Other than the anchor chain scars, what struck me about this vessel was the apparent lack of a bulbous bow and the long straight lines of depth marks: red coating changes to blue at 47.’ Any idea on cargo?
If that’s graffitti around the plimsoll marks, then this is the first time I ever noticed it on a commercial vessel in the sixth boro. Work boats are remarkably free of the paint pirates that mark land structures like rail stock and all manner of non-moving walls.
Vessel so-marked was MTM Westport (ex-Chemical Venture and Chemstar Eagle). She does look “MT” and riding high (Sorry, I couldn’t resist). Launched in 2000, she is listed as having a Burmese and Russian crew, and in this foto from almost a year ago, that mark is already present. Alexa J crabs away.
Sorry for the fuzzy foto, but this vessel’s intriguing name compels me: Sextans, ex-Overseas Sextans. I am curious. I imagine . . . let me see . . there are farmers tans, bathing suit tans, etc. Or let’s compare Teva tans and then sex tans. Or maybe, maybe the painting of the attempted name “Six Tens” was performed by students of the type Richard Lederer mentions who think “Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands.” Many more such bloopers here.
Another shot of Ipanema leaving the sixth boro on Saturday morning. Homer uses the phrase “wine-dark sea” repeatedly in the Iliad and Odyssey, but here, I see an unmistakeable lager-bright dawn.
Enjoy a piece of “my” MOL Partner.
Have you figured out the cargo in Irida, the vessel in the top foto above?
Salt. Oh, and the name of the vessel . . . it’s a translation of the word for my favorite blue flower of the lowlands . . .
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
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4 comments
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February 16, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Jed
MOL PARTNER making her approach on Pilot Station for JAX right now (1410L)
February 16, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Les Sonnenmark
Though a bulbous bow is common on newer ships, IRIDA was built in 1981 from a design developed in the ’70s. Her top speed is less than 14 kn, with average speed about 11 kn. Slow-speed, boxy ships with widely varying displacement (like bulkers and crude tankers) don’t get a lot of benefit from a bulb. And a properly formed bulb–as opposed to an extended wedge often seen on similar ships, with minimal efficiency improvement–is an expensive addition. Your photos show a ship with few complex-curved hull plates, meaning the original owners tried to keep construction expenses down.
IRIDA has an interesting and checkered past, as described at http://www.swiss-ships.ch/schiffe-ausland/outremer/kaszony_ELBR8/form-history-en-kaszony_ELBR8.htm.
February 16, 2011 at 10:52 pm
tugster
les–much obliged for insights on her design and history. cheers
February 20, 2011 at 9:14 am
Andre Libert
What a memorable find! Raised in the Canal Zone; hired as 9th Ass’t Purser on W.R. Grace Lines SS Santa Paula right after graduation from Georgetown. My first sailing from Pier 57 a day before Christmas 1963. Total Awe, totally new world; memorable people; a seafaring society with social norms of their own but never hassled or challenged. And then came a day many hours from Nassau, while standing on the flying bridge comes a rogue wave–no warning, out of the blue. At sixty feet above water line, it curls over me with the sun shinning: Awesome, Beautiful yet Deadly; and but for the Grace of God and a First Mate who grabbed me and pulled me back into the wheel house, I would have never been found. And now with your blog and pics, I have found a place of serenity; wonderful memories of ships and tugs, back bays filled with gulls above the swirling tides; away from the all to consuming turmoil of the world; the political bravado and egos of wall street. Serenity found. Thanks for providing a sanctuary of sanity.