You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2016.
This is my Janus post . . . which I’ll start with a photo I took in January 2007 of an intriguing set of sculptures, since licensed to Trinity Church in Manhattan.
Since I’ve tons to do today, comment will be minimal. The photo below I took near the KVK salt pile on January 14, 2016. Eagle Ford, to the right, has since been scrapped in Pakistan.
The history of Alnair, photo taken in Havana harbor on February 4, 2016, is still untraced. It looks like an ex-USN tug. Click here for more Cuban photos.
This photo of JRT Moran and Orange Sun I took on March 12.
This photo of Hudson was taken in Maassluis, very near where my father grew up, on April 4. Many more Maassluis photos can be found here.
Sandmaster I photographed here on May 6. since then, she’s moved to Roatan, I’m told, and I’d love to go there and see how she’s doing. Maybe I can learn some Garifuna while I’m there.
June 1, I took this, with Robert E. McAllister and an invisible Ellen escorting Maersk Idaho out the door.
July 14, I saw GL tug Nebraska yank bulkier Isolda with 56,000 tons of corn through a narrow opening and out the Maumee.
August 23 I caught Atlantic Sail outbound past a nearly completed Wavertree. And come to think of it, this is a perfect Janus photo.
September 9 at the old port in Montreal I caught Svitzer Montreal tied up and waiting for the next job.
October 18, I caught Atlanticborg and Algoma Enterprise down bound between Cape Vincent and Clayton NY.
November 4, while waiting for another tow, I caught Sarah Ann switching out scrap scows in the Gowanus.
And I’ll end this retrospective Janus post with a mystery shot, which I hope to tell you more about in 2017. All I’ll say is that I took it yesterday and can identify only some of what is depicted. Anyone add something about this photo?
I feel blessed with another year of life, energy, gallivants, and challenges. Thank you for reading and writing me. Special thanks to you all who sent USPS cards ! I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2017. Here’s what Spock would say and where he got it.
Here was my “last hours” post from 2015. And here from the year before with some vessels sailing away forever. And here showing what I painted in the last hours of 2013. And one more with origins “oud jaardag” stuff from the finale of 2011.
With 2017 looming, it’s time to imagine some possible goals for the near future, assuming we have time. “Big River” mentions a lot of places I’ve yet to see from the water. Johnny Cash’s 1962 version isn’t my favorite, I link to it here because he looks so young. This style boat named Natchez–for one of those places–has worked on the big river in many many capacities for a long time. Anyone now who is credited for introducing steam to the Mississippi River system? Answer follows.
By the way this Natchez was launched in 1975, but
the steam plant that drives it
has been around since 1925, albeit in a different vessel.
New Orleans is over a hundred miles from the Gulf and the number of sea-going vessels that pass is phenomenal.
And since they have such wanderlust-feeding names, I’ll let them speak for themselves . . . the one directly below is SeaKay Spirit.
Here’s a version of “Big River” closer to what I usually listen to, and it was recorded in long-gone Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City.
And speaking of Roosevelts, that’s who teamed up with Robert Fulton to introduce steam boating to the Mississipi River.
So why are there no contemporary and catchy songs about the Hudson watershed? Oh, I’m no songwriter and play no instruments.
Now if only I can get a job sailing from St. Paul MN to the Gulf. I’m working on it.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I shouldn’t be surprised to find pricey boats in a city like NYC, but I still am. I took the first two photos here in Chelsea Piers, and I imagined their understated elegant lines meant they were affordable. Well, maybe they are easily affordable by the incoming executive branch standards, but for most folks, not so much. Look them up . . . Van Dutch boats.
I also shouldn’t be surprised how fast some boats travel on the Hudson, but this one flew past at
least 35 knots, and it wasn’t small. I’ve no idea who the manufacturer is.
Traveling in the canal makes for a slower pace, with people going for the distance, like
Pioche. They must know about some new navigation canal infrastructure plans I’m not privy to. And I wonder who they hope to meet in Pioche.
If I bought another cruising boat, I’d want something like this . . .
here upbound the St Lawrence. I’m not positive it’s a pleasure boat, but PCF does not mean patrol craft, fast. It could be Provincial C___ for Fisheries?
I’m not sure what this is, besides a boat. Anyone know the story? She was up north of the Scarano barns in Albany.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Crescent has fleets in at least three southern cities, and I’ve featured some of them previously here.
Providence, built 1953, has quite some history in the Northeast, including the sixth boro. Port Allen was built in NYC at Consolidated in 1945, and Angus R. Cooper dates from 1965.
I’d never thought of this before, but from this angle, it appears that W. O. Decker is painted in Crescent Towing livery.
Margaret F. Cooper, similarly, worked for a time in NYC’s sixth boro.
As did Miriam Walmsley Cooper! But southern living seems to agree with these boats, from what I could see as I passed.
Have another look at Providence. I’m sure some of you have photos of some of these boats back when they worked in the Northeast.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Here’ve been previous posts in the series.
See the crew up behind the glass; one might be a pilot.
The scale of container ships calling in the port renders the bow watch keeper almost invisible, but here
he is zoomed in.
Ditto this crewman.
See the person in the rigging, partway up the center mast here?
Here he is zoomed in.
I’m not sure what the watch stander requirements are on these ships, and which people are just taking in the sights before
they head out to sea . . ..
See the two people on the bow?
No matter the biting wind, a lookout must be kept.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Back on December 4, two formerly McAllister tugboats departed the home base in Mariners Harbor (typically referred to as “Mariners”) for Muskegon Michigan. Word is that they have now safely arrived.
A few days after they departed NYC, Nelson Brace caught this photo of the two traversing the Cape Cod Canal.
On December 19, Michel Gosselin caught these photos of the two unbound from Lock 2 of the Welland Canal, many cold blustery, and icy days later.
Many thanks to Nelson and Michel for use of these photos. Hats off to the crew . . . better yet, given that ice, keep your hats on.
Below is the screenshot of the tow arriving in Muskegon late Christmas Eve.
It would be nice to see some of the photos crew might have taken as they crossed the stormy Gulf of Saint Lawrence and fought their way across Lake Ontario with strong winds out of the NW. And I’m looking forward to seeing them in Port City Tug colors.
Tugster feels so very blessed this year that I’m recognizing the top gift boat in the sixth boro. If NYC ever decided to have a water-borne symbol of gift-giving season, the most appropriate boat for the elf to ride would HAVE to be this one. See all the packages, wrapped sensibly, on the deck? While you try to name that boat, let me digress a little to use the print to push the next image farther down the page.
Digression #1: Here are my Christmas posts from 2015 2014 one about a Rockefeller Center tree that arrived by ferry one that arrived here by barge towed by a tug called Spuyten Duyvil and finally my post from 2013.
Digression #2: If you’re not from NYC or a large city, you might wonder where city folks go to cut their trees. Here’s a feature from the NYTimes about a Christmas tree vendor who’s come to the same neighborhood NYC with trees for the past 19 years.
Digression #3: Nope, I don’t get my tree from this vendor. In fact, I haven’t had a tree for . . . decades. Not interested. So here was the post I put up in 2006, about my first ever Christmas present. Here’s the story about our first Christmas tree. My father, who drove a school bus in addition to running a dairy farm, brought home our first tree back when I was 5 or 6. I think it was his and my mother’s first also, because “christmas trees” did not exist for them in pre-WW2 Netherlands. Where did he get the tree and what prompted him to bring it home, you might wonder . . . Well, as he was leaving the school with his last bus run before the Christmas break, he noticed the custodian throwing a tree into the snowbank next to the dumpster. It must have been set up somewhere in the school–the office? We LOVED that tree, and it still had some tinsel on it. My parents were willing to spring for a string of lights, which could be used again year after year, but tinsel? In my imagination, that tree was the best.
When my kids were small, I did get a Christmas tree, and we decorated it with more than a string of lights.
So have you figured out this vessel that does nothing all year round except deliver packages like these?
Of course, it’s Twin Tube, featured many times on this blog.
She is the sixth boros quintessential package boat that delivers no
matter the weather.
Merry Christmas to the operators of Twin Tube.
And merry merry Christmas spirit to all of you who read this blog today and any day.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s received so many gifts every day and doesn’t need anything more on December 25.
And then it was a sunny but cold day, the coldest so far in the sixth boro. ut the light was great.
B.Franklin Reinauer headed for the fuel stop,
followed by a group that included
Zachery Reinauer,
Arabian Sea,
and Doubleskin 40 pushed by a mostly self-effacing Fort McHenry.
Later Tarpon raced past, as
did Mister T and
Chesapeake moved her barge eastward.
Out in Gravesend Bay, Ruth M. Reinauer and Linda Lee Bouchard swung on the hook.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Photography means “light writing,” or writing with light. George Eastman said, “Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”
Obviously I’m interested in the subject matter, but playing with light makes the subject matter more fun.
“What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.” John Berger
To comment on the ships, anyone know what product is being discharged from Tatjana? I believe that’s Frances alongside.
What makes getting up early so easy is this: the glow. Of course, I need to get out there to get the shot. As Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “It’s an illusion that photos are made with the camera….they are made with the eye, heart and head.”
Merci, Henri.
That’s NS Stella above and High Strength and Harbour First below.
The photo of Silver Sawsan below was taken about half an hour after the previous ones, and the light by then is less rich, no matter how bright the orange is. Ernst Haas says, ““You don’t take pictures, the good ones happen to you.” And they USUALLY happen during that first hour after dawn and the last one before dusk.
I used to fish a lot, and I thought the same thing about fishing.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
It was a warm but cloudy day . . .
Frances came by, as
did Barry Silverton on a delivery to the Bay State,
Ellen McAllister to meet a ship,
and Elizabeth Anne.
After a lull, there was a burst of traffic again: Sea Fox,
Sea Wolf in a hurry,
and JRT Moran.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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