Stormy Aftermath 6

(Doubleclick enlarges these again!! I’ll go back when I can and correct the “display setting” for the past few days.)

Thirty-six or so days after surging sixth boro waters tossed this “mothballed” tanker onto the shoreline at Clifton, Staten Island, efforts appear to be preparing to move it off. Crews have been assessing the condition of John B Caddell for some time, but as of nightfall today, tug Sarah Ann had barge Raritan Bay

in position.

I can’t say what this beach will look like tomorrow, so

I took advantage of the 65-degree foggy evening to get

what fotos I could.  It’s only an illusion caused by flood lighting that John B no longer has a bow, but come . . . a month from now,

who knows.  This press release about a unified approach to removing the wreck made the rounds in my email yesterday.  Thanks to all who passed it along.

All fotos fresh from the camera and the dark room of Will Van Dorp.

John B. Caddell Followup 1

John B.   three weeks after coming ashore.  Tethered . . . like an rogue beast.

Tagged . . . like a common railroad boxcar.

Examined by a scissor lift.

Quarantined and sequestered by yellow boom in her element and

orange pole and police tape ashore . . .

Her cavities and ducts probed, cathetered, and pumped out . . .

Prospects do indeed look grim for John B.  . . .  

her fate watched from the deep side.

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  Since Ft Wadsworth’s still closed to the public, I’ve no news about the ‘scapegoats there. Anyone have word?

Sailors Snug Harbor

If you read Latin, you get it, this statement of Snug Harbor’s motto.  Otherwise, I’ll translate a bit farther down.  If you’ve never been, it’s worth a visit.

Here’s what KVK traffic looks like from the Minard Lafever-designed buildings of Snug Harbor, and

here’s what the waterside entrance to Snug Harbor looks like from the KVK . . . just between IMTT Bayonne and the “salt pile.”

The current feature exhibit is called “Treasures of Sailors’ Snug Harbor.”   The bust here is Robert Richard Randall, the sea captain whose charity established what became a home for thousands of aging seafarers.

The will establishing the institution was drawn up by Alexander Hamilton.

The Latin in this John LaFarge stained glass window translates as “We who are exhausted seek a harbor.”

If you’ve never been to SSH, you’ll enjoy three floors of exhibits, which include ship models like Massapequa and

Benjamin Brewster and

and Japan Ambrose.    And of course much much more,  such as

the entire John Noble collection, which I just scratched the surface on earlier this year here.  There’s even a Herman Melville connection here.

For directions to SSH, click here.

DEWARUCI Closeup

If you live near NYC , a great way to mark Memorial Day aka Decoration Day, visit any of the open piers.  Check out the “early history” in this wikipedia link.  I seized the morning out here, on DDG 57 USS Mitscher.

Here’s the view forward from the starboard bridge wing,

to port were CG-56 USS San Jacinto and DDG-56 USS Donald Cook.

and starboard aft toward DDG-66 USS Gonzalez.   On the tour I saw a wide range of specialists.

I had been assigned to Dewaruci, and went incognito, wanting to check some rumors . . .  like  . . as the US Navy has SEALS, but the Indonesians have

walruses!!  And it turns out they do!  Although, seriously, masks of different sorts are worn in traditional dances–reorgs–and the walrus represents strength.

Although Dewaruci was built at Stulken Sohn in Hamburg, begun in 1932 (pre-WW2 and therefore commssioned by the Dutch??) , it was completed in 1953, year four of Indonesian independence from the Dutch.  The design, then, dates from a time that commercial sail still existed.  But the detail on this vessel, currently on its last voyage, is phenomenal.  I haven’t seen so much wood carving on a vessel since I visited the schooner Anne.

Here’s the namesake hero aft

and forward.  The rest of the weekend I will be figurehead comparing, but this is hard to top.

Three main islands of Indonesia west to east are Sumatra, Java, and Irian Jaya;  so the three masts–fore to mizzen–of the vessel are decorated in those styles.  Here’s Sumatran.

and Javanese

with Garuda and

Irian Jayan, actually the western end of the island of New Guinea.

Here’s the wheel and

and the engine order telegraph.

A poster onboard shows the itinerary for this last voyage.  A replacement vessel is on order;  I’m curious whether it will

carry the same figurehead and wood carving.

An intriguing poster on deck also shows all the commanding officers from 1953 to present, from Majoor A. F. H. Rosenow to Haris Bima B. Letkol Laut.

Meanwhile, I have confirmed that the Indonsian Navy has walruses, which I was unable to interview, and

flies the jolly roger.

Tomorrow I head over to Brooklyn.

All fotos and story by Will Van Dorp.

Ambrose Backgrounds

January 1909.  New Jersey-built Ambrose LV-87 in second year on the job.  Photo by N. L. Stebbins.  Click on the next two fotos and you’ll get to their context.  Click here for many more Stebbins fotos.

January 1912, a mere 1202 months ago.  Ambrose at work with White Star Olympic passing in background. Olympic at this time was less than a year on the job and already suffered one collision.  Four months later, of course, her younger sister ship would begin its ill-fated maiden voyage to New York.

I recall seeing this foto before I moved to New York and imagined that “channel 87″ was the means to contact the vessel.  Oh well . . . live and learn, eh?

March 2012.  Ambrose in her 46th year post-decommissioning after having served the USCG (and precursors) 59 years.  Photo by Birk Thomas.  In lower right hand corner, that’s Atlantic Salt’s Richmond Terrace mountain.

St. Peter’s neo-Romanesque sanctuary has dominated the east end of the KVK for over a century.

Structure just forward of Ambrose here is Sono’s “postcards,” a 9/11 memorial.

This may be my last post for a while . . . am gallivanting south soon.

Many thanks to Birk for these fotos.

Related:  Click here for a Reginald Marsh mural of a black-hulled Ambrose.  Here are some crew shots from the late 1950s.

Unrelated:  Crossing the Darien isthmus right now is Ever Deluxe, which appeared just barely in this post from almost three years ago . .  and NYK Diana, a Howland Hook regular.

Mare Transporter

So here she came into the sixth boro yesterday . . .   and after getting a foto–albeit rainy– of Shorthorn Express a few weeks back, I

listened carefully for neighs and whinnies, and

wondered whether this vessel carried pregnant mares, or colt, fillies . . .

Catherine Turecamo and Gramma Lee T Moran 

churned the waters to get her into the dock, giving the gulls

something to swarm about.

Since the sixth boro has no snow on the ground, that pile

has to be the supply at Atlantic Salt dock.

Lines get run, so

that offloading operations can begin.

When all lines are fast, Gramma Lee heads home to await the next call.  Previously, when I inquired, I learned that some of the salt comes from

 Carrickfergus, Ireland, which seemed strange given New York state’s salt mines.  But then again, maybe not all salt is the same.  Certainly, I learned that a mare transporter doesn’t transport mares or anything remotely equine.

All fotos by will Van Dorp.

Related:  I went looking for evidence of shipping mares and other equines by water.  None found . . . horses go by 747!!  Sea voyages are for cattle and sheep.  Chickens . . . I guess they travel frozen.

Dawn 2

From Howland Hook to the parking lot at my job takes about 10 minutes.  On a clear morning, a quick stop across from the port gives me ballast I need for whatever I might face at work.  What I wrote about dawn here a year and a half ago still holds.    The ship here is NYK Rigel, which I wrote about here last year.  It departed the sixth boro last night after the “tornado.” It spent about a day in Howland Hook after having left Qingdao, Ningbo, and Shanghai … in mid -August.  Today, those containers are starting to fan out across the eastern US via truck and rail.

The gantry operator has a fantastic vantage point but a schedule that prevents him from stopping to enjoy it.

I linger across the Kill and watch the light play first here, then there, on

countless surfaces.  Differing areas light up almost like the

sounds made by fingers crawling around the keyboard of a piano.

Even later in the day, reduced light is not a deprivation; darkened or even bleached out

light invokes magic.

Here’s a light post from last spring.

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Stealth

My camera is an opportunistic feeder, and when I saw these (anyone know what they are?) on my way to the water, the camera demanded I linger.  And as I did, I

noticed some orange movement, also unidentified, so I needed to have a closer

look.  Hardly, I thought.

High and wet, it was–I supposed–headed for

sea.  Except . . . why the rumble

of chain, I asked, hoping the crewman had his feet firmly planted.

Or was he trolling for some gargantuan surface feeder?

By the time I’d followed around a point, the hook seemed solidly held in place by a gargantuan bottom, and my camera had just missed a pallet of supplies hoisted off the capacious decks of ABC-1 (See it high and dry in the sixth foto in that link).  Here’s a Don Sutherland article about ABC-1‘s owners.

And as I came around, I spotted another craft on the Un-Stealthy One‘s portside, but I got a clear shot only after

the man standing on the foredeck of Nicholas Miller swung outward from the ladder  he had just descended.  Notice in the foto above anchored off Stena Stealth‘s portside . . .  Chemical Pioneer, not far from where it, as  Sea Witch 37 years ago lost its steering and created its fireball and a major oil spill, by sixth boro standards.

Services need to be rendered before the conspicuous tanker heads for sea.

I hope my camera captures some real stealth in the next post.

Catchups and followups and accountclosings by the end of this month.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

Spring Blues

When I headed out this morning, blues as I had written about them here a quarter year ago had no place in my consciousness but tell me this:  were my eyes malfunctioning or is this not the most disarming set of blues ever painted onto a ship?  These blues set off Laura K. Moran‘s pure beet red.  And, as if that were not enough, a second

blue ship, different hue,  came along too, tailed by Margaret Moran.

Minerva tankers are typically black with the owl logo, unlike Minerva Joanna.   That’s Patapsco in the distance.

Aegir (436′ x 64′) is junior as container ships go, but check out the top of her load.

In from Sweden, maybe that’s where Joanna grew her disarming blues,

It’s a Caterpillar D6R.  Do we import these now?

Those blues really set off the colors and angles on Laura K.

Doesn’t Richmond Terrace here seem tropical?

What outatowner would imagine the shore off to the left of the foto lies within the confines of New York City?   Catch the Staten Island end of the Bayonne Bridge (my logo) off to the right side of the foto.

Is that port of registry this St. John’s?  Or this one?  Notice the confabulation on the stern portside?

Partner tug to Laura K. is Miriam, of course.  Oh, and it’s Tzoanna.

All fotos taken by Will Van Dorp, who was in a very good mood, in case you wonder.  Click here for squidoo’s thoughts on associations with the color blue, green red, orange . . .

Check out NYC:The Blog here.

See what Rotterdammer Fred Vloo and I have in common here, as pointed out by Rick “Old Salt.”  Thanks, Rick.

Backing Down Rigel

Very general backstory:  NYK Rigel (965′ x 105′ and 4800 teu) entered service in Spring 2009.  See fotos of engine. Named for a star in Orion’s foot in Western conceptualization but equally fascinating cultural significance (رجل الجبار,参宿七,Yerrerdet-kurrk)  among star-watchers of other cultures and our own.

I first saw NYK Rigel on my way to work Thursday.  The foto above taken around 7 am;  I then turned around and took the foto below (That’s Irish Sea pushing DBL 103 with Ross Sea as assist;  MSC Carla [I believe] headed for sea in the way background.)  looking in the general direction of the sun.

Two minutes later, Irish Sea passes, disturbing the calm reflections.  NYK Rigel had arrived in port around dusk Wednesday, having left Shanghai about a month earlier.

By the time I return to my vantage point on Howland Hook around 3 pm for break, tons has happened (literally), the chaplain’s red van of the Seafarers & International House has just left, and Gramma Lee T. Moran drops off the pilot.  This can mean only one thing.

Catherine Turecamo is the other half of the backing-down team.

When the “all clear” sounds, Gramma Lee T. muscles the stern away from the dock, azimuth thrusters sending water

racing in the opposite

direction.

I realize how lucky I am to spend my break time here today, seeing this

departure with the cliffs of Manhattan in the way background.  Backing down (or out) is a must here since Rigel is too long to turn around until just off Bergen Point, where she did in fact spin counterclockwise on her way out to sea.

Catherine works the bow as

needed.  It’s just another day’s

work for some;  the best place to take a break for me.

And as I drove along the Belt Parkway headed home five hours later, NYK Rigel was headed outbound (for Norfolk, I think)  just south of the Verrazano Bridge.  I decided not to stop for fotos.  End of my infinitesimally short story.   Some other perspectives I’d love to hear relate to the pilot, the tug crews, the chaplain, NYK Rigel‘s crew,  pilot boat crew, the families of all those folks . . .   along the esplanade.

Hope you enjoy the fotos ( by Will Van Dorp) as much as I enjoyed my two stops yesterday.  Work went well too.

About a year ago, I also documented a “backing down” here.

Oh . . . yes I know Alice was in town, but she’s playing so hard to get that I feel discouraged.