Random Ships 34

An unusual vessel working for a line with an unusual name . . . with  . . . is that Gabby Miller in the background?

It’s Genius Star VIII, of the Wisdom Marine Group.

And here’s Laura K Moran, escorting in Durande, with an unusual port of registry on its stern.

Marseille . . . a place on my “wanna-see, gotta gallivant” list.

And another . . . by the color it’s Maersk, escorted in here by  . . . Ellen McAllister, I think.

But look, there amidships . . . just above the word “LINE” . . .

. . . is that an Oshkosh?

Damietta!

There’s never a shortage of surprises in the sixth boro.  All photos taken in the past few days by Will Van Dorp, who has learned of these forthcoming and unusually large vessels on the horizon somewhere.

 

Names 26

What?  Photoshop?

No, it’s not .  . . here’s the namesake, which has its own namesake.

And another . ..  evidently named for a ghost town.

Here’s another.  Was Florida settled and named by witty folk with an unusual sense of humor?

It looks like Dump Key was the toned-down version . . . .  Here’s a bunch more of Keys-nomenclature.

And here is the wikipedia take on odd names.

Many thanks to JLF for sending this along.

I’m loving this.  Please send more fun with charts and even maps and signs.

Sea Surveyor

I’m not sure what the rest of the story here is, but for me the story is a vessel–Sea Surveyor–I’ve never seen before and parked at a location where it can get help . . . like

this.

Sea Surveyor is a vessel of the Gardine Marine Sciences group.

Photos by Will Van Dorp, the day after Storm Juno passed through.

Ice 4

Storm Juno was all hyperbole in the five boros . . . not as  harsh as  in eastern Long Island and southern New England, but it was cold the day after.  Nevertheless, Mary Alice and Cheyenne were hard at work,

as was Mister Jim.

The same is true for Barbara McAllister and 

Charles D.

Buchanan 1 was at work.

The government boats were out like Liberty V and

Driftmaster.

Of course, cold means demand for fuel . .  and Matthew Tibbetts was moving it , as

was Crystal Cutler.

Joyce D. Brown was moving the railroad and

Treasure Coast had a barge astern headed south. Anyone know what cargo was/will be in the barge?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who went out to see the sights after the storm.

Names 25

On predicted weather days, you might be looking at charts while passing the waking hours, waiting.  And you might see unusual names . . . like Cholera Bank, about 10 miles out from

Jones Inlet.  Why would someone name such a location after a plague gets explained here, and some statistics on numbers of deaths here.   Given that explanation, you might expect an Ebola Bank in the future . . . somewhere if not here.   But seeing

this odd name on the chart recalled other odd names like these:  Bald Porcupine Island and Ile d’Amour off Maine, Pot Island off Connecticut, and North Dumpling Island, NY.  Then there’s Ono  (Oh no!) Island, Alabama, and of course one of my all-time favorites . . . Galivants Ferry, South Carolina, which prompted this detour (scroll through) some years back.

Speaking of gallivants, a friend in Netherlands sent me this photo yesterday as we hunkered down as Storm Juno approached.  The photo below shows a convoy of tugs towing inland barges navigating a track through the Schie, a waterway in Rotterdam, a place I visited when I gallivanted there last May.

This is not exactly the same section of the Schie, but I’ve never shared these photos.

Nor this one of feeder container vessel called Temptation passing under the Erasmusbrug.   If you want to see a beautiful 14-minute video of a restored century-old Dutch sailing vessel traversing the canal system between Delft and Rotterdam  . . . ending up near the Schie . . . click here.

And since we are now many miles off our original course, what unusual or inexplicable charted or mapped names have you seen?  Please share some.

All photos, except for the black/white one and the bicycle one, by Will Van Dorp, who wonders who Jones was.

Change 3

Here was 2.

So let’s remember how Viking looked in 2011, and

how she looked this past week.

Ditto . . . here was Annabelle V. Roehrig is early 2008, which

looked like this in 2009.  Notice the pins in the modified bow.

And here she was this weekend, departing Bayonne with

assistance from Taurus, which itself

has changed from this in 2009 to

this today.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who along with the rest of us . . . never changes.  Ha!

Small Craft 10

Here were previous installments.

And below are a set of small craft I’ve seen in the sixth boro and further environs so far this month . . . .

The colors look familiar here, but

This one I have noticed before . . .

Wolf River used to be everywhere in the harbor until it got shipped–literally–to some far distant

dredge projects, like this one on Guanabara Bay in summer 2013.

The KVK is not the regular route of pilot boat Yankee.

Now here is the small craft that could and DID . . .

and got a presidential letter for it. Click here for more Long Island boat building traditions.

Dobrin . . . is a 65′ Swiftships-built survey vessel.

Click here and here for other Swiftships vessels that have appeared on this blog.  Swiftships have also supplied vessels for the reconstruction of the Iraqi coastal navy.

Can anyone identify the manufacturer of NYSB-3.  I’m guessing this is one of several identical vessels in the USACE NY District fleet?

And here’s a clue . . . Vane Brothers currently has a crew boat in the harbor!  Christian was formerly owned by Kirby, K-Sea, and others.

And to end where we started but we a quite different attitude . . . given the tender carried over the stern.  I don’t know this boat.

Let me postscript in another closer-up photo . . .showing a Rhode Island registry . . .

All photos taken very recently by Will Van Dorp.

Canallers in Winter

Frances . . . built on Long Island in 1957 looked quite happy yesterday.  She languished a few years a decade ago, but she’s now shiny and back at work. Click here and scroll through to see Frances as I first saw her in faux-wood paint.  Here are the basics on her.

Cheyenne, a Brooklyn-built Bushey tug from 1965,  is a veteran of the canal, as seen here and here.  In the second link, she’s house down ducking underneath the bridge in Sylvan Beach with scows bound for the sixth boro.  Here she was this past summer in Oswego after traversing the canal east to west and Lake Erie bound.

Also, some photos I took yesterday of Thomas D. Witte, built in Louisiana in 1961.  Her air draft now precludes her operating on the canal.

All photos taken by Will Van Dorp, who will spend a few hours today at the NYS Canal Corp booth at the NYC Boat Show.

For more canallers, click here.

Transitioning 8

Here was another in the series on the move past the Sky single-hulled tankers, Patrick and Scotty.

These slow splash photos I took on January 6.

This morning I saw James Joseph afloat, scuffed, and showing evidence of loading . . . .

And Diane B was the power unit.

Bravo!  All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Other Peoples Photos 42

Many thanks to Ashley Hutto for this photo . . . gotta move a scow across skinny water?  Only five feet at high water?  Here you go.  Ashley took the photo in Tampa Bay.

And thanks to my sister aboard Maraki . . . which departed Trinidadan waters yesterday.  It’s Island Intervention, a Vanuatu-flagged oil well stimulation vessel.

Also, a tip of the hat to Aaron Reed of Crewboat Chronicles for this photo;  it’s Sea Durbin, 43′ vessel from 1950 and built by Alcide Cheramie, and with

very similar lines, here’s Wyoming, a 57’6″ beauty built 1940 by Camley Cheramie, a photo I took here almost three years ago.

I’d love to see her interior.

And here’s another repeat from a few years back . . . I’m still looking for info on her previous life.

Photos not attributed by Will Van Dorp.  For the others, thanks much to Ashley, Aaron, and my sister.

Unrelated, check out this NYTimes story about a Queen Mary –and its namesake from half century ago– moving through NYC yesterday on its way to California.