Atlantic Basin 2

home of the two Marys.  The farther Mary comes and goes, but the nearer one–Mary A. Whalen, hub of the Basin–will

serve as locus for (literally) tons of visiting historical vessels (See Atlantic Basin 1)  this summer as well as intangible amounts

of fun.  See the full calendar of music, movies, lectures, and visiting vessels on the calendar here.  Or just come by to hang . . . during TankerTime.  When I tried to interview Mary A. Whalen about the summer, her only response was the smile created by red-white-blue bunting hanging between the portholes on the house.

As to the other Mary, the distant one with a tiara suggested by her name, she’s itinerant.  She left yesterday (7/19) and will return

in early August . . . if the schedule is to be believed.

Hail!   Marys of the Atlantic Basin.  See bowsprite’s adorable rendering here.

This coming Saturday–July 24–is City of Water Day in NYC.  Some of the events at Atlantic Basin include a marine security display with a VACIS container scanner, a sniffer dog from US Customs and Border Protection, Urban Divers mobile marine museum, a container mover from American Stevedoring, tours of visiting steam lighthouse tender Lilac, live music, food from local Brooklyn vendors including Kevin’s Restaurant and  Kustard King.  And more!

See more City of Water Day info here.

Middle three fotos by Will Van Dorp;  all other fotos and mosaic here by Carolina Salguero.

Unrelated:  Earlier today I asked the following question:  Can anyone help identify this large floating object on the Hudson here?  Foto was taken by the Mighty Quinn five days after the Willis Avenue Bridge floated by, and a few weeks after the house barge sauntered through.       And the answer . . . just in from Richard Canty, captain of Glen Cove:  The object in question is a set of “cooling towers for the new power plant being built in Astoria at Steinway Street.  They were  built at P&M Marine’s dock in Coeymans, NY. That dock may be remembered by some as the old Brickyard.  The towers are giant sails. Very exciting driving in a wind….. any wind.”

Thanks, Richard.

And this will be my last post for July.  Lake Opeongo has called.  It seems some mysteries there need my immediate attention–or I need theirs . . .  stuff like deciphering the code of crickets, the flickering of fireflies, the meandering of muskellunge, the wiles of wintergreen, the secrets of snipe, the contours of congress (lower case), the rituals of relating, the protocol of pursuit, the finesse of friendship   (oh.. this could be endless)  . . . .  Ah, the glories of gallivanting.

Til August . . . cheers from tugster.

Oops!  Here’s some merry music from Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, and Tom Petty.

Really Random Tugs

Thanks to Amy Bucciferro for the first two fotos here taken in San Francisco in early May.  From left to right here, Japanese training barque Kaiwo Maru II, unidentified AmNav tugs, and SFFD fireboat Guardian.  The AmNav tugs are either  Independence (farther) and Patricia Ann (nearer).

Below is 1914 tug Eppleton Hall, seaworthy enough in 1970 to travel from the North Sea to San Francisco via the Panama Canal.  For a foto of “Eppie” under way, click here.   (I love the “save the Eppie” art, for the aesthetic of the late 1960s.  Anyone know of a larger, more detailed version?)

Crowley Valor is bow escort for Vancouver Express into Seattle.

Foss Pacific Star awaits the signal to ease Cosco Antwerp off the pier, bound for sea.

Andrew Foss glides northbound toward bulker Tian Yu Feng.

Log bronc Skillful finds haven on Lake Union near Center for Wooden Boats’ Northwest Seaport.

Truckable tug Lynx stands by in Newcastle harbor.

In Bremerton and behind a fence, it’s YTB 828 Catahecassa.  Read the sign on the fence?  Catahecassa was a Shawanee chief.

Also behind the fence is YTB 779 Manhattan.  When I thought to try to get a closer, unobstructed foto, I

saw another sign, clearly, that reiterated what I couldn’t quite read on that other sign.

First two fotos by Amy Bucciferro;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Not random but unrelated:  at PortSide NewYork in Atlantic Basin on July 22 (830 pm), the movie Random Lunacy will be shown, featuring a transAtlantic crossing by Poppa Neutrino aboard Son of Town Hall.  Read about Bonnie’s encounter on Jamaica Bay this weekend with a vessel made with parts of Son of Town Hall.

Graveyard 3

Picked clean and bleached terrapin shell?  Carapace of hermit crab?  A remnant of human armor?  A  vessel?

In May here and here I reported on a trip I took with frogma to Arthur Kill’s graveyard of ships. According to recent rumblings in the newspaper here, the ferry Astoria in that second link has mostly been cut up as “eyesores.”  Uh . . . would a visit to an optometrist help?

This morning I felt restored after visiting another  graveyard, this one in Brooklyn, in

(see the parachute jump on extreme left)  the Straits of Coney.  I’d love to know what this metal and

this wood once traveled as.  Where was it built?  What cargoes and which crews?

Thanks to a fearless crabber named Mariano I got these shots.

In August I hope to continue this trip through the Strait of Coney to visit Quester 1 aka Coney Island’s increasingly rusty-yellow sub, a golden dreammachine to salvage treasure off the Andrea Doria gone cold.  “Dreams gone bust; the rest is history rust.”  See fotos from a “tide and current taxi” trip here.

Less than 10 miles to the east, in Queens just south of JFK Airport, here’s another shot of the mystery vessel I took fotos at the start of this gallivant month.  Anyone know what lies on the west side of Sommerville Basin here?

Not a wreck at all, but you may feel the heat emanating from the foto below:  Manhattan around 7 am this morning, Manhattan in a heat wave, making a wreck of energy conservation efforts.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Somewhat related:  A ship was found in Lower Manhattan last week.

Atlantic Basin 1

(Back in New York)  You’ve seen this before here.  No, it’s not named for a boat competition, as someone suggested to me yesterday.  The paint is spiffied up, but

imagine my surprise and delight when

Cape Race glided into Atlantic Basin yesterday under

her own power, accompanied by music from her own Cat 3512.

Ah joy!  Eggs hatch (or make delicious souffles), apples ripen, oysters open, bread rises, and projects evolve.  Click here and here for festivities in Atlantic Basin last year, and come

check out this calendar of July events planned there this month and next, including Underwater New York (Check out their “An Oral history of Atlantis“)  and a movie about Poppa Neutrino.

First five fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Composite by Carolina Salguero.  By the way, if you do Facebook, you could befriend Mary Whalen, the 613-ton ambassador (See post for 2/20/2008).

Tangentially related and from the other side of the continent, check out these blog posts (thanks to Tom Larkin)  on

Log broncs (a variation on truckable tugs)

Seattle’s Tug race

A collage of wooden boats and other delights.

Salish Sea 7: Wood

It’s not that the sixth boro or other northeast locations do not see beautiful wood (my fav is the cornucopia in the 10th foto down);  the wood here only comes out on special occasions, like fine china and silver.  On the Salish Sea, especially around Lake Union, wooden boats seem to be more numerous than fiberglass, and it wasn’t even a special “wooden boat” event.

I start with this nameless vessel (and I think it’s wood) because the “golden hour” image intrigues me.  Remember, doubleclick enlarges, and each caption relates to the foto below.

“Swietenia” is part of the scientific name for mahogany.

Aiga

Nameless from my point of view and un-selfconscious.

Aquarama

Nameless and high and dry.

Nameless and back in fresh water east of and on the high side of the Chittenden locks.

1950? Auklet

Nameless but lovely with a blue top.

Ditto.  Having owned a mahogany and teak Owens once, which I unsuccessfully returned to its former glory, I can appreciate what is involved in maintenance of these aging beaties.

“Seattle’s most famous wooden motor yacht,” the 1924 Westward . . . . then 1940 Twin Isles, then namelesss blue peer.

Sea Witch is likely not wood, but a classic nonetheless.  Click here and scroll for a sixth boro version.

Of course, Seattle and Lake Union are famous for floating homes.  Check out these prices.

The fotos I took of the one with a swing out front, where a stringbikinied woman frolicked, were ohs0blurry, but I love this design, which

brings me to this closerup version of a foto from a few days back.  Note the design on the bow.  Click here for closerup fotos of the Tulalip rowers on their journey.

Speaking of Lake Union, while there, twice I was told about a transit system there, South Lake Union Transit.  Oh, you have to click here for the unofficial slogan.

Space for another wooden Lake Union vessel, the venerable Arthur Foss.

And drifting a bit offtopic but fascinating . . .   Mount Rainier . . .  who was Rainier?  Would you believe a former enemy combatant?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Also unrelated but thanks to Captain JP, I write like . .  David Foster Wallace.  See JP’s post and paste in your own text.

Salish Sea 6

Once back in the sixth boro, we realized our phone chargers got left in Seattle . . . which brought to mind songs like Tony Bennett’s and Bob Dylan‘s.   It is a fact that–especially with the bright sun I saw in Seattle and the overcast days since returning here–I’m not ready to be here.  Rainier hangs over the city  like a moon, here beyond bulker Tian Yu Feng, possibly waiting for a load of grain.

So back to the waterfront, starting along the Canal.  Discovery Star is a fish processor that started life as a GOM mud boat, and we’ve heard way too much about mud and the Gulf these past months.

Fishing and processing vessel Courageous is another vessel that started life in a different game . . . a 180′ buoy tender named Tupelo launched in Duluth at Zenith Dredge in 1942.  The government builds their boats and ships to last.

Another case in point:  Assertive, now part of  Seattle Community Colleges’ Maritime Academy, began life as a Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship aka T-AGOS, like our local Kings Pointer and (dock-bound?) Stalwart.

I loved the number of wooden boats in the Salish . . . like GloryBe, well-cared-for since 1914, and recently

rebuilt as part of a . . .  community college carpentry program.

Currently docked nearby are Lady Washington and . . .

cool figurehead … and

this tiny steamer and …

this 1928 water taxi.  See an urban sketcher’s rendering here.  A wooden vessel that was not saved is Wawona, whose final journey is shown in a youtube clip here.

And occasionally . . . a visitor ties up  (and later casts off) , like Coot.  By the way, to see almost four years of building Coot, click here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Belated joyeux Bastille Day and happy birthday HRH Prince of Tonga!

Salish Sea 5: The Canal Mostly

July is officially “gallivant month” this year, but as an update on yesterday’s “Bridge” post . . . the tow got somewhere out of foto range before daybreak;  when I got up to check progress on AIS at 5 am local time, it was already south of the Holland Tunnel vents.  I guess we’ll have to catch the mobile bridge when it heads from the Weeks yard up to its home over the Harlem River . . . later this month?  Also, since I’m out yon and hither this month, check Bonnie’s blog for sixth boro events.

Not on the Canal . . .  check out Royal Argosy . . . and find something strange about her design.  My answer at end of post.

Crabber Wizard, 1945 built by Brooklyn’s own Bushey yard, and one of the feature vessels of “Deadliest Catch,”  served as a YO-153 Navy oiler and a molasses tanker before its transformation into crabber in 1978.  Some YO-153s are now local reefs.

Another Bushey oiler-turned-crabber is Blue Gadus, launched two years earlier than Wizard.  Brooklyn’s yards have sent boats to the seven seas, above and beneath.

Like Wizard and Blue Gadus, Sahara hopes for a second life.  Any guesses about her previous life from this stern shot?

She was a also government ship,  R-101 Oceanographer, launched from Jacksonville, Florida in April 1964, now possibly transforming into a yacht.

Freemont Tug Co.’s Blueberry began life in 1941 in Tacoma as a 65′ buoy tender.

Ranger 7 was originally built for the United States Forest Service in 1926, but I’ve located no vintage fotos.

Maris Pearl is a repurposed 1944 Navy tug.  This foto was taken outside the Canal.

Amak was built in Goble, Oregon in 1916 and worked in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Newt, 1924.

Skillful?  Maybe, I just have no clue about her past.

And this returns us to Royal Argosy.  Notice what feeds into the forward stack . . . or rather, what does not feed into it.  It’s a faux-funnel, maybe-smoke from nowhere, a mild form of “amelioration.”

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Bridge to Somewhere

OK, Seattle just has to wait when a bridge (that gets built over  100 miles north of the location where it’s destined to replace another bridge that has stood for 109 years)  gets shipped downriver by three tugboats AND gets covered by the NYTimes AND the Wall Street Journal.  My plan is to get fotos early tomorrow morning as it navigates between Manhattan and Hoboken or Jersey City.  For now, with many many thanks, here are fotos from Deborah dePeyster . . . as it passed by Coxsackie, where she camped out so as to ensure not missing the excitement, then

Catskill Point;

then fotos by Jeff Anzevino from the walkway and bridge at Poughkeepsie;

then Harold Tartell with fotos from Newburgh.

What the mainstream newspapers missed was the names of the tugs:  left to right:  Ruby M, Margot, and Elizabeth.

I have and will share lots more fotos from Seattle, a location seriously trying my faithfulness to the sixth boro.  But for now, my plan is to get up early enough to catch the bridge  edging somewhere tomorrow at dawn through the sixth boro.

Articles from the mainstream media are here:  NYTimes, Wall Street Journal.  New media here: DNAinfo.com, iStockAnalyst. My only criticism of these articles is that they do not specify  the names of the tugs, not to be picky or anything.

After “taking your house on a trip,” moving a bridge to somewhere is the next best thing.  Oh, what is the world coming to?

Thanks to Deborah, Jeff, and Harold for these fotos.  So if the old Willis Avenue Bridge lasted 109 years, how might you imagine the replacement for THIS one happening in 2119?

More Seattle soon.

Salish Sea 4

I leave Seattle today, reluctantly.  But days to come will feature more fotos I took here.  From this angle, can you guess this one?

If you couldn’t read the name or recognize the clipper-bow profile, it’s Garth Foss with all her 8000 hp moving through her VSP.

And Pacific Star, between ship shifting jobs.

Shifting from green to orange, it’s Chief and

Valor, lying in wait for

Vancouver Express.

Ocean Titan, second foto in a few days, is a thing of beauty here shrunk by the snowcapped Olympics.

And along the Ship Canal, here are Western Ranger and

(left to right) Flyer, Hornet, Wasp, and Fearless.  For more info, see the Western Towboat site here.

Closing shot for now:  Arthur Foss (ex-Wallowa, 1889), movie star and much much more.  I don’t know the small vessel beside her.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Salish Sea 3

More from Seattle:  Leschi and Chief Seattle . . . next to the ferry docks.

Olympic Tug and Barge’s James T. Quigg preparing to bunker Cosco Antwerp.

Over in Bremerton (an hour away by ferry) is USS Vincennes, CG 49, of the 1988 incident.

Bremerton deserves several posts, but for now, here are a line of attack subs (SSNs) slowly processing through the SRP “recycling” program.  671 is Narwhal and 696 is New York City.  Click on the SRP link to identify others here.

DD951 Turner Joy has to be the most significant US naval vessel of the 1960s.

Scenery shot from the ferry ride back to Seattle:  Rainier–2.5 hours away by road– dominates everything.

I wish I’d seen this from close:  this resembles my favorite exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.  Anyone know the story here?  Two of these headed north from West Seattle.

Western Towing’s Ocean Titan heads south from the Ship Canal and

Andrew Foss assists Sanmar Paragon into the Pier 86 grain terminal.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who has so much to see and so little time.