NYC Tugboat Race 2014 a

But first . . . it’s a race, and there are trophies for such categories as best-looking, best mascot, best tattooed crew person . . .  .  And there is pushing and jostling, for which there are no trophies.  But what would you call this?

Step back a hundred and some feet . . . and clearly it’s USAV MGen Anthony Wayne LT-803, 5100 hp, and delivered from what is now  VT Halter Marine in June 1993.  Off her port side is Eric R. Thornton.

From l to r, lining up are Meagan Ann, Houma, Bering Sea, a little of Robert E. McAllister, Buchanan 1, Mister T, and Emily Ann.  

Here’s a view of Robert E.’s business end under way.

Mako III seemed to carry a different name last year.   It began life as an Army ST, although I don’t know what number she carried.  66, perhaps?

And they were off.  Fells Point, the nearest vessel, is likely the newest boat in the race.

More photos later.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is grateful to NYMedia Boat and Bjoern Kils for getting the best positions for photography during the sixth boro’s premiere Labor Day event, the 22nd annual Great North River Race organized by the Working Harbor Committee, who also deserve a big round of applause.

Two questions you might have are . .  why does the Army have boats, and who was MGen Anthony Wayne?  Here are links A and B to answer the first part–please add detail if you know it–and here’s the info on General Wayne, sometimes called “mad General Wayne.”

Internal Urger 2

Here was the first post in this series.  The photo below I took last week after the newly painted engine room deck had dried.  At that point, I could have eaten off that “floor,” you know . . . a sandwich, a slice of pizza, although I would have used a plate so that the slice wouldn’t get the floor dirty.   At this point, we are forward of the engine, looking down the port side.

Here’s a photo I took five years ago, same side of the engine.  Chris . . . the 6′ engineer shows scale . . .

The next several photos show the starboard side of the engine.  The camera was nearly on the deck.  Upper left side of the photo shows the red grates of the engineer’s station and the chain attaching the controls to the engine.

This is almost the same shot taken with camera about three feet from the deck.

Here’s starboard side of the engine looking forward, and

ditto . ..  taken at level with the catwalk the engineer walks on to manually lubricate the moving engine while under way.

This is looking forward from “behind” the flywheel.

The photo below shows the engine room controls to the engine.  Click on the photo to hear and see the Atlas Imperial running.  The sound here differs from the clip embedded in the following photo because here the generator is off.

The shot below shows the upper engine controls, just forward of the seat where the engineer sits.  Click on the photo for a video of the engineer executing engine commands as the captain communicates them via bell and jingle.  In the video–yes, I invert the camera after a few seconds–the constant roar in the Kohler engine/generator/compressor.  The video starts with an air-start.  At the 10-second mark, the bell commands the engineer to stop the engine.  At the 18-second mark, the bell commands him to restart the engine in the opposite direction.  The captain was doing a three-point turn in a narrow portion of the canal during this time.

Even though the post is called “internal” Urger, here’s a show from outside the wheelhouse.  Click on it to see and hear the Atlas Imperial running;  again, in this clip the generator is off.  The video was done fairly early in the morning and shooting into the sun.

All photos and video by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to get better video of the AI once back on the boat.

 

Two Hours on the Narrows 3

Here were 2 and the first.  This was Sunday morning August 24 at dawn.

Maersk Atlanta was headed out and

the lifters –Oops I mean Ardmore Sealifter and  . .  Ichabod Crane–were at different stages of prep to move and

and who be that . . . incoming  . .  . hull down?

with lots of deck gear . . .

why it’s Alice!!

with all her sculptural machines all

ready to discharge more aggregates on the projects hither and yon in the terrestrial boros of NYC.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who offers this in case he’s NOT back in the city for the tug race on Sunday.  On verra.

Click here for the many posts I’ve done on my favorite Alice.

LNYBL Addition from Shore

Coexistence . . . is vital.  Click on the linked words for info on the Bisso family history and their fleet of derrick barges.   I can provide no info on the surfers other than that they were having fun at the beach.  You should have heard what the gulls–lower right–were saying.

Click here for info on their pipe lay equipment, and here for their dive support boat, featured here last spring.   No info on the rower.

I’m not sure whose survey boat this is.   . . .

Head on over to Riis Park before the season is over!

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

LNYBL Addition Close Up

Here was the first post  . . .LNYB . .  being Lower New York Bay.  I’m wondering, though, if this might technically be the corner of New York Bight, not the Lower Bay.    The “sixth boro” nomenclature  . . . blurs the distinction.

The Rockaway Lateral pipeline project is . . . partly about pipe.  How the pipe gets “injected” into the earth is illustrated in this video.  Bear with the first 45 seconds . . . the remaining 4 and a half minutes are illuminating.

Thanks to a secret salt for these photos of taking on pipe and provisions.

Here’s a closeup of OSV Michael Lawrence, which first appeared in this blog here.

Here are fleet mates.

All above photos from a secret salt.  If I’m not way off, the photo below–not so close up–shows Michael Lawrence alongside the “pipe-injector” barge.

This last photo I took on Tuesday.

Relief Crew 17

aka Blue Marlin‘s Vigorous cargo, with all photos and most text by Seth Tane, whose painting site has long been linked to this blog AND who took the photos of the sixth boro during the 1970s and ’80s that he and I collaborated on last year in the 10-post series I called “sixth boro fifth dimension.”  By the way, the dry dock will be the largest in the US, built by ZPMC.  Do you recall hearing of them here and in other posts like here and here?

 On the bow, Foss’ Pacific Escort.  On port, Tiger 9.  The view is from the St. John’s Bridge.

On the stern is Shaver’s Sommer S.   That’s the city of Portland upper left.

Ahead is the BNSF drawspan. They’re going to crane lift a few bits and pieces at the Vigor Swan Island shipyard (Click here for photos I took there last year.) and then transit back under the bridges to a deep hole off terminal 4 to float off the dock where they have the required 50′ draft.

Here’s the side view.  Recall that it was Blue Marlin that returned a damaged USS Cole from Yemeni waters.

Many thanks to Seth Tane for these photos.  Click here for another look at his painting.

 

Relief Crew 16

Here was 15.  The first relief crew post appeared here over seven years ago.  The idea is to feature someone else’s photos and/or writing, just because so many of you see, photograph, and write such interesting stuff AND –of course–because collaboration is such powerful leaven.

All these photos today come from Birk Thomas.  The event was the departure last week of CV-60 USS Saratoga–Brooklyn built–for the scrapyard.    For some intriguing photos of the other end of her life, click here for this navsource site.

Signet Warhorse III is the motive force.

Iona McAllister, Rainbow, and Buckley McAllister assist with the hookup and departure from Narragansett Bay.

Not until last night did I learn that a final aircraft takeoff and landing was happening at this very moment up on her flight deck.

Warhorse . . . what a name!

Note the riding crew on the deck.

Rainbow straightens out the tow. . .

in the early minutes of the tow.

Again, many thanks to Birk Thomas for use of these photos, which not all of you have seen on Facebook.

Existing LNYBL Addition

LNYBL?  Gulf of Mexico?  North Sea?  Persian Gulf?  No . . . it’s Lower NY Bay, and these days it’s populated with unusual equipment.

That’s a spudded jackup barge holding Weeks 751, and off to the right, it’s an exotic

called Michael Lawrence.  And I’m betting the working is happening in the same place DSV Joseph Bisso was operating about a half year ago.

 

Two other tugs tending the work barge Bisso D/B Boaz are Pacific Dawn 1974 (ex-Pelican Magic) –above and below–and

Smith Invader (2006).

And what’s going on is the LNYB Rockaway Lateral Project, a  three-mile connection between Brooklyn and the existing offshore pipeline.  A closer-up map can be found here.  Anyone know how long ago the existing Transco pipeline went in?

More details of the deal here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s off the Canal for at least another day and a half.

Canal Craft 3

Oswego is one terminus in the NYS Canal system that sees regular calls from non-US ships, like Stephen B. Roman, named for this mining engineer.   I wish a shiptrafficwatcher would start an Oswego-focused blog.

A joy of traveling the Canal system is seeing the craftsmanship  . . . of all sorts;  this building and its neighbor

date to one of the first families of the Oswego area.

Innovative solutions intrigue me.  Look closely at this dock . . .

Here’s a whole new opportunity for recycling  . . . Gypsum Express style. For updates on the ways in which the Canal corridor is attempting to rediscover the spirit it once had–that’s a whole ‘nother subject–check this site.

This boathouse near the west end of Oneida Lake conjures up a past age . . .

Roman Holiday, a 1939 Elco built in Bayonne (ex-Unicorn and Nancy) is an example of the surprises that may pass you on the Canal.

Nietverdient . . . in Dutch the name means “un earned”  . . . at this point has traveled from Minnesota.

Here’s another classic . . . a 1969 Trumpy named Angelus, ex-Showtime, I think.

A different form of craft . . . markers along the Canal to ease resetting of navigation buoys.

A row of trawlers set out westward across Oneida . . . from near to far, it’s Don Mariner, Symmetry II, and Deju Vu.

Here’s a totally homebuilt interpretation of a cruising barge . . . Eriecuse.

And finally . . . since most of these photos were taken in the vicinity of Oneida Lake, there is the craftsmanship hidden and disintegrating beneath its waters . . . like Thomas H, whose existence I learned about from a passing stranger to whom I am grateful.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Critters 2

Delphinidae . . .

rattus . . .

mammalian

well . . . rendering of a mammalian 

warm fuzzy . . .

just . .  curdling!

Delphinidae win . . . flippers down. 

That’s today’s sporting event.  Water pics from a secret salt;  rat rod pics by Will Van Dorp, who strayed off the Canal a bit. 

Here was the first in this series, and this and this and this might also be the same series.