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I don’t mean to say there are or should be doomed. I don’t mean that at all. It’s just uncanny that along a less than 10-mile strip, at least four such huge icons lie as if in an intensive care unit, some in a coma and others tending toward comatose. Similarly, river bank greenery half obscures some of the slipways where state-of-the-art ships splashed out of such legendary yards as Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding, Merchant Shipbuilding, Sun Shipbuilding, American International Shipbuilding, New York Shipbuilding (and who knows which others I left out.)
The SS United States hangs in the balance. If you’re in Philly July 1, watch the stacks illuminate. Click here for a tour into the ship’s bowels.
This glimmer of hope JUST in from today’s Wall Street Journal.
I could see three props on deck.
Click here for a vintage cutaway. Click here for statistics of all sorts including how fast she could travel in reverse!
Answer: 25 kts in reverse: that’s faster than Titanic forward. It’s strange to think this vessel’s service life was a mere 17 years, which ended 41 years ago.
Take a tour here.
A few miles south of SS United States is CV-67, John F. Kennedy, whose 37-year career spanned conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.
Click here for a foto archive . . . and more.
Might the carrier go to Rhode Island?
And CV-59, a 39-year veteran just back from Rhode Island, might she be reefed?
And then, there’s C-6 Olympia, not hauled since World War 2, located right across the river from BB-62.
Here’s Olympia‘s Facebook page. Whitherward?
Tour the vessel–including views of the five-inch guns–here.
Here’s a 1997 maintenance report, and
slightly different analysis from 2000.
Doomed? Hope? Who has deep pockets these days? Please forward this post to lots of friends.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated: Follow the rowers that left the sixth boro (aka New York harbor) for the UK June 17.
Not a tug . . . Blount-built Sailor (1977) delivers lubricants to suezmax crude carrier Cape Bowen. A sixth-boro Blount boat is Twin Tube. Sailor and Twin Tube–now that’s an evocative set of names– have similar hulls but houses at opposite ends. But have you guessed the answer to the ponderable at the end of the post a few days back?
Also not a tug: fragile lightship Barnegat, here on the mud in North Camden.
Still not a tug: SS United States. Don’t the lines suggest the throat pleats of a rorqual? Got some names of tug companies common in the Delaware but not depicted here the past few days?
Bouchard is one. Morton IV is a regular in the sixth boro, here approaching the Commodore Barry Bridge.
K-Sea is another. I’m not sure why Coral Sea lies beside Arthur W Radford here in the Navy Yard.
And then there’s Penn Maritime . . . here’s Amberjack. Penn specializes in transporting heated asphalt.
But Vane Brothers is ubiquitous. Here’s Pokomoke, and
Patuxent,
Bohemia,
Charles Hughes, and
Roanoke. Two other Vane boats lay in the Schuykill, but too close to Sunoco to risk taking a foto.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, but again special thanks to Jeff Schurr and John Curdy.
You might wonder what’s happening in the sixth boro. Me too. I need to have a look, although I’ve really enjoyed Pelican Passage‘s shots these weeks. See some fireworks here. As for me, it’s prime gallivant season the next few weeks. See you on the go.
News flash: unrelated . . . is it true that a duck nursery has been located inside Cornell‘s bow pudding? Don’t you feel cooled just looking at this January foto?
The Yahoo tugboat groups has recently hosted an interesting discussion on “oldest” tugs in the United States, North America, or US-built. Here’s a batch I’ve seen in the past year.
Baltimore . . . 1906, afloat in Baltimore.
Rose . . . 1906, afloat in Camden, NJ.
Jupiter . . . 1901, afloat in Philadelphia.
Pegasus . . . 1907, afloat in Jersey City.
Urger . . . 1901, working near Albany. I took this foto in Lyons in February.
New York Central No. 13 . . . 1887, ashore on Staten Island.
I’d love to see recent fotos of the following: Fanny J, 1874, probably in Haiti; Tramp, 1874; Rustler, 1886; Jill Marie, 1889; and Spanky Paine, 1892. Many boats much younger than all those mentioned here have been scrapped or left to linger in graveyards.
All fotos in this post by Will Van Dorp, taken in 2010. Last time I had a batch adding up to 550 years.
Unrelated but a “must-see” is the current exhibit at Atlantic Gallery called “Water” which features work by 75 artists including Pamela Talese and the peripatetic bowsprite.
Over on the port side of the upbound Jag Leela, name that tug. Answer follows at the end of the post. Doubleclick enlarges.
Jack Holland (ex-Phyllis and Papoose, 1984). I think.
Left to right: Purple Hays (Bludworth-built, 1966) and Timothy McAllister (ex-Osprey and Barbara McAllister, 1966)
stern of Grape Ape (1951), Big Daddy (1954 RTC-built), High Roller (1969 Jakobson-built) , and (again) Purple Hays.
Madeline (Gladding-Hearn, 2008), one of the Wilmington Tug vessels.
Lucky D (1970).
Neill McAllister (ex-Puerto Nuevo, 1964) over on the Gloucester City, NJ, side with the Walt Whitman Bridge behind.
Teresa McAllister (1961) and floating office.
B M Thomas (1926).
Bart J Turecamo (1968).
Helen D. Coppedge (?) There’s a Coppedge in Portsmouth, NH, also. What is the Coppedge history? Here’s an older but interesting Portsmouth article.
Texan (scroll thru) matched with specialty barge Ponciana, here out of the notch.
Grace Moran (left of foto and Jakobson, 1967) and Valentine Moran (the mystery tug of the first foto in this post and ex-Coastal Jacksonville, 1977) spin Jag Leela.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Special thanks to Jeff Schurr and John Curdy.
Here’s a ponderable: which companies, very common to this part of the Delaware River, have been omitted? Answer tomorrow.
See Otherwatersheds 6 here. Many thanks to Jeff Schurr and Capt. John Curdy, who gave me a first-rate tour of 20ish miles of greater Philadelphia waterfront from the Delaware line up to the Delair and Betsy Ross Bridges. According to a studied source: “Of the 360 major American ports, the Delaware River ranks second in total tonnage shipped, and eighth in the dollar value of the cargo. Every year, 2600 ships call into our port, which claims to employ 75,000 people.” And another from RITA, too pithy to summarize, lists the largest trading countries and the predominant products in and out through the port.
More posts and maps on Philly–in all its vibrancy as a port– in the next few days, but for now, a sampling, an overview of old and new, starting with the most threatened ones. Of course, that would be SS United States–which I wrote about here. For info on the raffle, click here. Doubleclick on fotos enlarges.
Equally endangered is Olympia. Click here and here for info on efforts to save this piece of history.
Setubal, Portugal-built Grand Banks dory boat Gazela graces the waterfront. Find more about her history here.
Mischief (ex-Thornton Bros, Cissi, and Cissi Reinauer) in her current colors and habitat. A previous appearance of this vessel is here.
Inactive carriers John F. Kennedy and Forrestal await their fate, as
does destroyer Arthur W. Radford. Soon to be an Atlantic reef ?
Weeds grow from the fendering of B. M. Thomas, launched in Groton, 1926.
Like I said earlier, port of Philly has a vibrancy, illustrated by OSG Vision and
“shortie” (77′ x 34′) tug Reid McAllister.
More Delaware pics up tomorrow, but for now, in the Pyne Point section of Camden, Anne is the skipjack rigged schooner (1965, masts farthest to the right) hiding in the weeds. Now look in the extreme left side of the foto . . . there in the weeds, what
might this be? Anyone identify this mystery tug?
The interactive map below shows Pyne Point Park; the weedy inlet is just to the right of the park label.
Again, many thanks to Jeff and John. All fotos taken yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
BlueBQ? Why blue?
“Blue moon?” I wondered. “Blue eyes, blueberries, or blue chips . . . ?”
No, it’s blue space, the “watery parts” needing consideration in urban planning . . . like green space . . . only aquaeous. The sixth boro is blue space.
BlueBQ: It’s PortSide NewYork’s fundraiser held on July 3, 2010 on Pier 11 Atlantic Basin. See all details here.
All fotos (taken in 2007 and 2008) by Will Van Dorp. If you do Facebook, check out Mary Whalen‘s page here . . . with lots of fotos, including ones from their event last weekend: Concierto Tipico.
Unrelated: Check out the current state on this tugboat, launched as ST 246 from the Levington Shipyard in Orange, TX, in 1943 . . . after surviving WW2 and morphing through French, Italian, and Turkish hands. ST means “small tug.”Be sure to click on the “gallery,” and enjoy beautiful music even if the images are a bit repetitive.
The previous in the series was here. I document the conclusion of that sail here. After the jib gets dropped, the mate secures it on the headrig. The link in that sentence gets you to a glossary; doubleclick enlarges fotos. At Buck’s suggestion: music by Richard Thompson and Bob Neuwirth.
In preparation to lower the foresail, the boom is centered and
secured.
This crewman lowers the peak halliard as
another flakes the sail.
Once the foresail is stowed, the mainsail boom is centered and secure; it too
gets flaked as it’s lowered.
Reef nettles are tucked into the flakes to maintain clearer line-of-sight for the captain.
Forward docklines are laid out.
Crew prepares to send the first stern line.
Upon command it goes toward the bitt and
get hauled in.
Ditto the first of two bow lines, and then
they get hauled in.
Once the schooner is tight and centered on the point of egress, it’s all fast.
This trip complete . . . I’m ready for another soon. The sixth boro awaits.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated: See Bonnie’s “fishtales on fryday” here.
From the distance created by space or by economic analyses, these are big colorful machines … or … assets. And they are, but
look closer and you’ll see people at work high up and
in between and
in baskets and
sometimes re-appropriating these machines for fun. People
earn their livings with
their skill at using these
machines, these
assets. It’s about earning a living.
Hats off.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
In fotos 1 and 3, the numerous yellow cranes are mounted on two Seaboard Marine vessels: Vega Nikolas (shuttling between Brooklyn and some big Caribbean islands ) and Westerkade (between Brooklyn and Colombia). The barge there is Double Skin 34 pushed by Sassafras. Foto 4 shows repairwork on Lombok Strait (shuttling between Central America and the US East Coast with fruit that might include banana, pineapple, cantaloupe, and plantains. Other tugs shown are, in order: Petersburg, Ocean King, Jennifer Turecamo, Odin, and Robert IV.
This just in from the NYTimes. 
Click here for the rest of the story. Here’s my tribute to Don.
The title comes from the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
I was blessed to have met you, Don.
Kojima, PL 21, a 377′ loa Japan Coast Guard vessel is training where?
New York? Actually, she’s cruising around the world for this training. Click here. Charles D. McAllister assists with departure.
She heads for sea after a week or so in the sixth boro.
Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, is home to the Japan Coast Guard Academy.
A loud horn blast and down the Buttermilk Channel they went.
Click here for general info about the Japan Coast Guard, founded in 1948. It makes me wonder about things like . . . who ran the lighthouses there before 1948? Were there surfmen? How long have women served in the JCG and what percentage of personnel do they make up? What would happen if PL 21 and Steve Irwin cross paths in the Mediterranean? Click here for JCG v. Chinese survey vessels face-off.
All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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