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Alpine Loyalty and an eastbound vessel . . .
a westbound one and
a freshly painted Marjorie B McAllister.
The westbounder is Valencia Bridge, one month out of Shanghai, here escorted by Resolute, both
seeming headed blithely toward not only the Bayonne Bridge but also another container ship.
Really though–with Resolute and Marjorie B— there never was a dangerous
proximity.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Here was Ellen 1, and (scroll through) here’s how I first saw her in our fair harbor, the sixth boro. I’ve not tired of watching this boat work.
Click here for fotos from earlier lives. Speaking of earlier and then second lives, here and here are the two most recent “second lives” posts I’ve done, the #10 I’ve written two letters about but received NO response.
By the time the pilot appeared, I couldn’t get the shot, but the wait was worth it anyhow.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Some random shots from–more or less–a year ago . . . October 23, 2012 and
the eerie calm before the storm.
October 29, 2012, in a different part of the sixth boro, here’s the last look of an intact boardwalk.
October 30, 2012, floating toothpicks . . . and waterlogged cars.
October 31, 2012 and unexpected vessels in the sixth boro . . . Wright, Kennedy, and Gallatin.
Scroll through more post-Sandy–the week after–here. Large parts of the damaged shoreline areas . . . they are still as they were and depressing to look at, but better that than hastily rebuilt places as they were before, vulnerable again.
Meanwhile . . . now there’s been a storm on the other side of the Atlantic . . . .
This series is used to catch up on items started.
Gregory Farino took this foto from the wheelhouse of a tugboat on the Congo River around 1980. He does not recall the name, as he was just catching a ride. My question is this: would the minimal detail of the stem bitt and shape of the bow surrounding it give the impression that this may be an “American” style tug serving the end of its life on an African river. The problem with that theory is that most of the Congo River is separated from the sea by waterfalls. Although I heard stories when I lived there and there are and have been shipyards above the falls going back to the time of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” I have no hard information that any vessels were taken around the falls by train and reassembled for use here. Anyone help?
Recognize the vessel below? The foto was taken by Jan van der Doe. Today it’s called Samuel de Champlain and appeared in this blog recently here.
Although it was built in Texas in 1976 as Musketeer Fury, it operated for a while as well as an Italian tug called Vortice, shown here post-fire. Here’s what frequent contributor Jan van der Doe wrote a few weeks ago: “While plying the waters near Trieste in 1993, she suffered a devastating fire to her upper engine room and deckhouse. The accommodations were completely destroyed and much of the steel deck and superstructure warped from the heat. The vessel was laid up in Italy until McKeil Marine Ltd. purchased Vortice on spec in the mid-’90s and towed her to Hamilton, Ontario. The engines were not damaged, probably the reason the tug came to Canada. I [was] onboard a few times during her lay up in Hamilton.” Here’s a link and foto suggesting the fire happened on the Atlantic off the Azores.
Excuse my parenthetical insertions, but Capt. Thalassic wrote this of Sachem, featured here recently: Sachem was built (1902, Pusey & Jones, hull #306. By the way Cangarda was built in the same yard in 1901 as hull #302) for J. Roberts Maxwell. It had elegant lines and significantly a very large main cabin for entertaining. Power was provided by a Fairbanks 8 cylinder slow speed diesel. During WW 2 the yacht was passed to the Navy and I believe engaged in submarine patrols and training in the Caribbean. After the war it was sold to the Circle line and probably had the most elegant lines in a fleet of converted landing craft although I am sure the direct drive diesel was terrifically difficult to maneuver with in NY harbor. Eventually it was retired and sold as junk to an organization known as the Hudson River Maritime Academy which was based in West New York NJ. The organization was less about maritime or learning than it was about drinking and it went bust. The owner of the pier sold the vessel to Butch Miller from Cincinnati. (Butch owned a company founded by his father that had developed those augers which you see on all those utility trucks.) Butch would drive a van from Ohio to NJ to renovate and get the vessel running. This proved almost impossible and Butch was convinced that he had to get the vessel closer to home. He purchased a Murray Tregurtha unit and plopped it on the rear deck. His first plan was to sail up the New England coast, down the Saint Lawrence. He sailed out of NY harbor with a complete compliment of road maps and promptly ran aground in the fog. He was towed back into NY harbor and was put up in Newtown Creek for another year. Eventually he headed north up the Hudson. The helm was a lawn chair on the roof and steering was done with a broomstick tied to the controls on the MT unit below. Amazingly Butch got upstate and through the canal all the way to Buffalo (I often repeat his description of the canal as “floating through a corn field”) and then through Erie, Huron (where he was detained by Customs for wandering over the border line near Windsor/Detroit). He went all the way down Michigan to Chicago, through the Chicago River to the Mississippi, down the Mississippi to Cairo and then up the Ohio to the Cincinnati area. It was truly an adventure of a life time and it is incredible he made it. As far a I know the vessel sits in a backwater on the Kentucky side of the Ohio near Cincinnati. It is sad retirement for an elegant vessel but it was an amazing adventure. It is fun and satisfying to see that every once in a while the eccentrics with old boats do live out a dream. ” In this Halloween season, it may just be part of the entertainment there . . . given this story. The foto is by Seth Tane, showing Sachem in that appears to be waters off Yonkers.
Let’s sign off with this vessel . . . Bertha. See the foto on the left margin. Surely this can’t be lost!!
Thans to Gregory, Jan, and Seth for use of these fotos. I look forward to any and all followup to these fotos.
If you’re going to the market event in Manhattan today, look for signs like this, painted what must be Ceres
blue. This is the west end of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, closest to Vinegar Hill. Beyond the East River there, protruding into the sky to the right, that’s the empire State Building. Ceres has arrived, and
on schedule!
Inside this warehouse, I picked up my order of Ricker Hill Orchards vinegar and Champlain Valley Apiaries honey.
Excuse the poor quality foto. Could someone explain the dried (?) birds’ wings?
There was seaweed . . .
pumpkins,
wild artichokes, and much much more.
Agger Fish–right next to the warehouse–was a sponsor of the Brooklyn event, as were Brooklyn Grange, triple island, and Marlow & Daughters.
Morgan O’Kane played, parents shopped and talked, and and kids danced.
If you’re local and have time, get down to the New Amsterdam Market today . . . on the opposite side of the river here.
Congratulations to Erik and the team for a very big accomplishment. Although there’s lots of work left this season, season two starts up soon. Here’s some preliminary info on the vessel, which was modified in the construction. In case you’re wondering . . . Erik’s estimate is that Ceres sailed only about twenty percent of the trip.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who alone is responsible for any errors in reporting.
Here, here, and here are my previous Ceres posts. Last but not the least least . . . it’s bowsprite’s rendering. Here’s the NYTimes version.
The last time I had Congo River fotos here was almost seven years ago! In that post, I mention being a Peace Corps volunteer in the DRC (then Zaire) back in 1973. When I completely training and tried to fly up to my post, I learned the airplane was out of commission and the river was my only option to travel up there. I was thrilled! And now I’m thrilled again to have these fotos. These are NOT my fotos but Gregory Farino–who worked there about five years after me–generously permits me to use these. We don’t know the name of this “pousseur” tug–not unlike some of the Mississippi River “pushers,” but it looks similar to
what I recall of my conveyance, Major Vangu lashed to four huge barges. I believe Major Vangu has since sunk. The “O” on the stack stands for Onatra (Office National de Transports). For four nights and days non-stop, the tow went north. I shared a cabin on the second level with another PC volunteer. The enclosed area forward was a bar/restaurant with beautiful carved wood. The two levels above that were crew accommodations and wheelhouse, which I didn’t see.
These are two “second class” accommodation barges. Our tow had one of these. It also had two “third class” units, regular flat cargo barges with barrels of fuel for upriver towns, breakbulk bundles, and truckloads of fuel and other cargo. As I recall this was a pre-container time. And passengers who hadn’t even enough for the “second class” barges, rested in the shade of the cargo and under the trucks.
Here is account and good fotos of some folks who did this river ten years after me. And here’s an Atlantic article I recall reading, a person who did the trip in the early 1990s.
During my trip, I watched dozens of dugouts (pirogues) like these, loaded deep with forest meat and dried/fresh fish, paddled up alongside the tow while underway to trade for products (medicine, blades, ammunition, fish hooks and line, salt) not available in the forest/river villages. And when I say “paddled,” I mean stand-up paddled . . . as it was then done. More than once, the pirogue, caught in the wake, capsized, sending paddler(s) and cargo into the river. And the tow continued upriver.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has traveled on the Congo River in the past 10 years. I have a fantasy to retrace this trip, dangers and inconvenience notwithstanding.
Many thanks to Gregory Farino for bringing these fotos out.
Here was 8.
Do you recognize these vessels? At the moment I write this, both are working together to escort in NYK Meteor.
In the drydock earlier this year . . . Joan Turecamo and the other?
This one is unmistakeable. A year ago she was preparing to steam all night inside the sixth boro to ride out the storm.
Click here for a foto of her in late October last year after Sandy had punished some more than others.
From the land side, you can see some of the work recently done.
And here from the dry side of the first shot . . . it’s Kimberly Turecamo and Joan.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Random . . . all fotos taken in the past week, and . . . let’s start with a tugboat that’s NOT mostly painted white, the 1958 Thornton Bros. This foto, courtesy of William Hyman, also shows the color of foliage on the New Jersey bluff across from upper midtown.
2000 Brooklyn, which also has had a long list of previous names.
1979 Margaret Moran
2002 Gramma Lee T Moran
1974 BF Jersey
1966 Gulf Dawn
1979 Patrick J Hunt
And some fotos of vessels operating by night. .. 1983 Escort
1969 Robert E McAllister
1976 Atlantic Salvor. Notice the tallest building in the distance . . . that’s WTC1. Eleven months ago, I took these fotos of Salvor steaming int the sixth boro with segments of the antenna that are now assembled and in place atop the tower.
And once again, the green 1958 tug that started out this post.
Thanks to William for the first foto; all others by Will Van Dorp.
Here was 19.
And this fast moving light tanker is Afrodite, shuttling Albany to St. John, NB Canada, exporting Dakota crude. That all may sound like science fiction, but sometimes I feel like my whole life has started re-enacting science fiction. Afrodite, she with the intriguing name, sails fast. This foto, taken between the bridges in Poughkeepsie, comes compliments of Jeffrey Anzevino. Thanks, Jeff.
The foto below, the latest from Tony Acabono, shows Gunhild Kirk, formerly Stealth Argentina.
I took all the rest here, except for the very last one . . . here Happy Dynamic leaves ex-MOTBY for sea.
The last few days, Happy Dynamic has been my striven-for state.
Maryland . . . passes here in the foreground of Overseas Fran and Stolt Concept. Overseas Fran . . . all I can think of —in the spirit of Thomas Pynchon-make that . . . overseas, fran? Or . . “Over. Seas (seize) Fran!” Gravity’s Rainbow is enjoyable, if you can make it through, and it took me three tries before I got through the first time. More Maryland pics soon.
Ah . . and finally that creamy colored tanker bringing into the sixth boro my favorite
At first my eyes saw Zengale, quite the oxymoron. Later, I made out the correct name, referring to a province of Latvia.
JPO Libra . . . escorted by Miriam Moran and
Energy Conqueror . . . spun by Margaret Moran.
Parting shot, also from Jeff Anzevino . . . Afrodite.
Many thanks to Jeff and Tony for use of these fotos. All others by Will Van Dorp.
I’d planned something else for today, but when Brian DeForest, terminal manager of Atlantic Salt, sent along these fotos –taken Sunday from a unique perspective, I scrapped my erstwhile plan. See the orange details in the foreground?
These are fotos from the ship, which is currently moving at 10 to 11 knots southbound off Cape May. That’s the Bayonne Bridge and
here’s the arm conveying salt onto the pile.
I’m sure this has a technical term, but I’ll call it the bracket that supports the arm when not in use.
And here’s a view into the traveling wheelhouse and
the hold.
Here is engine room info.
Finally, here’s Quantico Creek as seen from the bridge wing.
Here’s a foto I took nearly six years ago on the KVK looking off the starboard bow of a large vessel of another time–a century ago–that used to engage in a salt trade out of Chile. Know the vessel?
Answer: Peking. Here’s one of six posts I did about that transit of Peking from Caddell’s back to South Street Seaport Museum waters.
Many thanks to Brian DeForest for all these fotos, except the last one.
A thought just occurs to me: Chile’s main salt port today is Patache. Could that word be a Spanish spelling/pronunciation of the word “potash”?
tugster: a waterblog 
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