Late December featured the second post on dredging and more; here’s the latest installment. At first glance, Baltic Dawn seems about to lose its stern to an oversize bucket (or at least get a machine’s version of a butt pinch), but
–no–it was just an illusion.
All progressed well with this project not far from mid-channel in the KVK in front of Atlantic Salt until
MSC Carla approached from the west and Peter F. Gellatly approached from the east. Whether the sudden plume of black exhaust resulted from reversing the ship’s engine full or not, I
can’t say, but the dredging continued, as did the journeys of container ship and tug with barge on hip. This MSC Carla (ex-HanJin Long Beach) dates from 1986; a former MSC Carla, built in 1972, cracked in half in 1997.
Meanwhile , trailing suction hopper Padre Island crisscrossed the water in front of Stapleton. There’s lots going on beneath the dredger, but very
very little to see from the surface, except hoses running into the water, port, starboard, and possibly trailing from the stern. I imagine it like a vacuum cleaner transiting a carpet.
I’d love to hear from someone working on Padre Island and willing to explain more of the working below this vessel.
Dredges … mechanical bottom feeders, bringing up dirt, literally. They’re time traveling too, uncovering silt of many past events. Be they adventures or misadventures, the act disturbs the memory of the watershed, you could argue; in exchange, they make way for a modified future.
All fotos taken today by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
7 comments
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January 23, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Jim
From The Art of Dredging, The Basics of Trailer Dredging:
http://www.theartofdredging.com/tshd3comp.htm
Note the Bowsprite drawing at the bottom of the home page:
http://www.theartofdredging.com/index.htm
January 24, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Mage B
We have had a fleet of little red and white tugs pushing a barge and a crane on another barge around. The last few years had proved tough on the San Diego River chanel jetty, First they took the middle of it out last year. Surge. This year they began replacing rocks on the jetty that had been washed away by the winter storms. We arrived there a few weeks ago to watch them placing rocks….and all of a sudden they pulled up their buckets, and everyone sailed away. Very strange.
Have a great sunday.
January 24, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Elizabeth
Am I the only one who, immediately upon looking at the first photo, thinks of the Monty Python sketch set in the cocktail bar and making fun of the joke based on the line which I will now always hear in my head as “Tickle your ass with a dredger?” (Hint: In the original ‘dredger’ was replaced with ‘feather’ and then, in covering for the audacity of the opening, with ‘weather’.)
And no, I can’t find a YouTube link, unfortunately. So perhaps I’m making it all up, though I seriously don’t think so. Anybody? Bueller?
January 25, 2010 at 12:26 am
bowsprite
that cheeky, cheeky bucket!!!
you just don’t know WHERE that thing’s been!
January 25, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Les Sonnenmark
PADRE ISLAND is a split-hull hopper dredge which is able to open along its entire length to dump the accumulted spoils. Good photo of her sister MANHATTAN ISLAND split open at http://www.gldd.com/images/Static/OurFleet_1_4-2.pdf. What appear to be vacuum hoses are actually supplying high-pressure seawater from jetting pumps in the ship to the dragheads at the bottom, “liquifying” the silt so it may be sucked up the pipe in the dragarm by the onboard dredge pumps (much like your trusty Hoover), then into the hopper. What appear to be more pipes or hoses in the stern view may just be a stern anchor.
January 25, 2010 at 4:27 pm
tugster
les–thanks for directing me to the foto of Manhattan split for offloading. what are the regulations for offloading, ie, how far offshore?
January 25, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Les Sonnenmark
That’s a touchy subject. Some “clean” dredged material may be dumped in the mud dump site about five miles east of Monmouth, NJ to cap the “unclean” stuff dumped there previously. Most of the rest, which may be contaminated with PCBs and other chemicals, has to be pumped ashore for landfill cover or replenishment projects. (Note PADRE ISLAND’s bow connection to a buoy at the end of a pipeline which runs ashore.) Dumping far offshore is possible, but uneconomical if you have to transit way out and way back for each load.
A while back I was aboard the Corps of Engineers’ dredge McFARLAND clearing the Raritan channel near Naval Weapons Station Earle. We were constantly pumping up old grenades, ammo, etc., probably dating back to WWII. We were dumping that in the mud dump site, which you can’t do today due to environmental restrictions. So where would you pump that stuff today–I don’t think I want that stuff ashore either.