Other Watersheds 11

The Amazon is a huge treasure.  Whatever H G Buelow was loading this day, its current position is the Mediterranean, having departed Istanbul in the direction of the Suez.

Mining and forestry send resources worldwide.  Zhong Xiang is northwest bound off Kuala Lumpur today.

Sergi0 Buarque de Holandia is a new Brazil-built oil products tanker.   Although I know nothing about the tug, the rebocador, it led me to this video showing a method of making a tow.

But as I go through my daughter’s fotos, I find myself more interested in the smaller local vessels, what occupies shallower waters.

Let’s go all the way back to these.

I’m curious what the white boxes here are used for.

Small scale fuel stop, designed for a sector of commercial transportation mostly gone from US waters.

The range is tremendous from one-passenger vessels and

docks/playgrounds on the waterfront stilt buildings and

very small versatile ferries to

livestock carriers.

This is waterfront/supra-water housing with water parks and

markets.  What comes via small vessel from the “hinterwaters” includes lots of açaí and other products.

I love the lines of these boats.

Happy new year.  Thoughtful old year’s day today.  Peace!!

and health and smooth travels!

Many thanks to my daughter for taking these fotos.

Other Watersheds 10

Here was 9 in this series, mostly taken by my daughter last summer near the mouth of the Amazon.  And since the holidays allow me to finally get the narrated version from her, I’m adding a set.  She took all of these in Brasil, most in the Amapá state, with a trip over to the Pará state.  .  Yes, bowsprite . . . there’s a meia here too.

Note the river tugs Merlim and Excalibur, and the small boat moving in

to touch up hull paint.

Passenger vessels come in all shapes.

Passengers find a place where they can hang on, or

not.

Cargo transfers happen under way.

Sleeping quarters are air conditioned.

International commerce

is nearby.

Tug and barge transport is common.

More soon.

Thanks Myriam.  Maybe I’ll be your assistant next summer.

For more workboats from this area, click here.  For a tug aka rebocador on a Brazilian beach, click here.

Other Watersheds 9

Foto below was taken on July 3, 2012.  Charles D. McAllister . . . featured here dozens of times, was assisting British Harmony (see name on lifeboat) out of IMTT Bayonne . . . for sea.  Where?  Doubleclick enlarges fotos.

Related:  note the follow-though handwork demonstrated by the line thrower below.  Where is he?  He’s not throwing the line to anything belonging to British Harmony, but he is in the same watershed.

Ditto this tug and barge.  Where it it?  Notice the water color.  Notice the name on the barge.

MANAUS on the tug is the best clue.

All fotos in this post except the first one were taken by my daughter, Myriam, who’s on the Amazon all summer as a grad student.  I bought her a camera and said . . . “tugster needs you,” and she’s been following through since mid-May while I’ve focused mostly on my end of the sixth boro, not hers.  More on this later in this post.   That’s a sweet ride below.

She’s based in Macapa and took this and all the others from her workboat.  No, she doesn’t drive it.

Cargo moves by vessels like this, and

this.  Right now Ikan Suji is Shanghai bound with a hold filled with Amazonian raw materials, I’d bet.

My guess (and I’m often wrong) on this cargo is navigational aids in the making.

I wish she’d caught the rest of the ferry . . . but there are fewer possibilities for a bow than a stern.  I’d never imagine this house/stern arrangement.

NYC’s sixth boro  . . . as all areas . . . have their

government boats.

Behold two Amazonian “rebocadores ”  Excalibur and Merlin. Click here for Smit Rebras including some interesting newbuild fotos.  Thanks to Harold Tartell for suggesting looking here.

But, not unexpectedly, vessels on the Amazon and its many fingers are as diverse as the population of that great country.

This could be the Mississippi,

as could this.

From Macapa to Manaus upriver is 500 to 600 air miles.  Stadt Gera, in Macapa today, was in the sixth boro and on this blog  a year and a half ago.

And here’s why I put the foto of Charles D. McAllister and British Harmony first:  British Harmony is about halfway up the Amazon to Manaus as I write this.  One really can get anywhere watery from the sixth boro.    Knowing that and having concrete reminders like this are not the same.

From fishermen, people with cameras along the KVK, and Macy’s barge waiting for the 2012 Independence Day fireworks . . . to kids in wooden boats like this . . .  all seen by crew on British Harmony  on the same trip  . . . I find amazing.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of another watershed.   Myriam certainly has the gallivant gene.  Here’s some self-disclosure.  39 years ago  (!!) I traveled to my first professional job about 500 miles up the Congo River on a huge tugboat named Major Vangu, pushing four deck barges.  The tug had 8 or 10 “staterooms” and a bar/restaurant for paying first class passengers.   Second class were on a barge with shade, and third class slept among the cargo (barrels of fuel, trucks, crates of beer, misc .  .  .) on the other barges.  It took four days and nights to get from Kinshasa to Mbandaka, near where I spend the next two years.  The reason for the choice of a tug was the airplane was non-functioning and roads to get there would have taken weeks.   Making this realization today suggests the need for a long river trip next year. . . . hmmmm . . . .

This post is inspired by Jed’s extended resume of last April here, and a “lightbulb”  comment by Maureen.   Thanks to you both.

Related:  Several times I tried unsuccessfully to find good profile shots of Major Vangu, which sank in 1979.   Anyone have ideas on finding fotos of the old Onatra vessels like Major Vangu?

Related:  In writing this post, I stumbled onto this blog by an artist in Belem, a major Amazonian port.

Steam Yachts

Don’t forget to send in your estimate of the cost of ONE of these cutter head teeth.  Answer SOON!

J. P. Morgan’s Hoboken-built Corsair II sometimes flashes by from either an image or reference, but I never saw it:  it turned into scrap about 10 years before I was born.  I never expected to see anything like it.  I did know of Vajoliroja, Johnny Depp’s yacht.  And did post this foto (see 3rd foto from bottom)  of Atlantide, with some lines like  steam-yacht headed up the Hudson last fall.   So the following vessels quite astounded me in Mystic.  First, Cangarda.

My fotos do not do justice to

this ocean-spanning gem that currently

boasts seven steam engines!

If you can, get thee to Mystic soon to see this gem, “managed” by Steven Cobb, a former master of Wavertree and other vessels.

Currently, Mystic has TWO steam yachts aka screw schooner.  Amazon was dieselized

in 1937.

If I ever see either of these gems at sea, my first reaction will be to rub my eyes in disbelief, imagining them mirages . . . until I recall my most recent visit to Mystic.

Here are a few dozen fotos of Cangarda taken between 1901 and 1999.  Here’s a link to an article on the owner of Cangarda (scroll about halfway though).   Stuff can go awry at a ship launch, and that ALMOST what happened with Cangarda.   Cangarda joins a list of prestigious yachts saved through the efforts of folks at IYRS.

Here’s an article on Amazon, launched 1885!

Finally, just a potpourri of steam yacht images, of which one to see must be Gondola.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.