You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2013.
Here and here are some fotos from previous winter fish seasons in the sixth boro. This post from January 2010 probably shows the greatest number of sixth boro fishing boats I’ve ever seen. Below was a foto I took at Gravesend Bay last week.
Alexa J,
Linda,
Linda and Mary Virginia,
an unidendified boat and Lobster Boy,
Linda and Lobster Boy,
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Related in their scales, here’s a photoessay on fishing in SW Alaska, and here’s one about a big catch near Detroit.
For reasons you’ll find at the end of this post, I’ve held these fotos in reserve since last June. Any ideas what’s going on with . . . an apparently empty 70-year-old covered barge floating in the river with a bridge in the distance and some fibers in lower left corner.
Well, some crew are aboard, Joe and Paul on radio, as the transition to alongside towing is initiated. That’s Rhinecliff, NY in the background here.
It’s a demonstration of skills day for certification purposes. That’s my friend Brian taking fotos, and Matt Perricone, owner of tugboat Cornell making up the tow once that free-floating barge is alongside. Here’s the official Cornell site.
To document the day, we shoot from a variety of locations and
angles. This angle I call “elbows in water.”
And this is how to “make up on the nose.”
Designted examiner Sam Zapadinsky of Diamond Marine Services looks on as light boat is maneuvered to a dock in confined river space.
With the barge on the nose of Cornell, it’s time to head back inot the Creek.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp last June. Here’s the rest of the story . . . and note the byline.
Unrelated: Here’s a foto of a scene I missed: Allie B towing dredge Columbia southbound on the Hudson recently. The link tells some interesting previous lives of the dredger.
After a low of nearly single digits a few days ago . . . today temperatures came close to 50, and I felt invited to ride across the harbor.
New to me . . . landing craft Jennifer Miller.
Grey Shark, loaded and waiting clearance to leave the harbor? Here and here are previous fotos of Grey Shark.
Lined up like chorus girls in a Radio City Music Hall revue, it’s Freja Dania, Miss Lucy, and Sti Ruby.
How can I fail to mention Megan McAllister . . . .
All fotos taken this foggy afternoon by Will Van Dorp.
I’m studying Spanish with Rosetta Stone and enjoying new concepts. “Anteojos de sol” is a Spanish word for “sunglasses,” literally “in front of the eyes, for the sun,” which is fun to say, especially with the “j” pronounced as “h.” In my area today, “no necesito anteojos de sol” because it’s overcast gray. Capt A. N. O’Nymous generously provided a sudden demand for “shades” which I pass along to you.
Warming up? Reaching for your anteojos de sol? Drop a few ice cubes in that coffee?
Take a dip after work? Istria looks pretty pretty for a 45-year-old Italian vessel gussied up in the colors of the house of orange, eh?
Less colorful and bright . . . but I’ll keep the sunglasses on . . . it’s Trafalgar, ex-Lady Alma of the Humber, although I haven’t found a launch date.
Click here for a foto of Trafalgar operating in Trinidad.
Many thanks to Capt O’Nymous for these bright treats.
I’m always interested in collaboration, especially if any vessels previously working in the sixth boro turn snowbird and head for the tropics. Come to think of it, Nieve Pájaro
might be a new identity just aching to emerge from this Bronx river icebound Osage.
Thank for sharing, Cap.
When the sixth boro looks like this, I recall
the warmth of late summer and
even late spring, truly splendid times to sail It’s Clipper City above and . . following Dewaruci, Clipper City below. But to ensure the vessels are ready, crews dedicate winter
to visiting places like this
for haul-out.
The vessel gets inspected
everywhere, even under the keel.
Wear and tear gets repaired and
and reinspected.
Exactly 90 days from today (April 26, 2013), the 158′ vessel begins season 2013. Clipper City is one of two vessels operated by Manhattan by Sail, the other being Shearwater. Click here for more info on Clipper City, a 1984 replica of a Manitowoc lumber schooner that operated on Lake Michigan between 1854 and 1890 and capable of sailing 115 miles in less than 8 hours.
Manhattan by Sail is owned by Tom Berton, who first sailed on Petrel, a now-gone pioneer of sixth boro public sail operated by Nick Van Nes.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
For profiles of Clipper City, Shearwater, and many other vessels from June 2009, click here. For fotos of Clipper City bound for the yard, click here.
Cold winter waterscapes –like especially hot dry landscapes –delight with the optical ilusions they yield. Behold Hyundai Glory . . . or maybe just an assemblage of coherent containers hovering together.
Have a look at MSC Catania. On the left in the distance, notice the very long arm of the Statue of Liberty, and midway between it and the ship . . . a very tall building in Queens, One Court Square, looking much taller than its 50 stories.
Rosemary Miller ? (center) meets Torm Aslaug, which triggered today’s series.
Sand Master and sand mining barge nearly spans the Narrows.
Tanker Cape Tallin heads for the anchorage, passing the tops of the towers of Marine Parkway.
Here’s the foto that started the series. notice two grayish shapes forward of the bow of Torm Aslug? I could see them all the way from the top of a bridge on the Belt Parkway.
Here, as seen from Mount Mitchill, the highest headland on the east coast south of Maine . . . you can see the same two vessels–MSC by the color of their stacks–and McAllister Responder.
This is the closest I could get . . . . T-AKE 13 USNS Medgar Evers at the Leonardo docks of Naval Weapons Station Earle.
East of her . . . I don’t know, but my guess would be a T-AOE.
Any guess on the viewpoint of Manhattan with Hood Island departing back south for more tropical fruit?
It’s taken from the same ridge at Sandy Hook, looking down across the still closed Sandy Hook National Park area.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
First, in case you missed the links Lazer One put in the comments section of Arctic Shuttle Tanker, including his profile drawing of that cold weather tanker, check them here. I’ve also added Lazer One to my links list.
In the foto below, mirage-hovering on the horizon today . . . can you identify the company by color scheme?
It’s Torm Aslaugh, arriving with ice-caked manifold. For itinerary of past half year, click here.
Spray from hawse rinse (if that’s the term) has settled on the bow of Nord Intelligence before she left port today.
She was in the sixth boro about six months back. To see where she’s been since, click here.
Tanker Venice, before heading out today . . . it looked like she was steam-cleaning her manifold.
Ice removal perhaps?
Tugs like Atlantic Salvor and
Barbara McAllister has their share of
frosty glaze.
All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.
Many thanks to Birk Thomas for these fotos. That’s frozen salt water off New Jersey. ‘Nuff said.
Cold . . . but the light is pretty. That’s thought that comes easily if you’re indoors.
But for some perspective . . . according to the NYTimes, in 1813 it was so cold people could cross from Cold Spring to Connecticut on foot across the ice. The East River had enough ice cover that it became an ice bridge in 1817, 1821, 1851, and 1875. On January 20, 1875, for example, 15,000 crossed the ice bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Ice thickness covering the East River measured six inches. Click here for tips on ice thickness and safety. However, as someone who icefished a number of years, I know that ice can be 12″ in one spot and not far away a pressure crack or much thinner ice. Safety has to be #1. Whitehorse today is the same temperature as the sixth boro; for really cold temperatures, click here.
Call me a wimp . . . but it’s icy out there. And yet people work outside. Bravo and hats on for the crews and shipyard workers out there where the spray sometimes freezes. Some quick fotos I took yesterday. Would you believe this is the same DBL 140 barge you see in the 5th and 6th fotos here?
Here’s DBL 140 and Lincoln Sea from across the Upper Bay.
Traffic never stops because of some cold.
A tanker with a classic name
lighters just north of the VZ Bridge. Here’s the rest of the fleet and more.
One positive about cold, low humidity air . . . it’s clear. Ocean Leader could never look this good
on a muggy summer day.
Ditto Ruth M. Reinauer moving RTC 102 with an assist from Jill Reinauer.
Anyone handling line on a day like this needs the right gear and
a focus on getting the work done safely.
Bravo and hats on!!
So on the coldest day –so far–of the 2012-2013 winter, what kind of vessel might you expect to see in the sixth boro–maybe a “super strength icebreaking tanker?” If so, Mikhail Ulyanov matches your expectation. There’s no ice on NYC waters, so if you imagine this vessel breaking 1.5-meter ice, you start to have an appreciation for cold in places where it’s really cold, polar cold and dark. Click here for a foto of her namesake AND an aerial view of her deck.
Can anyone explain what appears to be a house in the bow?
Is it that this vessel operates in seas so cold that areas like the after portion of the bridge are glassed-in and heated?
Writing on the side of vessel translates as “Sovcomflot,” and 0nly once before have I seen Cyrillic alphabet on a ship in NYC, although I can’t remember the details.
Here’s a frontal view of the “bowhouse.”
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Let me add a note here from Tommy Bryceland in Scotland “The house on the bow of the Russian tanker is the Single Point mooring position. This attaches via a hose or hose’s over the bow to a Single point mooring bouy (SPBM) out at a remote place at sea usually over an oil field. Covered in like this is unusual but will be done so for extreme cold temps working. Im pretty sure this tanker drives astern INTO the ice and churns the ice with its props. That is why you have the strange wheelhouse shape.” Tommy–thanks much.
By the way, this marks tugster post 2000! Click here to see post 1000.
tugster: a waterblog 
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