No matter that Padre Island might be the sixth boro’s version of Sisyphus . . . or an enormous vacuum cleaner/wet vac, no matter . . . I’m always happy to see the trailing suction hopper dredge (TSHD), especially up close. The northeast corner of Staten Island looks remarkable uninhabited, an illusion to be sure.
I guess this is the front dischange head. See a video of this attachments to this head used for “rainbowing” here. (Correction/crossout made here thanks to SeaBart.)
Here Padre Island heads out toward the Verrazano Narrows. I’ve wondered sometimes whether it uses its sonic eyes to make the “bottom of the harbor” equivalent of crop circles in the fluff.
Not the best foto, but the black structure is a drag head, attached to
the suction pipe, like arm and hand. See a trove of dredge images here.
Pipes and heads are stowed here, up and out of the way, as Padre Island travels to the area needing
to be carved or aspirated. I get dizzy thinking of all the potential jokes here, like “This job/boat sucks.”
As she passed by this week, I was surprised how much noise came from her 3000 hp propulsion. And how speedy she was. Was there ever sail-powered dredging? What artifacts get sucked up and dumped during the dredging process? I know progress calls, but what stuff otherwise treasured gets missed? What fauna gets sucked up? Was Oliver Evans‘ steamer Oruktor Amphibolos, “Amphibious Digger,” really the beginning of dredging?
All fotos Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
12 comments
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May 13, 2010 at 7:09 am
seabart
I’m very sorry Will but I have to correct you here….
The item on the 2nd photo is indeed the front discharge head to pump the liquified sand via a floating pipe to the shore. If she would have had a device for Rainbowing there would have been something similar like a firefighting monitor there, but bigger.
See her for an example:
http://img399.imageshack.us/i/ham318in20signapore1pd.jpg/
May 13, 2010 at 8:16 am
tugster
bart–thanks. you got me. i wanted padre to be rainbowing so bad that i overlooked the fact that hardware was missing. but it could be stowed on deck, right. since your eyes are sharper than mine and you are more knowledgeable and you mention fire monitors, are you aware of a dredger like this in fact using rainbowing as a means to control a fire? again, thanks for the catch. i do sometimes have the clarity of the “eyes” on a drag head in murky harbor bottom. hey, at least you’re not calling padre ugly … kinda cute, eh?
May 13, 2010 at 11:22 am
Lemming
The odds of you seeing a dredge rainbow in the Northeast are pretty slim.
You can find some more about the Padre Island on Great Lakes’ website:
Click to access OurFleet_1_5-2.pdf
The Corps of Engineers has some animations and videos that may be of interest.
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/dots/doer/anima/turtle.avi
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/dots/doer/anima/dragarm.avi
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/dots/doer/anima/dredgefill.avi
This sort of dredge picks up less fauna and teasure that one might expect. The mouth of the draghead will (when in the Lower Bay) have screens on them intended to keep ordnance out of the dredge. This will tend to keep most larger items out too.
The head is operated against the bottom so it’s largely animals that live in the sand itself that are of concern. Special measures (such as screens) are employed to keep sea turtles out of the dredge. Should a turtle be picked up there are reporting requirements. Offhand I’ve never heard of a turtle take in NY.
May 13, 2010 at 12:06 pm
tugster
lemming– thanks for the info, particularly on the draghead itself. later, i’ll add those links to this site. sucking up ordinance would . . . suck!
May 13, 2010 at 11:45 am
bowsprite
read somewhere that the dutch were incredible dredgers. I do wonder what your ancestors used.
May 13, 2010 at 12:02 pm
tugster
they just dammed bodies of water, had the sweet winds of the north sea pump out the water, and then maybe carved out what fluff they needed removed with shovels, buckets, coffeecups, …
May 13, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Lemming
The Dutch are the past and present kings of dredging (despite what Great Lakes might say ).
The Krabbelaar was a pretty neat little tide powered dredge. It was a barge with poles going into the bottom. The tide would push it back and forth and stir up the bottom.
They’ve come a bit further since then: http://www.boskalis.com/index_vloot.php?pageID=3
However, only US dredges operated by US companies are allowed in the US.
May 13, 2010 at 3:00 pm
bonnie
Nice! We saw a lot of her out in J-bay this winter – had fun taking pictures of her one day –
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6y2bkZCNKtGJGftBxnDYPg?feat=directlink
(don’t freak, folks, she’s anchored)
I’ve passed this along to the Sebago gang, think they’ll enjoy.
May 13, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Les Sonnenmark
During the cleanup after the EXXON VALDEZ spill, two of the Corps of Engineers dredges (YAQUINA and ESSAYONS) sucked up a major fraction of the floating oil by inverting their dragheads and bringing them up near the surface within a pool of floating oil that small craft had corralled with a large closed loop of boom. The oil/water mix was sucked into the hoppers and allowed to settle, and water was drained from the bottom. The oil was pumped off into barges. I haven’t heard of this technique being used for the BP spill.
May 13, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Daniel Meeter
As for sail-powered dredges, does it count if we include old “oyster-dredges”? They were certainly under sail.
May 13, 2010 at 9:06 pm
tugster
dan– i hadn’t thought about oyster dredges, but of course…
May 16, 2010 at 1:43 am
seabart
Will: yes I have heard of at least one case of dredgers using their rainbowing gear as fire fighting monitors. But they are not handy for it. They give a lot of water fast and they can actually sink the vessel on fire before the fire is put out. Ofcourse that’s also a way of extinguishing the said fire but I don’t think the outcome will really please or suit everybody.