Go West 2 and 3

Legs 2 and 3 are West Point to Kingston, and then Kingston to Troy to lower the boat for clear passage through the Erie Canal.

Starting below, leaving West Point,

passing Buchanan 12,

HR Otter,

looking back toward Catskill,

meeting

Craig Eric Reinauer,

in awe in Coeymans seeing Eli (which I first misread as ELF) and

Ocean Tower,

 

passing port of Albany and BBC Vela,

seeing Slater in the morning light, and finally

after tying up at Troy, reconfiguring the boat for the Erie Canal.

Leg 4 starts at noon today as we head for a night in Amsterdam.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Go West 1

By 1330 Tuesday, we docked at West Point, the first non-red pushpin in yesterday’s map.   Working backward, we saw Tappan Zee II at the TZ, as we did

the Left Coast Lifter.

Off the Palisades, we saw Sarah D;

in Wallabout Bay, C. Angelo;

at the southern end of Narragansett Bay, Dace Reinauer; and

and Suomigracht with Cape Wind turbine blades,

and soon after departing Warren, we saw Buckley McAllister.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is posting these without any alterations.  We saw much more as well.  Cheers.

Go West . . .

. . .it turns out Horace Greeley might not be the author, and John B. L. Soule, who may have been, had some harsh ideas about people.

I use it as explanation for something new I’m doing.  Today I head over toward the pushpin to the right . . . Narragansett Bay, where I board a small passenger ship that has hired me as onboard lecturer.  By July 12, we expect to be in Chicago via the route indicated.  I am thrilled!  The red dots are overnight stops, and the greenish ones are daytime stops for such tasks as lowering and raising the wheelhouse.

Here was Grande Mariner along the west side of Manhattan back in May 2016,

and here are two shots of her sister vessel farther upstate taken in 2013 and 2014.

The challenge I’m giving myself is to post each day of the westward journey, using photos from that day.  Note that these ships with telescoping wheelhouse are truly Eriemax, designed to carry 100 souls along inland waterways on weeks-long voyages.  My job is to present lectures every other day on topics ranging from wars along these waterways to 19th century canal fever to the storied and obscure cast of characters who lived along the waterways (e.g.., Seeger, Fulton, Rockefeller, Freed, Stanton, Tecumseh, Brock, Hanks) . . .    to –of course–the variety of shipping working there.

In a way, it’s a 21st century version of the D & C route for which there’s the poster below.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, just know I’m hoping to be somewhere along that route.

Random Tugs 168

Summertime and the living is easy . . . and Sassafras is bringing fuel to MSC Marianna.

JRT Moran is preparing to assist MSC Busan out of its berth

Another section of Rockefeller University’s River Campus is shipping in aboard Witte 1401 moved by Emily Ann, 

passing Zachery and Jason Reinauer and

and Dean.

Crystal Cutler moves Patricia E. Poling westbound . . .

Brendan Turecamo assists MSC Busan back out

on its way

to Norfolk.

All photos taken yesterday by Will Van Dorp, who is leaving the area for a while.  Details tomorrow.

 

Newest Hull in the Sixth Boro 3

Is it Jonathan C Moran, which arrived in the sixth boro at some point in the past month?

It was.

Actually, as of now, it IS Jack T Moran, which arrived via the East River

yesterday afternoon, and will be christened along with Jonathan C, in a double ceremony at noon today.

More soon.  All photos by Will Van Dorp.

I should use this title more often, given the frequent renewal of robust industry in the sixth boro of NYC, but here is the previous usage.

Thanks to Aleksandr Mariy 2

Here are more photos from Aleksandr, taken on a canal between Middelburg and Vlissingen.    Ruurtje tows while

F-50 takes the stern as they move

the aluminum superstructure of a future Damen-built patrol craft on barge Risico 11.

 

 

Click here for another view of the tow.   Click here for a view of the Damen yard there.

From the Line Locker 21

This series handles my miscellaneous needs with updates, follow-ups, and oddments.

Let’s start with the mage below.  Click on it and you’ll learn how soon a sixth boro GUP vessel transforms into dive attraction named Lady Luck.  Thanks to Mike Hatami for passing along this info.

If the image below looks like a boat, it is, or it was before San Francisco grew (or tumbled?)  over top of it.  For more info on the buried vessels of SF, click on the image.  Here’s more.

Below, well that was me about 10 years ago.  After I had built a skin-on-frame kayak, I need to paint the porous “skin” with urethane, hence the respirator.  If anyone’s interested in buying me a token of appreciation to update this vessel–which I still have–click on the image to see my one-item wish list.  And thanks in advance.

More old business . . . the photo below I took from the Manhattan side of the East River about 10 years ago, and

this photo was taken by Robert Silva back in September 2014; of course this was what remained of the John B. Caddell after Hurricane Sandy, the suspense,  and the subsequent auction.

By now, that old steel may have seen the hold of a scrapper like Atlantic Pearl . . . and been transformed in the heat

And finally, in response to a recent comment asking about Gateway tugs . . . the rest of the photos/text here I took/wrote in April 2014 and never posted because I was waiting for some additional info.

“What’s under the ‘white house’ here?

Click here to find out.   And the tug C. Angelo is resplendent in the brightening daylight.

So this is future defense works passing obsolete defense works.”

C. Angelo in drydock?

All photos except the top three and the one by Robert Silva . . .  by Will Van Dorp.

East River Sight to Behold 3

The first six photo here comes from Jonathan Steinman, taken on June 13.  The Donjon tugs has delivered Chesapeake 1000 to a point just off Rockefeller University’s campus to prepare for lifting prefabricated modules for Rockefeller’s River Campus.

Step one for Donjon is to secure the gargantuan crane.

Then Atlantic Salvor moves into place to

receive the massive anchors, a job that Salvor may be IS uniquely qualified to perform.

 

The yellow lighted buoys mark the anchors’ positions.

By the time I got there on June 17, sans camera other than phone, several of the modules had already been lifted from the waterborne transport into the locations where they’ll stay for a very long time.  See time lapse of the installation of modules 1 and 2 on youtube here.

A dozen more modules will still be lifted when

water, tidal, and atmospheric conditions allow.

Click here for more information of the River Campus project, one of many construction sights to behold along the East over.  A calendar of additional lifting can be found here, subject to change.

And many thanks to Jonathan for use of his photos and information about the project.  Next time, I’ll bring my good camera.

Previous sights to behold there can be found here.

And while we’re on the topic of heavy equipment, here’s a vimeo update of of invisible gold project happening off Block Island.  I want to get back there soon.

 

 

Chugster 4

In case you’re wondering if this blog has gone adrift . . . I’ll just plead solstice-ogling syndrome.  Why stay on course when a grape popsicle 1949 Mercury oozes by like this, and it’s tickling your tastebuds and it’s

for sale, although I did not ask any particulars.

Only at the mermaid parade could you get a photo like this, although the photographer here might

be photographing the Chevy here with a right angle spy lens.  Or maybe she was putting me in the frame?

Rattus rod!

I’d let this guy park for free.

Mesa sunrise on this mid-1950s Lincoln?

And finally, seeing this old Ford made me remember this unit from

way south Coney Island Caribbean.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has now recalled that although Coney Island is surrounded (mostly) by the sixth boro, it is still part of Brooklyn.

 

Annual Solstice Mermaid Migration 2016b

Most paraders don outlandish costumes, like this one . . . how could there be a chicken-of-the-sea

named Lady Gaga.

And these next two photos MIGHT puzzle you . . . since the woman in black shorts and boots seems to command a lot of attention even though she is not particularly be-costumed.

Lots of attention and with a weird parasol.

Besides music and dance, I enjoy the costumes–however over-the-top or under-the-bottom– they may be.  Even librarians dress up and carry conventional parasols, as

do museum folk.

And it’s fun, except for the man in blue shirt blocking half the street and bombing lots of my photos;  I’m sure I’m not alone in finding that just loutish.  His press pass can’t license him to photobomb that shamelessly, can it?  Maybe someone with a press pass can weigh in on protocols for photographers at events like this?

Sometimes paraders break out of the procession and pose with the kids at the parade.  I like that.

 

 

 

If you haven’t seen the 1979 movie called The Warriors, here’s a reference to that.  I like that movie now because it depicts what parts of the city are said to have looked like 40 years ago.

Well, start counting down the days until the 2017 parade and make plans to be there.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  If you didn’t recognize the woman in the black shorts near the top of this post, here’s the story.

Meanwhile, here’s my second shorter recording of Gypsyfunk Squad.  Here was the first one.