Meanwhile in Cape Town

In May 1962 John Kennedy had a party upon turning 45, and most people remember one person who attended.  But there were other entertainers who sang too like this native New Yorker (yes, he is.) and another singer, now largely unknown, whose name appears on that blue banner center below.   If you don’t remember the name, here’s (IMHO) her best song.  She also performed with this neighbor of mine from Queens, NY.   But this vessel?

She might be called Agulhas II, arriving yesterday in her homeport, having come from winter half a world away to the north just in time for winter way down south.  Here’s  her predecessor, once involved in an Oldendorff vessel (no, not this one) in the far far south.

Here she arrives after a month-long journey.   For the complete press release announcing her mission, click here.

Whether Miriam Makeba becomes her unofficial or official name, Agulhas (needles) refers to the true southernmost cape aka point of Africa.

Enseleni is one of the assist tugs. Click here to see her launched  . . .  in a manner I’ve never seen.  Click here to see a wide array of South African tugs.

Here’s a closeup of pilot boat Gannet (1977).

And the answer (correctly supplied in the comment by anonymous [Ann O'Nimes??])  to the figurehead question .  . . Europa it is!    And in a graphic demonstration of the interconnection of the sixth boro to almost everywhere watery, click here and here for fotos of Europa on a recent visit to the US “north coast.”  Has Europa ever been to New York?

Europa, 1911 launched!!  and beautifully preserved.  A reminder to, please, vote for Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Barge, today and every day until May 21.

All fotos here come compliments of Colin Syndercombe, who’s generously serving up the shipping news from the Cape Town waterfront.  Thanks much, Colin.

A final treat from Miriam Makeba . . .  Pata pata.  Fifty years ago she was a popular enough in the US to get major play on top-40 radio

Jets Along the Mohawk

When I was in high school upstate, I had to read this novel about drums . .  and history.

Now imagine this interior monologue . . . our speaker doesn’t read much . . . he works and then goes to the river to fish with his best friend the bottle . . . a riverine Rip van Winkle.  He slings in some bait, he dozes, he hears an approaching engine . . . and he sees this!

He shuts and reopens his eyes . . . and it’s closer.  He rubs his eyes .  .  .  and it’s still there.  He flings the cursed bottle into  . . . nearest recycling bin (of course), swears to mend his dissolute ways, and runs along the bank yelling  ”OMG!!  It’s a Douglas F3D Skynight!!”   He just happens to “favorite” that aircraft of all the ones ever developed . . .  because of having built a model of one as a boy.

Our Rip has found new purpose.  The 2012 Erie Canal season has delivered the vehicle to turn his life around!

He vows to walk or run or bicycle along the Erie Canal as far as he needs to in order to see where this jet will land.

Then he hears another noise … another DonJon blue tugboat pushing a scow laden with

OMFG!!  He has no idea, and all the life-remedying he’d promised minutes ago . . . is in danger.    He turns and walks back to where moments before he had enjoyed the bliss of fishing along the Mohawk.  He stopped once and

looked back at Cheyenne and the scow.  ”Nah . . . that never happened,” he decided.  Never.

Downriver some 100 plus miles, the day before, another blue DonJon tug had been pushing this dredge spoils scow toward the Bayonne Bridge when the 747/Shuttle flew past.

To be serious, the wonderful fotos above come compliments of Don Rittner, of the Onrust project, about which I did many posts a few years back.  Here are a few representative Onrust links:  2010, September 2009 (see the last foto), May 2009, and 2008.    Use the search window to find many more.  Last foto is by Will Van Dorp.

The aircraft –a Skynight, a Mig-15, and a Supermarine Scimitar–have migrated from Intrepid Museum, which needs to make room for the Shuttle display, to ESAM, an upstate aerosciences museum.   The blue tugboats have all appeared here before; in order they are Empire, Cheyenne, and Caitlin Ann.

Other People’s Fotos 15

I’m elated when folks tell me they’ve enjoyed visiting tugster over the years.  Well, I’m as thrilled when you send in fotos other places beyond the sixth boro, all accessible ultimately from the the sixth boro.  In fact, the whole world awaits once you’ve gone out the Narrows or through Hall Gate.

’twas a great pleasure to get these fotos from Maureen yesterday, taken yesterday.  I’ll identify the port a bit farther.  Any guesses?  A clue might be the name of the tug:  Emilio Panfido (1969),  and

Carlo (1980).  As to the four dozen classic racers . . . you’ll have to help me identify those.

The port is Venezia aka Venice.  And I’ll need help identifying the tow of the tug as well.  And if you click on not a single link in this post, then at least spend six minutes on this one . .  the veritable painted ship on a painted ocean where work seems like the pleasantest dance to the best music on the planet.  This one’s got an intriguing ambient sound as sound track too.   All Venezia and as they are called in Italian . . . rimorchiatori aka tugs.

And it’s a joy to post Colin Syndercombe’s tugster debut here . . . MV  Kovambo.  It’s a dredge vessel that brings up — are you ready for this –

diamonds!  As in the many carated type.  Click here for info on the vessel and here for info on the enterprise.  Here’s more on marine mining and subsea crawlers.  I have to admit I’ve never understood the appeal of diamonds, but my interest ratchets up a bit learning with this.

Colin’s second ever foto shows New Spirit foreground with a befogged Table Mountain behind.  Look for a detail on the mountain upper right side.

It’s the cable car peering from behind a rip in the “table cloth.”

And thanks to Isaac, does this look long?  How long?

It’s a 1000′ ITB aka integrated tug and barge.”  One thousand!  Here’s a foto of the tug out of the notch.  Technically the barge is 947′ and the tug is 153,’  and  in ITB math, that totals up to an even 1000.’  The gray vessel in the background is Tecumseh, 1973, ex-Sugar Islander, which appeared here in March.

xAnd finally . . . it’s always a delight to share fotos John Watson takes from his perch high above the east end of the KVK.   First, it’s a shockingly container-light Iwaki . . .

and a thought-provoking CSAV Suape.  Just five weeks ago, I got fotos of this vessel Pacific-bound about to exit the Panama Canal.  So what are the ports of call NOT listed here . . .?

Many thanks Maureen, Colin, Isaac, and John.  Info on Emilio Panfido, Netherlands-built can be found here; Carlo, Italian-built here.

Partners in Preservation is a New York program, but there’s no need to live in NY or even North America to vote.  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.

Southern Ship 2

I used this title over four years ago here, although in that case, I wrote about a South African vessel in the sixth boro.

I offer this post partly as a study of how ship preservation is happening in another port city on the Atlantic, almost 8000 miles away.  South African Railway and Harbours (SAR & H) had Alwyn Vintcent built in Italy in the late 1950s as part of an order of five.  Find a brief  history here, but basically, she retired in 1983;  from 1991 until 2001 she operated as a steam excursion tug in Cape Town.   Her future then became uncertain.   A farmers group (most of the site is in Afrikaans ) (this one is in English) purchased her in 2010 or 2011 and is now preparing to move her 60+ miles inland for restoration and eventual use on a freshwater reservoir.

To make the trek inland, the superstructure must be cut down to a maximum of 14′ .  Stack goes first.  See more fotos and English text of this prep-to-trek here.

Vessel also needs to be lightened.

Although the road trip is schedule for May 2012, all’s not well until it’s well.  In the mid-1980s, another group attempt to preserve Alwyn’s sister ship J. E. Eaglesham by moving her inland.

The trip was sucessful, but later she was scrapped.   More fotos of that trek are here.

Part of what sent me on this virtual South African foray was learning yesterday from a reader there named Colin that bark Europa was currently in Cape Town preparing to voyage up to St Malo, and berths were still available.   The St. Malo voyage will make stops in Ascension and Azores.   More info on 1911 bark Europa here.

For other historical South African vessels, click here.  A mix of current and historical can be found here.

May is National Preservation Month.

All fotos used with permission.

Other People’s Fotos 14

The newly named Patrice McAllister, sixth boro bound, experienced a fire near Kingston, Ontario.  For the story, see boatnerd here.   The Shipwatcher has the story here.  Bowditch, ex-Hot Dog and here the rescue tug, was featured on tugster here back in 2010;  see second foto from the end.

Several thousand miles south, Harding is an older tug still in use in the Panama Canal named for Chester Harding, not Warren G.

Foto taken almost 25 years ago from aboard sugar bulker Sugar Island, northbound in the Panama Canal.   Being a sugar-dedicated bulk carrier would make this one sweet vessel.

Top foto from USCG via boatnerd;  next two thanks to Allen Baker.

I’ve now also added Ship Watcher to my blogroll.

Also, check out photosbytomandpolly, who shoot from not far away along the western end of the St Lawrence Seaway.

Random Fotos 1

So I have this set of unrelated fotos lingering in my mental hopper, and it’s the time of year to clear out hoppers.  My decision . . . post them as , well, a set of unrelated fotos.  Like this one.  It reminds me of an Eagles’ song from long ago except not quite.  Where taken?  What would the lyrics of this song be?

From Allen Baker, who took it as he was leaving the Morris Canal back in 1984.  Besides the new skyline, the waterfront is entirely different.  What exists there now could be imagined in a parallel universe that has sen tectonic uplifting that has created a new set of escarpments, disjointed cliffs.

Taking a picture through a window could create a whole new series.    Has a tjalk ever before worn such fanciful sails?   Foto thanks to Rene Keuvelaar.

What to say . .  dancers high atop the  radar mast of a cruise vessels?  Cleaning and adjustment?  Performance art?

And finally . . .  from Fred Trooster, who also supplied the Hotel New York foto taken in Rotterdam, a sidewheeler steam tug alongside cliffs on the Rhine pulling a string of barges.  Do such fotos exist of sidewheeler tugs on the Hudson or in the sixth boro?

Thanks to Fred, Allen, and Rene for these fotos.  I took the foto of “dancers” in the radar mast high atop Caribbean Princess, just after it docked in Red Hook earlier this month.