Meanwhile in Greenport

Thanks to tugster readers who snap photos and write tugster editorial offices, I sometimes can include dispatches from far-flung places.  Today’s post comes thanks to bowsprite who texted me the other day mentioning a pelican at the North Fork of Long Island.

I had limited wifi at the time, so I expected later to see a photo of a haggard fish-eating semitropical bird blown out of its usual habitat by this summer’s storms.  Later but before I could open the photo file, she asked about VIMS, and I could not imagine why.

But here is is . . . a vessel named Pelican looking faintly military and with ghost letters midships “VIMS.”

Click here for a thorough orientation to the boat since its adoption as VIMS flagship in 2003.  But according to this, a new vessel was ordered, and here it is (as a rendering) . . .

Here’s more about the shipyard in Matane, QC.

Many thanks to bowsprite, who’s especially buoyant these days,  for this photo and news.

Click here for previous posts featuring research vessels.

Agaain, thanks to bowsprite for sending this along.

postscript:  Now the vessel goes by Bush Master.

Alpena

Alpena was my elusive ship, and then  . . . just like that . . . on her voyage out from Alpena MI, there she was.

She’s the last of her class, working since 1942, lugging cement products around all five Great Lakes.

She’s a beauty.

Maybe if I study these photos long enough, I’ll learn to paint or draw.

 

Click here to see and hear her moving out of the McArthur Lock at the Soo.   And here, she departs Cleveland, and footage of tug Iowa in the Cuyahoga is especially rewarding.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

I saw Iglehart in Duluth.  Is Crapo still in the Rouge?  And of course, the Townsend has just arrived in Port Colborne’s MRC.

Random Ships *6

Off in the distance, I believe those lights are Greys Reef and Skillagalee . . . and the

ship is another 1000-footer named for an Indiana port.  Maybe it’s the time of day, but I think I see the iron ore dust on the white paint.

Getting back to my invented  TTT unit (twenty-ton trailer), she has the capacity of 3942.5 trucks off the road.

Algoway (1972) is another appropriate -sized laker, serving ports otherwise possibly inaccessible, and replacing 1200 trucks.

Here she passes through the Round Island Channel, eastbound.

Notice the hatch in the hull below the stack?

An engineer taking some fresh air?

American Spirit . . .  another 1000-footer . .. has a capacity equal to 3120 TTT.  Imagine having all those trucks on the highways between the mines and the steel mills 500+ to the south!

Anyone know how many tons of cargo these boats lug in a season?

Philip R. Clarke, 1265 TTTs.

I do love the paint scheme of USS Great Lakes fleet.

James R. Barker, 3165 TTT.

She’s been running for 41 years on the lakes.

 

And as James R. Barker disappears in the direction of the Soo and Lake Superior, Hon. James L. Oberstar (1550 TTT) heads for the steel mills.

Here’s a list of the 1000-footers on the Great Lakes

American Century

American Integrity

American Spirit

Burns Harbor

Edgar B. Speer

Edwin H. Gott

Indiana Harbor

James R. Barker

Mesabi Miner

Paul R. Tregurtha

Presque Isle ITB

Stewart J. Cort

Walter J, McCarthy Jr.

For an alphabetical listing of these Great Lakes-locked vessels, check out Dick Lund’s page.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile in the Sixth Boro 5

Here are previous posts in this series.

See the guy paddling along on the recreational board  . . . ?

Now you barely can on a blown-up portion of the same photo.

Here I zoom in . . .

but to the naked eye, he is invisible.

I’m not opposed to the concept of enjoying all manner of craft,

but safety is an issue.  On that subject, is that PFD around his hips!!?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who prays for safety.

Meanwhile, PQ writes more on this from the Jersey side of the river:

“Ariadne has been part of the view for a week from my place across from 79th Street on the Jersey side. At night it lights up like a Christmas tree. I followed the initial cable laying in 2012 by the Italian vessel, some photos of the jubilant construction back then can be found here.

A repair was attempted in 2016 when the cable cooling system sprung a leak at the north end. The power has been since switched off; when on it may or may not be used for full-time transmission, there were early reports that it was only for spare with the idea for it originating way back in the Great Blackouts.

Ariadne appears to be laying a complete new set of three cables, the guys at the camp onshore south of Edgewater Commons may have been told not to talk about it as the original cable cost a ton of money (nearly $1 billion including the onshore parts at each end) and these repairs do not come cheap. The company (Hudson Transmission Partners) was reportedly under financial and legal strain in 2016.

Ariadne, built 2008 in Norway, was named the Viking Poseidon prior to March of this year when the Norwegian company which used it for wind generator farms had to sell it for financial reasons and a Cyprus company now owns and operates it now – and has repainted the tan parts white.

The cable heads west through a disused train tunnel you can easily see from River Road across from Edgewater Commons and surfaces in a graveyard; there have been claims it is haunted (really). When NJ Transit built the trolley system from Bayonne they offered to extend the line to and through that tunnel if the towns would help but it was beyond their means, so the trolley heads under West New York.”

Again, thanks much to PQ for this input.

 

Random Ships *5

My staying with this * thread leads me to wonder how to refer to this long peaceful international boundary between the US and Canada, and after rejecting a few like “third coast” (It would be disputed with the Gulf of Mexico) and “fresh coast” (Fresh has too many negative connotations) I’ve settled –for myself–with “great coast.”  Keep the Lakes Great stems from great partnerships.  Check out this great short video.

So let’s continue with this cataloging of a finite set of vessels from both countries along the great coast.

  CSL Laurentian (1977) is a fleet mate of my erstwhile crush . . . Alice Oldendorff.  We’ve we’ve both moved on;  at least I have.  I can’t speak for Alice of the stone heart.

Kaye E. Barker is one of the classics, to me.  Launched in 1952, she went back to work in spring 1976 after experiencing  a 120′ growth spurt that allowed her to lug 6000 more tons of cargo.

Adding a self-unloader shortened her in-port times, making her more profitable in the steel-related trades.

Here she’s at the south end of Lake St Clair, Detroit river bound.

Atlantic Huron‘s story here details just how much of an panAmerican boat she is, having worked from the Orinoco to Newfoundland.

As a former resident of Indiana, I’m amazed by the diverse usage of that state’s 40-mile shoreline along Lake Michigan from national lakeshore to national leader in steel production.

As such, it’s not surprising to find this name on one of the Great Lakes 1000-footers.

Can you tell the direction of travel?

Can you “read” the prop wash of Calumet?

Here the 1973 “river class” boat has backed out of the stone dock in Holland MI and is heading through Lake Macatawa out to Lake Michigan.

All photos and sentiments by Will Van Dorp, who will continue to unpack the summer (and fall) gallivants, along with a few diversions.

 

Chancellor 2

Here was a Chancellor post I did in 2013, and here’s a photo I took of her on September 15, 2017, and

alas, here are some photos taken September 24, 2017–yesterday morning– by a responder to whom I’m grateful and used here with permission.  And yes, that’s Urger in the upper righthand corner.

Boats float, until they don’t . . .

but inattention catches up with all boats.  If Ben Franklin had been interested in boats, he’d have said the three certainties were taxes, death, gravity.

I’m not sure who currently owns Chancellor, but this is a sad sight. Click here to see her Bushey lineage.

Here’s a video I did of her and other tugboats at the 2010 Waterford Tugboat roundup.  Chancellor first appears 1:40 in… and is the star at the end.

 

Meanwhile on the Thames

Oops, I pushed the wrong button, so let me finish this now.

This Thames rhymes with “games,” Thames, not the other one.

This shot encompasses the most eclectic set of vessels ever gathered in an acre of water.

Here it’s framed even closer:  two schooners, a fiberglass center console runabout, a fast catamaran ferry, and the yellow thing.

It’s a Canada-built Vector 25 hovercraft running ferry service–more like Uberwater service–out of the New London and around the Sounds.

And here are the passengers of the hour

boarding and

heading out of the mouth of the Thames past Avery Point Light. 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Click here for info on Mystic Whaler and here for info on Columbia.

Random Ships *4

The * here denotes these are freshwater ships, plying their trade along what must be the longest peaceful international water boundary in the world, a fact I think deserves to be more widely known and celebrated.  Here are installments 1–3.

Radcliffe R. Latimer has appeared here a year ago.  For a complete history of the 1978 launched vessel on her third name after a transformative trip to China, click here.

Algoma Mariner is entirely built in China, delivered in 2011. Initially, the forebody was intended for Algoport, a vessel I’d photographed the the Seaway in July 2008, but (to allude to a story told by links here) Algoport sank on its way to China.   For more detail of this vessel, let me redirect you again to boatnerd.

The United Way logo here piqued my curiosity, and here’s the answer from corporate Algoma.

 

Buffalo is US-built and US-registered, a product of Sturgeon Bay WI and launched in 1978.

Bigger isn’t always better, and that’s the genesis of Manitowoc, built to negotiate the rivers around the Great Lakes, waterways where commerce and manufacture still lives inside cities often dismissed as having succumbed to “rust belt” disease.   She was launched in 1973 in Lorain OH.

Frontenac is a Canadian built launched in 1968

the the classic “house forward” design.

Coe Leni is the only “salty” in this batch.

Her previous name–Marselisborg–is still visible.

Sam Laud is another Sturgeon Bay WI product, launched in 1974.

Algoma Olympic–named for Canada’s hosting of the games in 1976–was launched that same year.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you’re forming an impression of the dynamic economic engine along the international border with our friendly neighbors to our north.

 

 

More Fishing Tugs 6

Happy fall equinox.  This seems as good a time as any to honor Poseidon with a photo parade of more fish tugs, to really challenge a segue. . .

as is grouping Lady Kate with fishing tugs.  It appears she was built as passenger vessel G. A. Buckling II back in 1952, and is wearing her fourth name now, but

she certainly has the lines of a fish tug despite possibly never having worked as such.  I’m sure someone will weigh in on this.

Doris M is a fish tug built in Erie in 1947, and given the flags,

she appears to still work.

Real Glory is a real deal:  a Lake Erie fishing boat that sells the catch right from the pier, according to this news article.

If I lived nearby, here’s where I’d get my fish dinner.

Environaut (1950) is a 48′ science platform for Gannon University.   

Big Bertha is a 1945 Stadium Boat Works fish tug, built as Gloria Mae.

I love how shore power plugs in here.

Thanks to this site, I can confirm that ASI Clipper, which I’ve wondered about before, began its life as a 1938 Port Colborne-built fish tug.  Here’s a photo from that earlier incarnation.

And finally, we end here, it’s Eleanor D, a 1946 Stadium Boat Works fish tug about to be eclipsed by Stephen B. Roman.  Here’s a closer-up photo of Eleanor D I took almost a decade ago.  Like me, Stephen B Roman has been roaming a lot.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is honored to have been interviewed on WBAI’s Talk Back–New York, We and Thee show.  To hear the interview, click here and start listening at about the 1 hour 38 minute mark on the Sept 20 show.

And if you haven’t seen this yet on PBS, stream Erie: The Canal that Made America here.

And finally, click here for the “fishing tugs” tugster archive.

 

Port Weller ON to Phoenix NY

Port Weller is the north terminus of the Welland Canal, and as such, sees either a pilot boarding or debarking, which was the case here. Mrs C has an equally attractive fleet mate at Port Colbourne, the southern terminus. The vessel in the background left will appear in an upcoming post.

Some 80 miles to the east Kimberly Anne (1965) was docked in Rochester’s Charlotte port.

Walking along the beach there, I saw this historical sign of tug Oneida and schooner H. M. Ballou, at different times both owned by a George W. Ruggles.

Fifty or so miles to the NE we enter the Oswego River to find the busiest (IMHO) unit on the lakes:  in the past few years I’ve seen Wilf Seymour and Alouette Spirit at least 6 times between Lake Huron and Quebec City.   Here’s more info on Alouette’s aluminum operations, at one time and possibly now the largest aluminum producer in the Americas.

 

Click here for more info on Novelis, the client here in Oswego.

 

Anyone tell me the weight of one of these ingots?

Moving from contemporary to retrospective, the Phoenix dock was hosting schooner Lois McClure and tug Churchill as we passed.

For more close-ups, check out tug44’s take. 

Click here for a complete history of the replica schooner Lois McClure.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you all enjoy the last day of summer 2017 today.