KVK Dawn 3

Here were some previous posts with “dawn” in the title.  I’d hoped to get photos like these on Easter Sunday, but  overcast skies obscured the sun rise color.

Sunrise this particular morning was 0643.  The photo below was at 0644.

Quantico Creek pushes a barge eastward while Stephen Reinauer heads west.

 

Curtis Reinauer westbound; Emerald Coast eastward.

And by 0729, the light was losing some of its richness.  This is the joy of springtime light.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has left the building and the sixth boro again and asked the robots to put up the next week or so of posts.  division of labor?  I take the pics and write some commentary, and the robots do the rest.

Government Boats 40

. ..  make that boats and ships.  Thanks to Allen Baker for sending along this set of T-AKR 294 Antares moving out of GMD back in January 2010.  Yup, some drafts get caught in an eddy and they spin round and round never getting posted.  But I’m a believer that late is better than never.

Antares is a Fast Sealift vessel.  Other Fast Sealift ships can be found here.

Charles D and Ellen McAllister assist her stern first out and

spin her around to head for sea.

Recent other government boats include this NJ State Police launch and

this one I’ve never seen before.  (Or since, unless it’s been repainted)

One more, here’s  300 of the New York Naval Militia.

First three fotos come thanks to Allen Baker, from early 2010.  Others are mine.

People on the Boro 18

Here are the previous 17 iterations of this title.  I thought of this the other day when there were three others photographing with me along a short stretch of the KVK.

Recreation along the waterway there has been popular for a very long time.  I took this photo recently at Noble Maritime at –you guessed it–Sailors Snug Harbor.  I’m always surprised at how many people say that fine institution is on their list but they’ve not yet gone.  More on this soon.  Go.

Here’s another photo from Noble Maritime.  Can you identify anyone on this 1878 photo?

Did you guess it?  Taking the air along or on the waterways puts you in fine company.

Some folks works there, possibly because they enjoy that environment.

See the folks on this MSC vessel?  Look near the middle of the M on MSC.

There.  They’re probably waiting to assist the pilot off the ship.

Standing by with lines is critical.

As is having a refreshing cup of coffee . . .  Enjoy the rest of these photos.

 

 

 

All photos here, including the one below, were taken by Will Van Dorp.

Recently I had the good fortune of crossing paths with David Rider of Seamen’s Church Institute, and what was he doing . . . photography.  See his March 2016 shots here.

And for some reflection on taking better photos, check out this Youtube pilot video.  I hope more in the series get made, if they haven’t already.

At the End of the World

A Jules Verne novel set at the southern tip of South America goes by the fabulous title,  The Light at the End of the World.   Richard Hudson passed through here recently and sent along the photos in today’s post.

It’s USS ATR-20, built in Camden Maine, launched in January 1943 and ending her days in Ushuaia, Argentina.  The shipyard is now Wayfarer Marine, which I should do a post about one of these days.  The sixth boro–as does The Graves of Arthur Kill– has its very own disintegrating ATR here.

Fishing vessel Don Herman makes its way past the glacier in Seno, Chile.

 

Here’s a smaller fishing boat near Isla Riesco. 

 

End of the world aka Strait of Magellan, find tankers there?  Of course.  Here’s Sloman Herakles.

Ditto ROROs like Fuegino.

 

Canal Cockburn . . . they fish there too.

Puerto Eden . . . some folks live their whole lives there and like it.

 

 

Here are two more pics he sent a few months ago;  I’m impressed with this tender made of repurposed styrofoam.

Note Issuma in the background to the right.   Here are more.

 

Many thanks to Richard for this.  Follow his progress along the edge of the world here.

 

Easter Light 3

Some people are up before dawn on Easter because of work.  But at sunrise this morning from Bard Street and looking west . . . it was gray.

Looking east . . . dawn smudged the rosy fingers’ painting.   Lucy Reinauer pushed RTC 83 in that direction, while the Moran 6000 hp tractors returned to the barn after helping Hanjin Shenzhen out to sea and southbound.

And the Bayonne windmill has revived its current production.  Passing it in order were JRT Moran,

and James D.  In the distance, that’s Barney Turecamo and

Miriam also passed.

Caitlin Ann and

Hunting Creek also worked their way into Easter morning.

And I decided to get to work also.  All photos by Will Van Dorp, who did versions 1 and 2 of this in previous years.  Here was a different take on Easter.  As for Caitlin Ann’s being blue . . .

here’s how I first saw her.

 

Specialist Before and After

I put these photos up because not everyone saw them on FB.

I took these photos of Specialist in October of 2010, before she went to Puerto Rico.

 

Meow Man took the next two yesterday on the KVK as she passed by on a barge after she was raised.  RIP.

 

The bottom two photos used by permission from Meow Man.

The top two by Will Van Dorp.

Heidi

Now this is minimal.  If I had a use for it or lived where I could at least use it every day, I’d want to get it.

And all you illustrators out there looking for a winsome character . . . listen to me:   if I were an illustrator, here would be my next subject.  It’s modest in size, offers negligible protection from the weather,  and sports those huge old fashioned port lights . . .  as delightful as the eyes of

an owl or baby parrot or puppy that’ll grow huge.

To get into the realm of fact, she’s a 1957 Gladding Hearn product and has a 1956 sibling named Brian, which is supposedly still around and I’d love to see also. She’s older relative of lots of pilot boats and small tugboats.    And emergency boats and passenger vessels.

 

Anyone have any photos of Heidi and siblings back when she was a Perini?  And is this the same Perini Corporation now?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated and on a sadder note, click here for Rick Spilman’s “old salt blog’s” tribute to Peter Stanford, who passed yesterday at age 89.  Two years ago, I was pleased to review Mr. Stanford’s book, A Dream of Tall Ships, here.

Luna

It was spring 1987 when I saw this boat first, a decade and a half after her retirement.  She and her sister Venus were a sorry sight on the bank of the Charles near the Science Museum; if you wanted a photo that screamed “forlorn,” they were that shot.  Unfortunately, I took very few photos back then.   Over the years, I knew Venus was scrapped and always wondered about Luna.   Here’s a chronology of steps toward the saving of Luna–and loss of Venus–in the first two/thirds of the 1990s.

All the photos in this post–and there are a lot of them–were taken less than a week ago over in Chelsea.

Click here for a chronology of Luna’s life from 1997 until end of 2000, which found Luna in Boothbay, Samples Shipyard.

I don’t think you’ll argue if I say she’s a great looking 86-year-old today.

 

Talented and exacting volunteers were attending to details when I visited.

Of course, she’ll never push again  But who imagines sending an 86-year-old out to work?

 

Here’s another link with some duplicate info.  John G. Alden was the designer.

The “lights” under the tender bring light into the engine room.

Here’s from the engine room deck looking up . . at the gauge boards, with

project priorities in full view throughout.

 

 

As a result of Luna’s immersion(s), her Winton engines, exciters, and motor will likely never run again.

 

Here’s a finished starboard aft crew cabin.  Note the stencil on the mattress for Boston Tow Boat.

 

Those are functioning 1930-era bulbs, and yes, Bag Balm has been around since long before 1930.  My father used it in the stable.

What!?  No Nescafe?

 

 

Many thanks to Ben Grudinskas of Atlantic Hunter for this tour.   Here’s another shot of Atlantic Hunter arriving at last year’s Roundup.

Port of Boston 2

The name on the bow of the vessel to the left says “Boston Pilot,” but that’s just a name.  The real Boston Pilot Boats are shown in this short youtube video. See more stills here.

MV Fintry was originally built for the British Royal Navy.  Since then, she has undergone conversion to an expedition yacht, as seen here.   Click here to see the boats not chosen for this project.

Harbor Fuels delivers fuel around the harbor with a barge pushed by a tug with a great name, Bumper.

Now here’s an interesting story, a boat developed by a treasure hunter, who seems to be in a sea of trouble, as described by this article. 

 

This is the sub that was to be used to salvage over $1 billion worth of platinum from SS Port Nicholson, if that cargo was actually on board. Sub Sea Research still has a website, here.

Face-off . . . well actually Justice is assisting WMEC 903 Harriet Lane out of port.  That’s the Bunker Hill monument in the distance.  Justice is a Tacoma-built 5400 hp tug.

Does anyone know whether Justice traveled to the East Coast under her own power?

Here’s the USCG history of the name Harriet Lane.  Ms. Lane was a US First Lady who was NOT married to POTUS.  If you want more info, click here.

 

Freedom is a Justice‘s slightly smaller 4400 hp cousin.  Freedom and her twin–Liberty–were both launched by Washburn & Doughty in the first half of 2003.   For photos of Liberty at work back in 2009, click here and here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Port of Boston 1

Back last November, I devoted a whole month to ports and harbors.  As I get new material, I’ll continue that series.   Here Boston’s latest fireboat passes in front of Logan’s control tower.

Here’s her namesake.

Massport has its own fireboat, American United.  Its predecessor–Howard W. Fitzpatrick— was the subject of several tugster posts as it made its way up to Lake Huron to become a dive boat.

Claire looks like she was based on a hydrofoil design, but I can’t find any evidence to support that.

From my vantage point, I could tell the controls were right up in the bow.  I’d love to get a tour of her wheelhouse.

This Nantucket aka LV-112 moved from Oyster Bay to Boston six years ago, a transit covered by tugster here.  This Nantucket is not to be confused with WLV-612, which frequently appears in the sixth boro.

Angus . . . good to meet you.  Somehow I expected you to look like Brangus.

Can anyone fill in some info on the history of King Triton?  Is it a modified former government vessel?  In the background are the digesters on Deer Island.

I believe that’s Ocean King, whom I saw in the sixth boro back in 2010.

Here, identification thanks to Paul Strubeck are the 1958 Nancy (red), the 1954 Brandywine (green) , and an unnamed Army tug.  And over on the far left side of the pier, it’s

the 1940 Brooklyn-built Gaspee.

Over on the fish side of the harbor, here’s David Tonnesen’s 45′ stainless steel sculpture called Cod.  Wind spins the discs on its back, and windspeed determines the color of the eye, s0 it’s a wind speed indicator.

Along both sides of Boston’s Fish Pier,

boats offload their catch.

More from the port of Boston tomorrow.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.