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Uh– . . .actually the fleet had already entered through the Narrows, but look just to the right of the Brooklyn-side pillar . . . like disembodied fingertips ready to pluck VZ’s strings . . .
a fleet of the air . . . Hornets and
Ospreys and a single
Dolphin. I understand the importance of the color, but I think of a clownfish whenever I see a Dolphin. And those streams of water . . . FireFighter is pumping them out its monitors.
Later . . . Philippine Sea gets
assisted into its berth
on Staten Island. By the way, the summertime haze here exists in 92-degree heat.
Between the bow of CG 58 the fendering of Catherine Turecamo, there’s . . . protection. In my layperson’s terminology, I’d call it a sheet. Does it have a more technical name?
Between Robbins Light and Brooklyn, that’s Campbell.
Yes, I must “get the hang” of video, but enjoy this snippet. A shot from the shore battery can be heard at 9 seconds, and Iwo Jima‘s response . . . just after the puff of smoke . .. around 16 seconds in. I’d stationed myself such that for its first three shots, Iwo Jima was obscured by the bridge pillar.
Tomorrow before dawn . . I’m headed up to New Hampshire . . . back in a week or less. No offense intended, but sometimes I must balance the sixth boro waters and shorelines with canoes, woods, beavers, porcupines, songbirds and songfrogs, fresh fish …. the list could go on. I’ll bring foto evidence.
On a happy note: In May 2008, I lamented here the fact that the NYTIMES had nary a word about the fleet entering the city. Today the top center foto was of Iwo Jima here. Bravo the New York Times . . . maybe they’ll rename the paper as the “all six boros of NY Times.”
FireFighter at the Narrows, Fort Wadsworth side . . . rainbow effect of spray . . . must be doins’ … big stuff going on or about to . . . .
Waiting on the Fort Hamilton (Brooklyn) side, I espy a huge shape some five or six miles off, here between FDNY’s not-yet-in-service 343 and the venerable Driftmaster. Iwo Jima (Mississippi-built) has returned! See fotos I took on board last year here.
The first fleet vessel through the Narrows was PC-4, Monsoon, Louisiana-built, commissioned in 1994, here passing Ellen McAllister. Scroll through this link to see a sampling of fotos of Monsoon‘s adventures.
Next visitor in was WMEC 909, Campbell, the sixth cutter to bear that name, here with helicopter above and USACE vessels all around, from left, Moritz, (I believe that’s the stern of Dobrin … barely visible), Driftmaster, and Gelberman. Campbell’s homeport is Portsmouth, NH. See a previous appearance of Campbell on this blog here… last foto).
Next in, sibling of Monsoon . . . was Squall, commissioned in same year and state.
As Iwo Jima approached the Verrazano Bridge, a gun salute from Fort Hamilton drew
Iwo Jima‘s response. By the way, the bit of land on the lower left side of the foto above is Hendrick’s Reef, on which the Brooklyn pillar of the Verrazano Bridge stands, an island that from 1812 until 1960 housed Fort Lafayette. I wonder which Hendrick that was.
Ellen McAllister followed Iwo Jima in. Is that Catherine Turecamo over on Iwo Jima‘s port side?
Next in was DDG 95, destroyer James E. Williams, named for a sailor who served in both Korea and Vietnam. Read about her namesake here.
Then it was FFG 45, frigate De Wert, named for a sailor who died in Korea in 1951.
And then Bath, Maine-built CG 58, Philippine Sea.
Closer up . . . I can’t identify the Coast Guard 47-footer other than 47315. By the way, see this type vessel’s capabilities as filmed in the mouth of the Merrimack River in all its fury. The Merrimack was my obsession during part of the 80s and all of the 90s.
I didn’t see where Miriam Moran assisted (probably up at the Hudson River passenger terminal) but a while later I caught her headed to home base as Laura K. was out to Red Hook for an assist. Check out the two crew on the afterdeck.
Hmm . . . I wonder what the story is.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
By the way, “Government Ships 5” is the short title; a longer version is “Their crews and all those sixth-boro based supporters.”
Welcome to New York.
A century ago, a parade of ships featured the Cruiser Olympia, now in very real danger of being reefed.
Staten Island Live has an excellent schedule of events planned the next few days on Staten Island, where most of the fleet vessels are berthed. See the schedule here.
Final note: I plan to cross the Merrimack aka “merry mack” tomorrow headed north for some canoeing. See foto here. The Pow Wow flows into the Merrimack.
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.
Monday morning I learned that journalist and photographer Don Sutherland has died. I had lunch with him just two months ago. I met him at the 2008 Waterford Tugboat Roundup. In person he proved even funnier and wiser than the persona in his articles. I had read lots of his articles and admired his photos–and always chuckled AND learned. Click here for Don’s Poling & Cutler article in the February 2007 Marine News, one of the first of his articles I read.
In March I introduced him to my good friend Bowsprite, and he told of his sitting shiva with the 1924-launched New York Central No. 16 on the night before it was dismembered by scrappers to make way for . . . . a CVS! After 20 years as a monument near a traffic circle in Bourne, Massachusetts, the tug could not be saved; efforts to raise adequate funds had failed. In Don’s words, “I had no choice but to spend the last night sitting inside the boat before the scrapping because it should not have to be alone that night.” Don would feel that. Here’s a story about No. 16 and its fate.
At the September 2009 Tugboat Roundup, I introduced him to my partner Elizabeth, who doesn’t always take part in my waterblogging efforts. As a sociologist, she studies and writes about gender and sex. She and Don got along famously; a tidbit of the evening Elizabeth’s learning from Don that the truckable tug Mame Faye was named for a Troy madame. Don knew details like that.
On his website, see examples of his great photos and even there his wit bubbles to the surface: complementing “our most frequently-published tugboat picture” was “our least-frequently published …” Don was like that.
At this link (fourth photo from the bottom) see Don atop Fred Tug44’s boat doing what he loved.
If you have a favorite Don Sutherland story, please leave a comment.
Don, you are already missed.
. . . er “air” and “water.” But with the Earth & Fire post last week, this had to appear, right?
Thanks to the tentatively definitive compendium on “schooner identification in the sixth boro,” I can without a doubt call the leftmost vessel Imagine and the rightmost Adirondack. And for outatowners, that’s Hoboken in the background.
Just a glimpse of the spoon-bowed, yellow-sailed schooner raises my spirits from dragging along May’s rocks to June’s breeziness.
Notice how the profile of Escape Plan gets echoed here in the upper reaches of North Sea.
With the June breezes and right attention, even if just for a few moments, all my cares take wing and fly away . . . propelling my spirit like a little sloop dallying about the start of the North River.
Seeing a yellow hulled sailboat, like Mamzel, powering upriver, one of many migrating mostly northward at season’s start conjures up one thought . . . sailing . . . you’re doing it wrong.
Clipper City . . . sailing, almost doing it right, but
these ones got it: Pride of Baltimore, Imagine, and Adirondack . . . back in 2008, air moving them through the water.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s an “erin wadder” post from last fall; more soon.
And don’t forget the caption contest here . . . I’ve got some good entries but want some more. Send’em in, please.
Each week the New Yorker runs one new cartoon lacking a caption. People send in their cleverness, and the winner is announced a few weeks later along with that week’s new caption contest. But when Joel Milton sent this foto yesterday, it seemed to me a perfect image to launch a tugster caption contest. The prize . . . recognition of your wit among your peers? A free one-year subscription to tugster?
So, have at it. Some background (or dry ground in this case): this “slip” is located between Queens and Manhattan in the East river. The island is officially Belmont Island, but some–like me–prefer to call it U Thant Island, named for the United Nations Secretary General, who used to see it right across the stream from the UN buildings. Ironically, the speedster seems to have parked right under an arch shown in foto #2 of this very old tugster post. Also, doubleclick on the foto to enlarge it, and you’ll see the arch is very popular place for cormorants, known for their voracious appetites, intake, and therefore output . . . .
Caption??
The Peace Boat was in the sixth boro in June last year. Yesterday thanks to Mage, who sent me in the direction of Maritime Matters, I learned that earlier this month, off Yemen, the Peace Boat
outran and escaped from pirates! Bravo. That almost calls for a renaming of the vessel. Any ideas?
The rest of this post is devoted to enigmas. Like . . . anyone know this monument aka denkmal? Answer follows.
This drooling clamshell could engulf my car. Guess the location?
This weather foto–I’ll call the weather stunning if not the foto–makes predictions easy. Vessel is Escort, moving coal into the Hackensack river.
At the point I took this foto, I had figured out the talent, but initially I rubbed my eyes and panicked about the cruel effects of aging.
And this last foto . . . it’s a family foto and I’m looking to identify the year and make of car. The man on the left is my great-grandfather, not a citizen of this country, but the foto was taken somewhere in the Dakotas in the 1930s. Please, make and model?
All fotos except the first and last by Will Van Dorp. Thanks to Joel for foto and Mage for lead.
The denkmal . . is a propeller of Intrepid, the carrier, CV-11. Which reminds me: the fleet arrives on Wednesday this week. And the dredging was happening (seems always to be happening) in the Manhattan Passenger Terminal, where dredging is always happening.
Thanks to Capt. William Lynch for calling my attention to a worthwhile project AND a chance to win a Harley Davidson. The worthwhile project: preserve the SS United States in some form. Local 333 United Marine Division and Lombardi Harley Davidson have teamed up in a raffle. Details available soon.
I took the foto below last fall in Philly. The street sign there says, in my interpretation, let’s not walk away from this. 
Right now the liner languishes while its sorry state gets used to direct consumer eyes.
While thinking about buying a raffle ticket, enjoy some diverse fotos, some from this week and others from a few years back: Austin and Timothy L. Dace Reinauer.
McAllister Brothers
Craig Eric Reinauer with fishing boat nearly chummed.
Barker Boys
Dory Barker
Captain Lynch, thanks for the info on the raffle.
And while I’m telling some news, don’t forget the “Tugboats and Waterfront Scenes” exhibit at the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook. The artist, Rich Samuelson, will be there today, May 22, between 3 and 7 pm.
I call this a “water blog,” but usually avail myself only of salt water shots. Below is what I saw from my bedroom window yesterday morning: rainwater pool on roof beside my building. Foto is obviously flipped, but the vent with round hole to the right serves as “portal” for at least three raccoons who cavort and sing after dark. New York is wild.
Foreshortening . . . makes for some arresting shots: here McAllister Responder, Franklin Reinauer, Jennifer Turecamo, and RTC 150 pushed by Meredith C. Reinauer enjoy much greater separation than appears.
Left to right here are: Chemical Pioneer, Johann Jacob, and OOCL Busan. I post this foto because it suggests that the forward portion of Chemical Pioneer and its stern seem mismatched. Think about it . . . and I tell you the story below.
Foreshortening again . . . plenty of searoom exists between NYK Constellation and OOCL Busan, but for some seconds, from my vantage point, I was getting nervous.
No comment on the frothiness in the center of this foto. Notice the building on the tip of Manhattan between the red and green buoy. That is 17 Battery Place, once the “footprint” for Moran Towing. Starting on p. 273 of Tugboat: The Moran Story by Eugene F. Moran and Louis Reid, there’s an incredible story about a Captain Daniel F. Anglim that dates back to the 1927. In short, Dan had a naturally loud voice “even louder from having to yell against the wind” (pre-walkietalkie days) did dispatch from the 25th floor of that building down to the tugs waiting between Pier 2 and 4 on the Hudson. I cannot imagine. Looking for a good read: Get The Moran Story!
Today several hundred feet of landfill separate 17 Battery Place from the nearest water. See a foto of 17 Battery Place from that time here . . second foto down. I’d love to see a larger version.
Cape Melville bound for sea. I love the name . . . that northeast corner of Australia. In the background you see parts of the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and One Court Square, Queens’ and Long Island’s tallest building. One court Square also appears in the second foto above.
That’s Adirondack coming around the side of City Pier A, the once and future dock for NYPD and FDNY?
Yes, this is a wild turkey in Battery Park, it looked totally indignant when I asked that he pose in front of either the Terminal or one of the Homeland Security cars in the background . Imagine that !! But the location is inland about 100 feet with the Staten Island Ferry Terminal to the left and the Coast Guard station to the right. Wild New York.
The Chemical Pioneer story: in late May 1973, a Bath Iron Works container ship called Sea Witch bound for sea lost steering and collided with an anchored tanker called Esso Brussels, resulting in a deadly fire (15 deaths, 13 of them on Esso Brussels, loaded with Nigerian crude) and New York harbor oil spill. Read the complete story here. Later, the stern section of Sea Witch was grafted onto a new forward section. For Sea Witch‘s original lines, click here; she’s the second one down.
All fotos taken on May 20 by Will Van Dorp.
By the way . . . that turkey . . . she goes by the name Zelda; be good to Zelda when you see her.
Allen Baker has worked on four of the five Great Lakes in recent weeks and shares the next four fotos. Massachusetts has that low, upswept “laker look” that reminds me of Grouper, which I’ve not received updates on. Any guesses on location of the shot and launch date of Massachusetts?
For launch date, you were right if you said . . . 1928! She’s 79′ x 20′ x 12′ and operates with Great Lakes Towing. And then there’s Manistee, delivered in May 1943 to Reiss Steamship Company. Since then, her original triple expansion
steam power plant was replaced by a slightly-more powerful 2950 hp diesel engine and equipped with a 250′ self-unloader. By the way, Reiss once owned Grouper, also.
Like most lakers, Manistee is long and narrow (621′ x 60′ x 35′), with a bluff bow, maximizing cargo space, and a wheel house forward with a stern “island” over the power plant. The oldest laker operating on the “big lakes” is St. Marys Challenger, still hauling bulker cargo since its launch in February 1906!! It still uses a Skinner Uniflow 3500 hp steam engine.
I took the next two fotos in Muskegon, MI, in June 2008, where Paul H. Townsend has been idled since 2005. A fascinating detail about Townsend is its conversion: built in Wilmington, CA in 1945, it was lengthened from 339′ x 50′ to 447′ x 50′ in 1952 . . . in Hoboken, NJ. The wheelhouse was moved forward in a separate modification in 1958 on Lake Erie. If you click on the link above, you’ll find before/after fotos.
When last sailing, she hauled gypsum or cement, now more frequently carried on barges pushed by the likes of Samuel de Champlain. Notice the same fleet colors. In this 2008 post, notice the second vessel (in a Lake Ontario port) down in the same colors as Townsend.
A “laker” moved into the sixth boro in the summer of 2005. Ocean and Coastal Consultants and Bayshore Recycling use Valgocen (ex-Algocen) in the dredged materials decontamination process (See p. 2 in this newsletter.). Valgocen currently lives along the Raritan River,
startling me every time I notice it. A laker . . . in an estuary. But there it is was, repurposed. The foto below–as the one above– shows it in the St. Lawrence on its way to the sixth boro towed by tugs from Atlantic Towing Limited. See important update at the end of this post.
Thanks to Allen Baker for the first four fotos, and to Kent Malo for the last two.
And if you hadn’t felt totally confident, Allen’s fotos were taken in the Calumet River, Chicago, an ocean port.
Unrelated . .. I’ve been reading DieselDuck’s archives, not homing in on any particular post, just enjoying the sweep of their focus. Check them out here.
UPDATE: Jeff’s comment got me looking and –sure enough–Valgocen is no more, having reborn as J W Shelley, back at work on the Great Lakes, as of this writing between Montreal and Lake Erie. Thanks, Jeff.
You’ve seen the boxcars with graffitti all over them like kudzu. Same thing with urban box trucks and walls or any flat surface, along riverbanks (like fotos 3 and 4 here) and inland. Graffitti-less, ships and boats wear their unique scuff marks and squiggles, but recently Miriam Moran
has this ochre splotches all along her starboard and port and
stern.
Ditto Catherine Turecamo . . . check out the stack that’s usually Moran trademark black.
A change in fleet paint scheme?
Even Gramma Lee T. Moran, whose stack a few weeks ago had lost its glossy black surface to the scuffers, and the white “M” here . . . she’s either primered up or fallen victim to a contagious metal condition.
Seriously, it appears something is triggering a lot of repainting and up-spiffing of the Moran boats in the sixth boro. Has anyone noticed this in other harbors? Might be some big event in the offing?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. The top two were taken yesterday morning in the rain.
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