Vessels are just machines, but I prefer to anthropomorphize them, and thus miss them when they go. On this transition day, I want to acknowledge some vessels that I’d come to enjoy seeing but will now transition away .
Scotty Sky is a Blount design, launched as L. G. Laduca in 1960. I took the photo in January 2011. Click here for a photo of this vessel operating on Lake Erie.
Patrick Sky is also a Blount design, launched as L. G. LaDuca II in 1966. Click here for info on her other names and identities. Both were built for West Shore Fuel of Buffalo, NY, and named for the family of company president, Charles G. Laduca. Click here to see a 150′ version of these Blount boats. Click here to see an interesting but totally unrelated and now scrapped vessel called West Shore . . . fueling a steamer with coal.
Capt. Log is the smallest and newest of the now timed-out single-hulled tankers in the sixth boro. Click here for the recent Professional Mariner article on this vessel.
The three above vessels are still fully functional tonight, phased out notwithstanding. Crow, seen here in a photo from September 2011, was scrapped this year in the same location where
Kristin Poling, another single-hulled tanker seen here in a photo I took in March 2010, was scrapped two years ago. Click here for a number of the posts I did on Kristin.
Out with the old . . . in with the new, mostly because we have no choice, as time sprints on.
All photos here by Will Van dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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January 1, 2015 at 12:22 pm
Erich
I used to love seeing the Kristin Poling off loading oil in Albany, across the river from my plant! Had a feeling she would meet her demise.
January 1, 2015 at 1:09 pm
mageb
Happy new year to you and yours. Thanks for all the work you put in to this blog year long.
January 2, 2015 at 7:01 am
per mare...
Reblogged this on per mare….
January 2, 2015 at 1:21 pm
William Lafferty
The two L. G. La Ducas were named in honor of Louis La Duca (1885-1975), the father of Charles and Ralph. The elder La Duca founded Frontier Marine Supply Company at Buffalo in 1945, out of which in 1950 evolved West Shore Fuel Company headed by Charles. Ralph ran Frontier.
January 2, 2015 at 9:43 pm
Will
William– thx for the correction. I’ll post again when my internet connection gets re-established.