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.