Play Boats

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but the opposite of “work” is “play,”  and I will trumpet out as quickly as anyone that I love to play . . . some games, certain toys sometimes.  Of course, playing with an almost 70-year-old toy involves someone working a fair amount.  But Argosy, as old as John B. Caddell, seems to have had quite the benefactor.  As a wannabe Jane Goodall of sixth-boro traffic, I appreciate the fact that the owner of this boat put the date and make of Argosy on that life ring just outboard of the helm.  Sobering is the thought that this Chris-Craft was built three years before Bloxom, one of the wrecks in the Arthur Kill here.

Here’s more info on the 40′ boat sporting a way-forward windshield.

I don’t know the make of this sloop, but Ariel is long, sleek, and the sailor and young companion seemed entranced as they sailed northward toward the Tappan Zee a few weeks back.

For what it’s worth, here’s another shot of Tack-Sea.

Is the blue sail a spinaker?  In the summer haze, it injected a refreshing dose of spirit into me.

Ruhen, Ontario-built and Nelson Zimmer-designed,  anchors up by Hyde Park.

Again I know nothing about this sloop, sailing off Weehawken, but I love the red sails.

Sometimes it’s fun to play with others, in this case, five others, each with an oar.  Off in the distance between the crane and the Statue is Argosy.  Just to the right of the Statue is the Communipaw Terminal.  To the upper left of the outrigger, looking somewhat like a surfaced submarine,  is a Buchanan boat pushing a clutch of rock scows.

And here’s a different foto of Lady Christine, a vessel featured in this blog some weeks back.  This fits under the category of what happens when a vessel leaves the sixth boro.  I got an email yesterday (or so) from Tom Mann, whose fotos were featured here back in March.  Anyhow, Tom read in his local paper about an incident involving Lady Christine‘s afterdeck cargo . . .starboard side . . . that thing with a rotor.  It turns out the helicopter went for a dip about halfway between Camden and Bar Harbor near Little Deer Isle.  All aboard, including the pilot Irving Laidlaw, were fine.  Stories here and here.  And thanks, Tom.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated . . except tangentially . . . remember the Turtle replica submarine in Red Hook two years ago that  caused a security storm because it approached the QM2?  See a slide show of that here.  This past week Riley created a Roman-style sea battle in Queens.  Story here.  I wish I’d known about it in advance.  Whatever might he create two years from now??

Week’s Shipping Sampler

“Ship of the Day,” on my blogroll over a year now, states as goal to “concentrate on ships entering the Port of Rotterdam on that same day.”  That blog does that one ship per day.  The vessels in this post represent only a small percentage of ships that have moved through the sixth boro in the past week.

Intriguing was Pacific Winner, not only because of its place of registry– Chile–but also because  of its

its previous name:  Republica dei Pisa.  A ship named for a city with a “listing” tower would make me nervous.  Here she clears the Bayonne Bridge.

Maersk Matsuyama, launched from the Onomichi yard in Hiroshima a mere nine months ago, clears Bergen Point with assistance from Marjorie McAllister, recently featured here as having a wheelhouse on a stalk, retracted here.

Sichem Manila swings back NW in the Con Hook Reach.

Notwithstanding all this focus these days on the Dutch, Westerhaven arrives in the Bay at dawn and pushes up to the Buttermilk Channel unheralded.  Earlier this year it autopiloted itself onto a reef off Belize.  In spite of its name, Westerhaven runs largely between North and South America.  On or about 31 August, Flinterduin is expected to arrive in boro6 with a cargo of 20 traditional Dutch sailing barges.  How about an impromptu contest to get fotos . . . I could devise some incentive ideas . . . .

Energy Challenger at the dock at IMTT, less than a month after working in the Baltic.

Eagle Beaumont, one of the Eagle fleet I sported with a year ago, is registered in Singapore although it’s part of a fleet called “American Eagle.”

Blue Jade, beautiful name although somewhat unexpected for a tanker.  It sounds more appropriate for a drink or a restaurant, but it’s actually Korean-owned and Swiss-managed.  More Blue Jade soon.

NS Power, offloads in the Arthur Kill.  NS is short for Novorossiysk, a Black Sea city.

Ships in, ships out . . . I never tire of it, of watching it.  I also think it strange that these international machines moving over the watery parts of the entire globe, mostly have English names.  Or even if the name refers to a place so far from yet accessible to the sixth boro, their names are written in English.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

Reminder:  Flinterduin . . . 31 August . . . I’d love a pic.  It’ll be headed through the Narrows and then into the East River.