Here was installment #21.
This foto was taken from Front Street in Stapleton, Staten Island. The gray vessel is docked at the pier now used by Firefighter II. What’s remarkable about this foto–I think–is that Hurricane Sandy has brought together here (l to r) a re-purposed C5 and a repurposed C4, two old-fashioned but reborn American built ships. Let’s take them chronologically. The black hull is T/S Kennedy, a C4-S-66a originally built by Avondale Industries as Velma Lykes, has been activated to serve as housing for relief workers. Thank you Mass Maritime. The gray hull is SS Wright, a C5-S-78a originally built by Ingalls Shipbuilding as Mormacsun, was quite some time ago reconfigured as aviation (helicopter) logistics support ship T-AVB-1.
Here’s as close as I could get, and
here’s a view from the south.
RIBs are a common sight here, and
Is this the Moose boat that sank off Breezy Point back in September 2012?
And finally . . . I know Patrick Sky is not a government boat, but she was posing here yesterday with a snmall UACE vessel.
While looking at this list of MARAD design vessels, which include Wright and Kennedy, I notice E. A. Fisher, built in 1963 and donated to NYC in 1993. Of course, I’m new on this scene, but has anyone heard of this vessel? What became of it?
tugster: a waterblog 
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 7, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Harold E. Tartell
NOAA Ship PEIRCE. Built for the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey (now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), she was commissioned on 6 May 1963 in Mobile, AL, and decommissioned on 1 May 1992 in Norfolk, VA. Peter Carnahan (the ship’s last Master and Engineer) tells us that the NOAA Ship PEIRCE was donated to the Intrepid Museum in NYC in 1992. It was subsequently purchased by a private owner in 1999, and has “found her port” in Jacksonville, FL as the Yacht AVEDONIA. More On PEIRCE: http://conceptualstructures.org/PORT/port.html, http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/brs/flind13.htm, http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/news/1_1/1_1x.htm, http://www.history.noaa.gov/ships/peirce.html
IMO number 6407561
Name of the ship AVEDONIA
Type of ship YACHT
Gross tonnage 696 tons
DWT 206 tons
Year of build 1963
Builder MARIETTA MANUFACTURING – POINT PLEASANT WV, U.S.A.
Flag U.S.A.
Former names PEIRCE until 2001 Apr 09
ELIZABETH A.FISHER until 1993
PEIRCE until 1963
ADIEU NOAA SHIP PEIRCE
In May 1992, after nearly 30 years of service, the NOAA Ship PEIRCE was decommissioned. In a letter to Lee H. Hamilton, U. S. Representative from Indiana, Rear Admiral Sigmund R. Petersen explained that “the decision to decommission the PEIRCE was a long and involved process which was not taken lightly” but that because of “budget constraints and a long-term Fleet Replacement and Modernization Plan, retaining the PEIRCE was not a viable option.”
Friends of Peirce, through the intercession of William A. Stanley at NOAA, explored several options for saving the PEIRCE from the scrap heap. On 7 February 1994, Carl Hausman received a letter from Rear Admiral Petersen with the news that the PEIRCE had been transferred to the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum in New York “where it will be repaired and outfitted for use as a classroom for science, technology, and environmental programs, and for underwater archeology research.” Great news! But Admiral Petersen continued:
“Mr. Larry Sowinski, Executive Director, Intrepid Museum (212-245-2533), has informed me the ship will be renamed the ELIZABETH M. FISHER, after the wife of Zachary Fisher, the founder of the Intrepid Museum. Mr. Sowinski was aware of the Peirce Society’s desire to retain the name PEIRCE, but felt [that] renaming the ship after the wife of the Museum’s founder was more appropriate.” Susan Haack, president of the Charles S. Peirce Society, and Nathan Houser have written letters urging that the Peirce connection be retained in some way. On March 9, Sowinski wrote to Houser: “It was solely my decision to rename PEIRCE in honor of Mrs. Fisher because of that ship’s new mission at the Intrepid, which is to carry on with Elizabeth Fisher’s life-long commitment to the children of the nation. With regard to your concern about the Intrepid possibly ignoring Charles Peirce and the Coast Survey, please remember that this is a Museum which preserves history, not omits or distorts it.”
November 8, 2012 at 7:24 am
tugster
harold– and here’s the yacht avedonia: http://www.boatersresources.com/bfs_detail.php?adid=99213 thanks for your research.