On Sale, Stored, or Stricken Sunday

The photo immediately below was taken in July 2011, just before I published this post from Mayport.

At that time, I’d no idea that some 40 months later I’d cross paths with the same vessel, FFG 42 Klakring here.

Here is NISMF . . . aka

. .  the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in the Philadelphia Navy Yard,

where in addition to FFGs (frigates) like Klakring, there are DDs (destroyers) as shown in photo #4 and LPDs (amphibious transport docks) like USS Shreveport above and below foreground.

guided missile cruisers and

amphibious cargo ships like USS El Paso,

LKA-117.  Click here for info on one of her former captains.

Last vessel for today is T-AGOR-16, USS Hayes, an oceanographic research ship.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who suggests that if you’re in Philly, take a ride to the end of Broad Street and visit the huge business campus still known as the Navy Yard.  There’s no better place to walk around!

Scrap Saturday

I did a post about a scrapping before . .  in early 2007 here.  Warning:  Disturbing images follow.  This post focuses on a tug built in Matton Shipyard,

one of four tugboats that were originally christened John E. Matton, not the one below.

It could get confusing, but vessels were launched as John E. Matton in 1939 (which seems to be this one and still afloat as Atlantic 7 although I’ve not found a photo), in 1945, in 1958, and in 1964.

Below are photos of the 1958 John E. Matton.  The first one is from 2007, when it was known as Thornton Bros.

It changed names–and colors–after 2007, and that’s confusing too,

 

but by 2012 it again was Thornton Bros.

But earlier this year, time had run out, and I got some pics as it awaited the scrapper.

The following photos–taken while I was up on the canal–come compliments of Gerard Thornton, to whom I am grateful.

As I look at these, I’m eager to get into canal related archives to see what photos exist of the area around the Matton yard in the 1940s and 1950s.

 

And might there be photos of steel sheet and rod transported by canal from the Great Lakes steel plants to the Matton yard?

Again, thanks to Gerard Thornton for the last four photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

By the way, the John E. Matton (1964) became one of the vessels named Helen J. Turecamo and sank in 1988.  Does anyone know details about that sinking beyond 1988 and that it happened near Norfolk and involved a submarine? I get nothing from googling.

 

Black Friday

. . . or I could call it “blue friday plus 700-something days.”  Here was “plus 21 days.”  Anyhow, on this day associated with shopping, Hayward and others were out for harbor maintenance,

Chesapeake Coast and others were out pushing fuel,

Seastreak New Jersey and others were moving passengers . . . (maybe here),  and

crews on ship and shore were moving bulk materials like salt here from Key Hunter.

And if you wonder what it looks like at the base of that tower, whose antenna arrived in the harbor 723 days ago, here’s a photo from Fulton Street I took two weeks ago when the news trucks and lots of others were hoping that two workers would soon be rescued.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

For a sense of how the Lower Manhattan skyline looked from New Brighton area of Staten Island about four years ago, click here.

Meet Alakai

Eight years ago today I published a post I called Meet Alice.    More on that fact later.  Today we meet  . . . Alakai.

It seems fitting that today we should meet  Alakai to the right and her sister Huakai, 

now known as USNS Puerto Rico and

USNS Guam.   Click here and here for more on these vessels.

No bulbous bow here . . . and that’s a bulker docked off Alakai‘s stern.  The catamarans were a very costly mistake for Hawaii Superferry.  Here are the ship specifications from an existing Hawaii Superferry site.

Today both vessels await their fate at the Philadelphia Navy yard,

where I took this photo below, which has nothing to do with the HSFs, but I couldn’t pass it up.

Soon I’ll post more from NISMF Philadelphia, a place that should be on everyone’s gallivant list.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who posted “Meet Alice” exactly eight years ago as the inaugural post on this blog.  Since then, 2,602 other posts have been sent up from my rabbit’s hole.  It’s been a fun gallivant that has shown me fascinating stuff and introduced me to literally thousands of fun and otherwise interesting folks.  If I have the stamina and time, there ARE many more places to go and ways to go there, and I hope to do another 2600+ posts over the next days and months and years .  .   .   Thanks for reading and writing back.

 

 

GUP 3

Here were 1 and 2 of this series, and here was a much earlier post about NYC DEP’s essential service.

Below is North River and Hunts Point as seen from Rockaway.

Port Richmond heads into Hell’s Gate,

Red Hook in the distance and Port Richmond passing by,

and finally all three new boats with Red Hook in the distance.  Here are some photos of Red Hook as she appeared when first in service in early 2009.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Awareness

Know the location?

I took it from a southernmost point in the Bronx looking eastward toward North Brother Island . . . the brick chimney to the right.  I can’t identify either the Weeks tug or the current usage of the red-and-white striped stack to the left.

What caught my attention was the pink breast cancer awareness ribbon on the front of the house of Mediterranean Sea.

By the time I got back to the sixth boro, the pink “M” on Moran tugs was once again white.  The only photo of a Moran tug I managed in the whole month of October was the one below, a photo of a photo of a Catherine Moran in the lobby of a restaurant in Lockport.  Label says . . . as you can read it . . . “Lockport 1939.”  Would this have been the vessel built by Neafie & Levy in 1904?

As to the pink ribbon, I was happy to see it.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Tugboats & Locomotives 2

The imp in my head wants to mess with the title and permutate this to “tugmotives and locoboats,” and I’m guessing way back when power began to be applied to hulls, there were those who thought they were seeing “loco boats” but I digress.  First, a historical photo to set the context.

Just east of local 19, here’s Margot pushing a barge underneath the main line.  I don’t know the exact number, but these rails cross over the canal at least a half dozen times between Waterford and Tonawanda.

As you’ll see in most of the next photos, it’s hard to get a photo of a complete tug and a complete locomotive if you happen to be moving on one of the other.  Difficulty notwithstanding, I kept on trying.

With a drone I could have gotten the locomotive . . .

or the rest of the tugboat.

I know there’s no locomotive in sight, but the boxcars were colorful.

Here’s an ALCO-built Genesee Valley locomotive, which may have been built at the Schenectady plant, itself once right on the south bank on the Canal.

We had to wait at the top of lock 19 and my camera was ready, but no trains came.  As soon as we descended and started heading eastward . . . one passed.

When one passed right near us, of course it was backlit.

I took this shot from the upper wheelhouse.

So at the end of the season, I had to conclude this was my loco-tug moneyshot, which had to be taken from neither.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose focus will soon be leaving the canal.  Having said that, part of me wants to get back up there when the water levels are drawn down and the snow covers the ground.   Click here for some history of the relations rail/canal in the first quarter century after the opening of the waterway.  Click here for a basic introduction to the canal levels monitoring from the state hydrologist.

 

Tugboats & Locomotives

Now this could be a productive combo, after all there was a DeWitt Clinton, which was NY’s first locomotive and it ran between two cities at the eastern end of the Erie Canal.

What does Governor Cleveland have to do with it?

Well, it just happened to be tied to bollards just west of Lock 14 . . .

but no bollard will ever stop the frequently passing locomotives and cars .  . .

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Canal Craft 5

This is probably the last of this series as well.  These photos were all taken between October 2 and 19 in an area of the western canal, the extreme western portion of which is now more than a little snow-covered.  I don’t know much about this little 1985 one-off (I was told) fiberglass tugboat named Tilly.  Not the Tilly that’s currently underwater.  

Mandalay . . . said to have down east fishing origins from the first decades of the 20th century . . . is a stunner.  Reminds me of Grayling, third photo down here.   Mandalay is on the Genesee river, not technically the canal, although their waters commingle.

Capt. Green . . . another Genesee River denizen said to be a converted landing craft.

Any word(s) on this?

Truly a unique craft of western NY, cobblestone architecture–its height came during the first few decades after the completion of the Erie  Canal)  is celebrated in this museum just north of the canal in Childs, NY.

Heidi, a 37′ 1941 Richardson, is truly a gem on the western canal.

And this looks like almost too much fun!

This brown “sculpture” made no sense to me when I first saw it, but then at a farmer’s market in Lockport, I notice a reference to “farm to pint” and local hops sales and tasted a range of local craft beers . . . of course . . . it’s a huge representation of a hops cone.

Hobbit house?  dungeon?

Try . .  outlet for a 19th century water power system in Lockport.

And for a feat quite unimaginable to DeWitt Clinton and his cronies, here’s the Red Bull take.  Click on the photo below.

Finally . . . I know I’ve posted a version of this photo previously, but this culvert under the canal begs a tip of the hat to that craftwork of an earlier era.

I was truly fortunate to see this variety of craft, but for a time traveler’s view, you must read Michele A. McFee’s A Long Haul:  The Story of the New York State Canal.  One of my favorite sets of photos from the New York State Archives and featured in her book relates to Henry Ford . . . his 1922 vacation on the canal and subsequent decision to ship auto parts on the canal.  In fact, on p. 193 there’s a photo of new automobiles shipped across the state NOT by truck or train but by barge!

 

 

Canal Craft 4

I’m working backwards still . . . all photos in this post were taken between October 22 and 28.  M/V Mystere . .  works the Hudson river now, but I’d never seen her before this encounter above lock 7.

The next three photos were taken just above and just below lock 11 Amsterdam, showing use of small boats on the Canal/Mohawk River for bridge and dam work.  Click here to see what park this bridge footing some day will support.

The repairs have been necessitated by the flooding of 2011.

Artania II is the last wooden Matthews, built in 1970 and just restored in Michigan, headed home near lock 14.  Click here for photos of the restoration at E. J. Mertaugh Boat Works, satisfying but it loads slowly.

Here Artania II passes Governor Cleveland.

Zooming ahead of us is the largest Sea Ray I’ve ever seen . . . Just Because . . . but I forget the loa’

This Honeywell boat has probably been working on the dredging of Onandaga Lake, now  declared finished.

I don’t know the story of this vessel, although at first notice I thought it a sporty very low-slung yacht.

Lil Joe had been doing bridge inspection earlier in the season, as are

these guys.  I love this Harcon bucket boat and its hydraulically-actuated outriggers.

And finally . . . taking advantage of the ambiguity of the word craft, here’s the very definition of a bucolic scene, less than 300 feet from the bed of the original Erie Canal in Lyons.

More canal craft soon . . . maybe tomorrow.