Tugster Post 1280

The last milestone was the 1000, but this one, post 1280, goes up exactly four years (well, I’m three days late, actually)  after my first ever post.  Since then, I’ve spent countless hours of free time educating and entertaining myself,   touring other folk through the sixth boro,

interacting with passersby in ports wherever they beckon–ports like the sixth boro,

Philly,

Baltimore (and many other places …)  and more I hope to come.  Thanks to all for your tours and advice and feedback.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying this blog more than ever, learning to see, fishing

(sometimes in extreme conditions) for

flights of fancy and

all manner of lore and historical info about the sixth boro and all the waters connected to it.

Like yesterday, I was reading about Alice L. Moran, her marvelous feats, and wondering if she’s still called Amsterdam and working in Bahraini waters.    And I was reading about PY-16 USS Zircon (later a pilotboat named New York and previously a Pusey & Jones steam yacht Nakhoda), predecessor of pilotboat New York.

I’ve enjoyed these first 1280 and will be continuing.  Meanwhile, here’s another interesting thing I stumbled upon yesterday on page 12 of the Spring 1966 Tow Line magazine.   I hope no one is irked by my printing a screen shot here.  Enjoy.  Letter 1 with request on left and response on right.

Thanks for reading this blog and commenting for four years.  The ride goes on.

Photo credits here to Les, Allen, Carolina, and bowsprite.  Greets to the guys on SKS Tyne.

Meanwhile, a few words about the MWA Waterfront Conference tomorrow:  ”

New York, NY: On Tuesday, November 30, senior officials and representatives from over 14 government agencies will join over 500 waterfront advocates, educators, and planning experts for the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s 2010 Waterfront Conference at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center.

Dozens of agency officials, politicians, and other experts will be on hand to offer their perspectives on the future of the NY-NJ Harbor, including: NYC Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, Bob Martin of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Col. John R. Boulé II of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Capt. Linda Fagan of the US Coast Guard, Peter Davidson of the Empire State Development Corporation, David Bragdon of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability, Adrian Benepe of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Amanda Burden of the NYC Planning Commission, Cas Holloway of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and Seth Pinsky of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.”

Random Tugs 62

Thanks to Pat Folan of Pelican Passage . . . a new Cutler boat?  See another foto at the end of the post.

Also thanks to Pat, a new Vane Brothers boat . . . Quantico Creek.  See fotos of the launch of the 3000 hp tug here.

A fairly new Wilmington Towing vessel, Capt Harry, brother of Sonie.

Odin, seen here many times before

Marion C. Bouchard, 1979 built.

Bohemia, a 4200 hp Vane boat.

And thanks to east river, the tiniest ATB power unit towing barge Massachusetts . . .

Clearly not a tug, but I wonder if anyone can identify this self-described Black Pearl . . . .

Finally, as promised, another view of the first vessel:  Crystal Cutler, a 1600ish hp newbuild rcently arrived in the sixth boro.  Welcome!

For more of Pat’s great fotos, click here.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

See you at the MWA 2010 Waterfront Conference on Tuesday.    For details, click the icon on left side of page.

Thanksgiving Snow on the Delaware

Fundraiser notice Dec 1, 2010 for the tug Pegasus!!

I give thanks for the doomed ships getting a (maybe temporary) reprieve, although there’s no denying that Olympia does NOT rise and fall with the tide.  Here she clearly rests

on Delaware bottom.  The draft numbers there suggest a countdown . . . til drydocking and rescue?

While it lasted, the snow seemed more appropriate for Christmas than Thanksgiving.  Timothy McAllister moves upriver, as does

Captain Dann, seeking a load for an empty Lockwood 2002 barge;  see the loaded barge . . . tomorrow.  In the background, Castlegate takes on cargo, after having left New York just Tuesday.

Crew of SKS Tyne fotograph each other as they leave Philly and

Camden and their skylines and

waterfront work and

mothballed vessels. SKS Tyne, goodspeed for whatever your next destination and next ….

Pilotboat Overfalls heads south, and

no matter the day, the harbor beat goes on.

All fotos, Thanksgiving Day, by Will Van Dorp.

Soon afterward, I went out for a Thanksgiving lobster.  Speaking of, read this great article about the Pilgrims and their Thanksgiving eels.

Pilot and La Princesa

Note:  Doubleclick enlarges.

Thankgiving, and snowfall on the Delaware, and what it brings–with 9000 hp and San Francisco on its stern–

Pilot!  It’s a Crowley’s tug on

La Princesa, the triple-deck 580′ loa barge that runs between Pennsauken, NJ and San Juan, PR.

Just over a year ago, I saw fotos of La Princesa push ashore by the storm named Ida near Virginia Beach, VA, and I read it was big, but here Grace Moran and

Valentine Moran show just how

huge the barge is.  See it in the St. John’s River, FL here.

3 pm Thursday they headed upriver under the Ben Franklin Bridge, and

as of noon today, they were still docked at Pennsauken, and I had to move on.  More La Princesa fotos here.    More Delaware River first snow fotos soon.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Tisquantum the Sailor

Sometimes stories get told wrong, again and again.  Like the one about Thanksgiving.  How many pilgrims can you name?

You know the name of the ship they sailed/chartered, but who was the captain?  Were they headed for Massachusetts?  Can you name one of the “Indians”  or their tribe?  When did it become an official US holiday?

I’ll pick one detail.  Most people know Squanto.  Do you know he spoke English?  Ever wonder how he learned it?  He probably spoke some Spanish too.  Do you know why?

Read at least a few paragraphs here, enough to learn about Capt. John Hunt, Tisquantum’s time in the Mediterranean, his time in Newfoundland, and the fact that his time of slavery (ironically) actually lengthened his life a bit.

I’m not meaning to be preachy.  But it seems that one reason to tell the real story is just that it’s

more interesting.

Just the facts, then?  You can read the links to Thanksgiving yourself here:  passenger list for that voyage of Mayflower, Captain was possibly Christopher Jones, their destination was “North Virginia” aka Hudson River Valley, they first encountered Nausets, later an important  liaison became a Wampanoag named Tisquantum, “thanksgiving” is a fairly universal sentiment that (as a single example) gets mentioned in the Old Testament coming from Jonah (Yonah or Junus), Lincoln (prompted by Sarah J. Hale) set the first US national Thanksgiving Day as November 26, and FDR made it float to the fourth Thursday each November.  And for UAINE, Thursday is the national day of mourning .  .  .

Hey . . . everyday should be Thanksgiving in my estimation, but please tell someone about Tisquantum the (reluctant) sailor today. But avoid calling heron a cormorant.

Related:  on the left side of this blog, an icon for My Babylonian Captivity appears, my account of a time exactly 20 years ago in Iraq as a hostage.  Read this segment for the details of the Iraqis efforts to mount a Thanksgiving meal for us.

People on the Boro 11

If you’re around my age, you remembered this yesterday, 47 years before.

Here People … 10.  Today the spirit of carpe diem permeated the overcast sixth boro:  mild weather and 60+ degree temperature won’t last long.  Chat outside on the JFK, or

work there as this crew on Rae

and a Hughes barge weighing

anchor.

New piles were going in at the St Geirge ferry terminal,

crew way high up on Brandywine headed for the Narrows,

Resolute paraded out in unseasonal furs to meet OOCL Oakland,

Miss Gill, the loudest boat in the boro, swooped around to pick up a scow of harbor bottom to scatter at sea,

a senior crewman on Ital Oriente watched himself distancing from  last glimpses of Staten Island for a spell, and

crew on Sarah Ann tightened up the wires.

I’m guessing it all seemed easier today–no matter what else difficult was going on–the mild weather made it just a bit easier.

All fotos by will Van Dorp.

Furs

I’ve written here and here about bow puddings, and some of those have since seen the shears. Little Bear is a delightful small tug (1952 launched and under 50′ loa) that you might expect to show some pudding, but

the new fur on the block (or in the boro) is Resolute, who wins as the new James Garfield or Rutherford B. Hayes of the sixth boro, from a hirsute perspective.

If Little Bear‘s namesake lived in the frozen north, then

Resolute has taken over her protection,

leaving the small red tug bare and possibly sunburnt.

Is Resolute predicting a cold winter?  Maybe we’ll be back on the ice soon?

Seriously, I love the Little Bear‘s lines and color as well as Resolute‘s puddening.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Recapitate

Thanks for these fotos to Dave Williams, who took them in Burlington, VT.  I dedicate these to all the birds who will lose their heads this week.

Raymond C Pecor Jr launched from the ways of Eastern Shipbuilding in Panama City, FL and made the journey northward to Lake Champlain.  Only problem:  the wheelhouse of this (non-orange) car ferry needed to be removed to clear a low bridge north of Waterford.  

Dave caught these pics as the wheelhouse

was being reattached.    Raymond C Pecor had another problem:  see what happens when slippery new hull paint hits the water at launch on this YouTube video.

I don’t know if any of my confederates caught Pecor traveling northbound through the sixth boro and up the Hudson, but I missed it.  Now, you can see the LCT 216-car ferry up on Lake Champlain.

Dave was previously behind the scenes on my “safe travel with your house” post.    Thanks, Dave.

On the left, check out the info for the 2010 Waterfront Conference happening in about 10 days in Lower Manhattan.

Unrelated:  You’ve probably seen the video of a ship being decapitated by a bridge lowering over the Welland Canal, but if not . . . watch this in horror.

Short Sea 3

… er …short sea shipping  (Shortsie Shipping) should save significant stress and other things.  Read my two previous posts here.  Shortsie is long-sighted:  imagine the foto below as about 100 trucks you don’t have to follow on the roads this morning.  And one tug–Catherine Turecamo–puts much less stuff into the air than 100 trucks.

The two engines here–Catherine Turecamo and Little Bear–move the goods of 100s of trucks, and fire red Little Bear is way cuter than any single truck.   More Little Bear soon.

GencoSuccess spent a week offloading its bulk cargo.  I’m not sure what it was, but let’s assume it was road salt;  too bad more of that salt is not

barged by Shortsie about once it’s local.

More boxes on a barge passed this morning also:  Barge New Jersey moves under the power of Cape Cod, taking another 100 trucks out of your traffic lanes.

Also, recyclables travel on barges, here

this one moved by Thomas D. Witte, dozens fewer trucks in your traffic lanes.   Thanks, Shortsie.   Anyone know of good websites on sixth boro and Hudson River efforts to promote Shortsie?   Bowsprite has been exerting many tons of bollard pull there herself: check it out.

Notice the Empire State Building blimp mooring in the background?

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Wanderbird 2

9 a.m.  ... Wanderbird coming through the Gate?  (Remember… doubleclick enlarges.)

Well, I knew it wasn’t, given all that capacity up forward.

but a little over half an hour later, she wandered in.  Wanderbird was built for capacity, too, and from 1963 when the Jaczon family launched her, until 1990, she fished.  Here’s a link for another Jaczon beam trawler operating out of Scheveningen  (and you should hear me pronounce that town name in my best dialect).

The bridges making up this immediate  entry to the Gate are (farther and pink)  the Hell Gate Bridge and

the RFK.

Solomon Sea (ex-Brandon Roehrig) with its string of scows led

the way through.

The candy-striped stacks belong to Big Allis

over beyond Roosevelt Island in Ravenswood, Queens.

As I’m seeking to confirm, Wanderbird sips fuel . . . five gallons/hour!   Click here and here to see  youtube of  six-cylinder diesels by the same manufacturer, Industrie.

More on Wanderbird soon.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.