the road . . . gallivanting and visiting season. I thank all of you for reading, many of you for helping me get these fotos, lots of you for correcting my errors and supplying missing info. Happy New Year and let’s pray for much-needed Peace on Earth . . . .
All hype . . . like Camping and others . . . just to mention recent hoaxes.
Nevertheless, I made my rounds. High winds chill to the bone but no doomsday out here . . . Brian Nicholas pushed recycling into the Kills,
Catherine Miller moved semis beyond the end of the bridge,
Nomad and Alpine Alaska waited inside the Narrows,
as did Mount Karava, which first appeared here almost brand-new over five years ago.
Padre Island anchored off the BAT, taking time off from vacuuming the channels south of the Narrows.
Michigan Service headed for the Kills.
OOCL Kuala Lumpur shifted containers.
Given the hype about the apocalypse, I kept eyes wide open for debris and found some, although this is long-planned and controlled demolition.
USCG made their own rounds.
Six years ago, I put up this winter solstice post, led off by this fine foto . . . compliments of Richard Wonder . . . of an elegant John B. Caddell, recently lifted off a place where floating things should never go. And speaking of vessels finding themselves in places that should remain off limits, check out this and this article about a tanker bottomed out on the upper Hudson. “Bakken crude” . . . that’s a term I’ve not heard before. If anyone upriver has fotos to share, please get in touch.
I’ll use fotos from the past week, since the past two days have been darky and rainy. Penobscot Bay is called an ice-breaker, a mission not yet activated this season.
M/V Dynamic Striker–with an arresting name–probably wants to forget its high-speed chase on the Indian Ocean two years ago.
Susana S and (in the distance) Intrepid Canada await in the anchorage. Since that moment (Wednesday), Susana S has departed for points east and Intrepid Canada has move up Raritan Bay and into Arthur Kill.
Here Cosco Osaka departs the KVK, bound for sea, i.e., Boston and then maybe the Canal in Panama.
I’m guessing that every major port in the world sees a member of this fleet now and then, most looking like Bow Fortune here. For great fotos of these set, taken both onboard and from a distance, click here.
John B. still lies in a beached position, but yesterday Brian Nicholas rather than Sarah Ann attended crane barge Raritan Bay.
HanJin San Francisco left here a week ago, made a few stops headed south, and is now bound for the Canal. Previously I caught her here in late September this year.
Stena Primorsk–named for the largest Russian port on the Baltic–has lingered in the harbor for the better part of a month now, occasionally giving the impression she’s outbound somewhere distant.
Two weeks til winter . . . and we’ve not yet seen a frost locally.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
I’m always looking for “first-timers” like Sam.
Is this the one . . . Sterling Equipment, built 1972? And it appears to have a Randive unit on the foredeck.
Viking, North River bound completes Ellis Island.
Reliance heads for the KVK.
Tampa, nearly 30 years old, has seen some intrigue in its day.
Aha! the small brown vessel beyond Eagle Baltimore . . . it’s December 1 and Eastern Welder has returned fishing to the sixth boro.
And a bit later, an IVS bulker named Kite passes the same tanker.
Doris Moran plows through the KVK.
Indy pushes through the Buttermilk and into the East River.
A USCG RIB passed off the bow of Stena Primorsk.
Enjoy another shot of Annabelle Dorothy.
Now this fits in the Whatzit?!@!? category. A sloop named Jazz and a sportfisherman named T2 mooring off some sort of workboat I’ve never seen . . . . Anyone help?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Looking at this set of fotos, words beginning with “w” came to mind. Like wind-swept, an apt way to describe this land’s end called Halibut Point in Rockport, here looking toward Maine. That’s “halibut” as in “haul about,” because as you sail round the point, you’ll encounter different winds. The rockpile is quarried chunks never loaded onto to ships, never built into construction sites.
Wind again comes to mind in this assemblage of traditional and new-fangled means of harnessing it. One is up, and two will follow. Schooners are Highlander Sea and Adventure.
Wavemaster is NOT the familiar name for the 47′ MLB like these, but it should be.
Wake . . . follows codzilla…
OK . . this one’s a stretch, but whenever I see a small RIB like this of the Massachusetts Environmental Police, I think sirens . . . not whistles, but then
there’s a Rupert, a 50′ RIB, and if the previous was whistles, then this is whistles and bells. If anyone’s thinking to give tugster a gift for Christmas, this is tops on my wishlist.
Viking Starliner wandered through the sixth boro the other day, possibly in for some work, but then it headed south . . . Florida-bound?
And finally this, a winter-cold sunrise, taken a week ago with a hint that December is not far off, a year winds down, waning hours of light.
And just apropos of absolutely nothing, had we had a few more hurricanes, we’d have gotten to hurricane William this year.
No . . . Joan Turecamo has not been re-cast as a government boat, but what about that small craft off her port?
Yup . . Coast Guard, maybe off a larger USCG vessel in port. A cold weather drill?
Here’s–in front of Ellis Island–a rare convergerce of . . . a Newark fireboat, an enclosed USCG RIB, and a USACE survey vessel named Moritz.
But here’s the real treat , USCGC Gallatin aka WHEC-721.
The cutter is named for the founder of NYU!! A brace of Jayhawks played/drilled in the skies over the sixth boro today.
Note the dusting of snow from Athena post-Sandy.
Gallatin measures 378′ loa x 43′ . . . ie, 8.8:1 . . . skinny and fast.
I’m not sure what’s being transferred here, but it’s a welcome return for me of Shelby Rose, the bright blue and yellow tug.
Since it’s been so long since I’ve seen Shelby Rose–certainly NOT a government boat- here’s another shot.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated question: both yesterday and todayI saw folks wearing Smit apparel working in lower Manhattan. Anyone know who brought Smit into the “unwatering” and cleanup?
Here was installment #21.
This foto was taken from Front Street in Stapleton, Staten Island. The gray vessel is docked at the pier now used by Firefighter II. What’s remarkable about this foto–I think–is that Hurricane Sandy has brought together here (l to r) a re-purposed C5 and a repurposed C4, two old-fashioned but reborn American built ships. Let’s take them chronologically. The black hull is T/S Kennedy, a C4-S-66a originally built by Avondale Industries as Velma Lykes, has been activated to serve as housing for relief workers. Thank you Mass Maritime. The gray hull is SS Wright, a C5-S-78a originally built by Ingalls Shipbuilding as Mormacsun, was quite some time ago reconfigured as aviation (helicopter) logistics support ship T-AVB-1.
Here’s as close as I could get, and
here’s a view from the south.
RIBs are a common sight here, and
Is this the Moose boat that sank off Breezy Point back in September 2012?
And finally . . . I know Patrick Sky is not a government boat, but she was posing here yesterday with a snmall UACE vessel.
While looking at this list of MARAD design vessels, which include Wright and Kennedy, I notice E. A. Fisher, built in 1963 and donated to NYC in 1993. Of course, I’m new on this scene, but has anyone heard of this vessel? What became of it?
Think of the sixth boro as a destination/origin as well as a crossroads. WMEC-905 Spencer anchored in that point of convergence as of midday.
In points not far from Spencer and the Statue, cargo destined for/originating in this port was moving only if it could transfer in the harbor, petroleum liquid, like here, congress happened between barges powered by Pati T Moran and Sassafras as Meagan Ann passes by with a scow. For debris?
Kimberly Turecamo stands by with Long Island itself . . . well, a fuel barge by that name. The spirit is greatly willing to move fuel to faltering consumers on the shore, but the distribution system is broken, for now.
Nicole Leigh Reinauer awaits the green light.
St Andrews with barge on this side and Kimberly Poling on the other . . . like thirsty twins on their mother, Glory Express.
Traversing the sixth boro . . . Marion Moran pushes LaFarge barge Adelaide to points south.
Supply boat ABC-1 passes tanker Favola.
Diane B waits with a barge. A problem is that debris like blowaway and sunken containers may lurk unseen at the transfer docks.
Doris Moran, with another LaFarge barge, makes a power turn from the North River into the East River.
A cluster of DonJon vessels–tugs Mary Alice, Thomas D. Witte, and Brian Nicholas–attend to crane barges Columbia NY and Raritan Bay on some “unwatering” project just west of the Battery Coast Guard station.
Transiting the sixth boro from south to North is Apollo Bulker. More fotos of her later. She may be headed to Albany.
Ken’s Booming & Boat Service tug Durham passes the “seeing boat” Circle Line Manhattan.
Over by the Brooklyn Navy Yard, schooner Lynx heads for the Sound, past an East River ferry.
And–this just in–as of 1900 hrs tonight, APL Sardonyx became the first container ship to enter Port Elizabeth,
escorted in by McAllister Sisters and Barbara McAllister. Interestingly, see the foto here of her as one of the first into the port post-Irene!! Here’s another shot almost exactly two years ago of APL Sardonyx.
And a bit later, APL Coral came in, escorted by Elizabeth and Ellen McAllister.
Outside the Narrows waits USS Wasp, recently here five months ago for Fleet Week. A pulse has been re-established.
I am mindful that many residents of the area are hurting. My prayers go out for relief for them soon. Folks who suffered through post-Katrina are also sending along their prayers and encouragement, their solidarity with Sandy-afflicted.
We went through a “reboot” here 14 months ago, but this one is going to be much tougher.
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