Through the Ice

There’s gold in them

thar hills of junk automobiles and other scrap.  Ferrous and nonferrous metal can be changed into some gold, but

this season, it needs to crush its way through the export-of-a-previous-century to get there.   That export was

ice, the gold of days before refrigeration.  Here’s an article about Hudson River ice harvesting with lots of statistics, photos, and drawings.

See the piles and cranes in the distance to the right?  That’s where scrap metal gets consolidated in Jersey City before being shipped out.

Many thanks to Dennis Willard for fotos 3 and 4 above, showing Atlantic Salvor towing scrap through the ice in Coxsackie.  I wrote about scrap metal and my old Subaru  about four years ago.

As to the long-gone global ice trade, savor these articles on ice from the Northeast traveling all the way to Brazil, and India.  There used to be gold in them thar lakes and ponds.

And while we’re talking of cargoes southbound on the Hudson, the foto below,

again thanks to Dennis Willard, shows Atlantic Salvor pulling scrap past relics of the ice trade:  the chimney used to channel smoke for the steam engine at the R. & W. Scott Ice House in Nutten Point.  Many thanks to Dennis for capturing and explaining this.  Click here for Michael Cooney’s Upstate Earth for further info.

Poling and Cutler

Would  “teal” be the best word to describe this green?  Crystal Cutler and barge Patricia E. Poling have been in the harbor less than six months;  if I round off her time here to the nearest year, her age is zero.   Fleetmate tanker Kristin Poling‘s age is 77 years!    Only recently was Coral Queen, an even older member of the fleet, morphed into metal heaven.

Rafted up here is the other Poling & Cutler tug, Kimberly Poling.

Kimberly Poling is about 16 years old.

Here Dann Ocean’s Comet moves Eva Leigh Cutler past Kimberly Poling and  Crystal Cutler.

Teal or jade . . . I do like this color.  And for more delightful colors, check out bowsprite’s latest hues.  The first tug . . . hmmm, what company is running the avocado fleet?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  Morphed into the universe . . .  Poppa Neutrino aka David Pearlman, at age 77.  Here’s some info on one of his vessels.

Non-Random Tugs 5

Rick over at Old Salt blog pointed me toward this story.  As to the foto below, I quote from The Hindu of  1/26/2011:  “Letha Sushil, wife of Vice-Admiral K.N. Sushil, Flag Officer Commander-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command, ceremoniously launched the ship on Tuesday.”  The event is the launch of the newbuild barque INS Sudarthshini at Goa Shipbuilding.    My question is:  What is Letha Sushil holding about to smash and fizz against the hull?

Below is a foto of what might be the newest tugboat in the sixth boro, Crystal Cutler.  A year ago, some of this vessel was just steel plate awaiting the magic of assembling, welding, and paint.   More Crystal fotos soon.

On the far side of Nord Integrity is another of the more recent arrivals in the harbor, Quantico Creek.  I had been hoping to get to her

launch last March.  See it here.  It looks like Capt Log on this side of the tanker.

Here is more of the foto of INS Sudarthshini’s christening.  Tugster covered a sixth boro christening two-and-a-half years ago here.  In the US ship christenings often involve alcohol and bottles;  in India, a coconut is smashed against the bow, as you see in the top foto.  Click here for the Flickr photostream of Independence Seaport Museum, showing women, breaking glass, and spilled alcohol.

Click here for more info on ship christening traditions, including spilling oil (bitumen), blood, and crafting axes.   I wonder what was involved in the Crystal Cutler and Quantico Creek ceremonies.

Three middle fotos by Will Van Dorp, who in 2011 must christen and launch his kayak AND who would suggestions on christening it.  If you’ve built a kayak and want to send in fotos, I’m planning a kayak post in mid-February.

And while I’m out taking fotos from the internet, check out the unnamed Yangtze River tour vessel below that redefines the term “figurehead.”

Jan Snow 2

More snow aftermath here. . . .but work goes on . . . like Eastern Welder, great name for a fishing boat, pulling

in the harbor’s

bounty so that it could be packed away, snow or no snow.

Caspian Sea pushes a snow-whitened

and perfectly-named  John Blanche.

Torm Carina, resupplying before heading to sea,

now sports a glazed bulb.  Anyone propose a description of that winteryellow sky?

Shovels are out on both tug Penn No. 4 and barge Penn No. 90.

Snow remains where it stuck on Captain D and GL 64.

as well as the assemblage around GL Dredge New York.

Snow highlights recesses in the Global Terminal where London Express and Cap Norte shift containers.

Over toward BAT, from left to right, it’s Beaufort Sea, McKinley Sea, and North Sea.   I was hoping to catch Barents Sea.

Snow paints the stern of Laurie Ann Reinauer, here with RTC 85, orca style.

Finally, the identification of the ferry in yesterday’s post, according to Kyran Clune, is Guy V. Molinari, which along with Senator John J. Marchi and Spirit of America, began their journey in Marinette, Wisconsin.  Molinari, pre-launch, awaits below.

For fotos of snow elsewhere, check out Essex, MA at Burnham’s.  Or Gloucester  snow and so much more with Jay Albert;  I especially liked his report recently on Ocean Alliance moving into the long-empty paint factory.    Issuma feels the cold in Toronto.  George Conk watches the ice from just north of the GW Bridge.   And finally, from Australia, it looks like snow, but it’s spuma!!

Jan Snow 1

In November the winds brewed up a season that has given people of all boros enough snow to raise the stock value of shovel manufacturers:  a crewman shoveling yesterday at the ferry fuel barges.  Doubleclick enlarges.

It covered everything like the  deck of small tanker Patrick Sky,

glazing surfaces on tormented Carina here taking on supplies from the deck of Twin Tube.

McKinley Sea still carried her

snowy trim, and

as did Laurie Ann Reinauer.

Even crew on tanker Lian An Hu cleared sixth boro snow.

And this ferry captain scraped clear the cowl after Newhouse was secured in Whitehall.

More NYC sixth boro snow fotos tomorrow.  For now, the final foto below comes thanks to Kyran Clune.  Guess the ferry and the location?  Answer tomorrow along with another foto of the same vessel.

All other fotos by Will Van Dorp, the morning after a storm that dropped 19′ on Central Park.   Uhhh . . . make that 19″   or it might be enough fell that a 19′ snow creature could be built beside Cleopatra’s needle.  (Nice catch, John!!)

According to NYTimes, January 2011 has already seen 36″ fall;  the previous high was 1925 with 27.4.

Daily Ship 5

Cold waters of the KVK were not warmed  by this swarm of colorful steel housing powerful engines.  From left to right here:  Margaret Moran, Torm Carina, Evening Mist, Joan Moran, and facing us on the far side of the waterway, North Fighter.

At the same moment less than a mile away and at the same moment, Louise Knutsen prepared to turn south, bound for sea.  Her port of registry is posted as Haugesund, which I had to look up.

Nicholas Miller helps with crew change, and

ABC-1 assists with supplies.

Scotty Sky glides by, looking more submarine than tanker.

BBC Germany bunkers in the anchorage over by BAT.  Tug on the bunker barge looks like HMS Liberty. BAT is a Cass Gilbert-designed harbor gem.

Meanwhile, west side of the harbor, Michele Jeanne and crew survey while bobbing in the wakes of  vessels like Heron.  An unidentified bulk carrier loads scrap metal in the distance.

For some beautiful contemporary maritime paintings, check out the site of Melinda Hannigan here.

OKAY . . . I have to put up one more foto, taken just seconds after the lead foto in this post.

The harbor never sleeps, especially not with these neon safety colors mixed in.   The warm colors might not warm the waters, but they do, the air.  More Torm orange here and here;  if I didn’t like that shade so well, I’d be tempted to call it “tormented orange.”  Carina, despite Danish registry, was built in Korea.  To see work at the Danish shipyard of Odense, click here.

Fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Baykeeper

Doubleclick enlarges.  Note the NYC skyline above the Staten Island horizon to the right.

Baykeeper the organization uses this 30′ skiff made with

cedar planks over oak

frames as their patrol craft.

See the builder’s name stamped into metal on the upper left.  The Pedersen family has built wooden skiffs in Keyport (pearl of the Raritan Bayshore)  for three generations.  This Star Ledger article from a few years back shows work in the Pedersen shop.

The top foto comes thanks to Andy Willner;  the others by Will Van Dorp.  NY/NJ Baykeeper has a Facebook page, as does American Littoral Society.

Related:  Riverkeeper also has a wooden patrol boat, I. Ian Fletcher, which I wrote about here back in 2008.

Lots of references to Keyport and Raritan Bay can be found in Mark Kurlansky’s The Big Oyster, which I’m rereading.  I’ve also recently read Jack Jeandron’s Keyport.

Saltwater Colors

or maybe that should that be parsed as “salt watercolors or “aquarelle du sel.”   The title here comes from the final line in bowsprite’s post on her “tools of the trade.”  She’s also shown her studio in the most recent post here, and further discussed the craft of her trade in the comments.  My post here is a public thank-you for these posts and a call for “more, more, please more.”

I will never tell her or anyone what to draw, but doesn’t your imagination take flight when you see that orange shimmer approaching from behind the tanker . . .  like a performer in flashy plumage entering center stage.

Or check out all those diverging perspective lines, monochromatic lattices set off by linear yellow, boxy reds and blues, and curved orange security blanket.

Paint the city orange . . .  neon orange out of spray guns.

Throw in a few splotches of oxidation, like fotos by J. Henry Fair.

If need be, whittle yourself huge pens to undertake equally huge subjects with all their unever hues.

Slather in all the colors, like mustard on that food that Tad Dorgan did NOT coin the name of.

Paste in patchy texture colors over the loopydoodles, or do . . .

NONE of those things.  Just keep posting, filling your sketchbooks and then pixilate our screens.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

War Wood 2

Thanks to Dennis Willard, more fotos of PT728 and the others along the Rondout.

PT728 is Vosper-design 70′ built in Annapolis.  Here are some end-of-season haulout fotos from late 2009.

According to their website, FleetObsolete has three additional boats:  459, 48, and 615, but I can’t

identify which is which here.

This one is PT 459, a Higgins 78′ built in Louisiana.

Before coming to FleetObsolete, PT 459 did time as Beachcomber IV, a Fire Island ferry.

Thanks to Dennis Willard, who supplied all fotos except the last one, which I took.

For a sense of what is involved in a restoration, see the video of PT 305.

To see a group of Swedish torpedo boats at full speed, watch this video;  the best part is from 7’20” to the end.

For an attractive restoration of a Higgins PT 658, click here.

For the sound of a Packard Marine  engine in a non-marine application, click here.

For more PT background than I ever imagined  and great vintage shots, click here.

And finally, here are fotos of civilian yachts made by Elco, Higgins,  and Huckins.

Got . . . ?

That milk campaign started almost two decades ago.   No one can dispute its success, I suppose, in selling milk, but I always thought the text should have read “Got napkin?” or “Got  a clean part of sleeve?”

The slogan came to mind yesterday:  I was hanging out along the KVK, teeth chattering as barometer of approaching hypothermia, having fun, and seeing snow and ice in unusual places.  So, maybe I can correct what I always imagined to be the flaw of the milk ads . . .  Like, the crew of Morgan Reinauer asking . . . “got a snow brush?”

Crewman on Taurus . . .”Got some

warm dry gloves?”

Janice Ann Reinauer herself, “Got my old bow pudding?”

Crew of Katherine Walker, “Got the GPS coordinates?”

Ruth M. Reinauer, “Got a warm notch somewhere, maybe RTC 102?”

Morton S. Bouchard Jr., “Got a berth close by where I can dock this?

Irish Sea, “Got a snow scraper?”

Kimberly Poling, “Got some

warmer ports to deliver to?”

And, I swear, in an Australian-English accent, this pigeon said, “Got some food and hot coffee, or do I need to land on the deck of Piltene out there?”

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who wonders how many days until he gets to walk around without a coat again.

Cold, though it’s all relative.  On the coldest day so far in the sixth boro it’s glided to a balmy 16 F;  thermometer in Barrow dropped to -38; International Falls, MN -34; Mount Washington Summit, NH -10; Montreal, Massena, and Toronto, -4; Rondout Creek, 0.

For the most-ice-encrusted award, check these fotos from tugster, April 2, 2008, with fotos taken in Boston February 2007.  Can anyone out-encrust this encrustedness?