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I’m still stuck on that cypher 12, imagining hypothetical calendars. So why not some trucks, other transport-for-hire “highway ships” which the blog has also strayed into due to family connections. If I misidentify any dates here, I’m sure I’ll be corrected, but I hope you enjoy the photos.
This 1952 (?) Chevy light truck is configured like a parcel tanker plying the seas, a different vintage in each cask.
Boats can’t carry ships, but many ships carry boats, and in this case Badger carries trucks, fleets of them.
This ’49 Ford does what little it does very well: it has a billboard mounted where a flatbed once lay. What it advertises doesn’t matter: it was the truck that caught me attention.
This Volvo (2014?) looked to be the way to negotiate the roads of Queens this snowy day last year.
Fuel trucks like this 1939 Dodge Airflow is guaranteed to turn heads anywhere;
While we’re on fuel trucks, I’m guessing this to be a 1950-something Diamond Reo, but I’m just guessing. I’ve no idea about the light pickup behind it. Studebaker?
1947 Ford?
1948 or 9 Willys Jeep? Here’s what I’m basing that on.
1941 Dodge streamliner fuel truck . . .
Well, the cruise ship dates from 2000; the Peterbilt . . . I’d say from the same era but with the stock grille replaced. ??
1960 Ford F-500?
And this is a modification of replica of an art deco “guardian of traffic” from the Hope (as in Bob Hope–his father–) Memorial Bridge in Cleveland. Who knew ! And for the record, I love those sculptures, but I can’t look at them while I’m driving.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
To start, these are boats, I’m told, not ships. I first saw the type as a kid, reading a book that made an impression and crossing the St Lawrence on the way to the grandparents’ farm.
I’ve posted Great Lakes photos a fair number of times in the past few years, so I continue CYPHER series here with Manitowoc –a river-size self unloader–departing Cleveland for Milwaukee.
Alpena–1942–with the classic house-forward design transports cement. I was thrilled to pass her late this summer on a magnificent Lake Huron afternoon.
Although you might not guess it, Algoma Harvester was built here half a world away from the Lakes. To get to her trading waters, she crossed two oceans, and christened less than four years ago. The selling point is that she carries more cargo than typically carried within the size parameters of a laker (Seawaymax), requires fewer crew, and exhausts cleaner. I took the photo on the Welland.
Thunder Bay hails from the same river in China as Algoma Harvester and just a year earlier. The photo was taken near Montreal in the South Shore Canal.
Tim S. Dool was built on a Canadian saltwater port in 1967. I caught her here traversing the American Narrows on the St. Lawrence.
American Mariner was built in Wisconsin in 1979. In the photo below she heads unbound on Lake St. Louis. I’ve seen her several times recently, here at night and here upbound St. Clair River.
Baie St. Paul is a slightly older, nearly identical Chinese built sister to Thunder Bay.
Algolake, launched 1977, was among the boats built in the last decade of the Collingwood Shipyard.
Lee R. Tregurtha, here down bound in Port Huron, has to have among the most interesting history of any boat currently called a laker. She was launched near Baltimore in 1942 as a T-3 tanker, traveled the saltwater world for two decades, and then came to the lakes. I also caught her loading on Huron earlier this year here.
Mississagi is another classic, having worked nearly 3/4 of a century on the Lakes.
Buffalo, 1978 Wisconsin built, and I have crossed paths lots recently, earlier this month here. The photo below was taken near Mackinac; you can see part of the bridge off her stern. Tug Buffalo from 1923, the one going to the highest bidder in five days, now stands to go to the bidder with $2600 on the barrelhead.
I’ll close this installment out with lake #12 in this post . . . . Hon. James L. Oberstar, with steel mill structures in the background, has been transporting cargo on the lakes since the season of 1959. She is truly a classic following that steering pole. See Oberstar in her contexts here, here, and really up close, personal, and almost criminally so for the diligent photographer, here.
All photos by Will Van Dorp. More to come.
As tugster continues its CYPHER series, this is the 3633nd post, and almost 2.1 million hits. Thanks for staying with me.
On the other hand, if I were selling calendars, the number 12 would be significant. So for the next few days, let me offer some diverse dozens chosen quite subjectively, although what the photos have in common–besides subject–is that I like them.
Here’s a November 2016 photo along the Gowanus under the BQE. This tug looks good in blue, but I’ll never forget her in orange.
Here’s a November 2015 when the upper deck of Bayonne had yet to be assembled, and the lower disassembled. Amy C last appeared here as she nudged Empire State into her Fort Schuyler dock.
Here’s 2014. She’s recently worked in the Keys.
Here’s ’13. Where is Houma today?
’12. Ellen‘s a regular on this blog.
’11. Tasman has been doing this work since 1976!
’10. Is ex-Little Bear in Erie along with Bear?
’09. She now makes her way around the lower Caribbean . . . and currently anchored in Trinidad.
’08. And I’m adding another photo right after Linda (launched in ’08) of
Scott Turecamo (below) launched in 1998 but radically retrofitted in 2005, originally quite similar to Greenland Sea, here see the photos by Robert J. Smith. How many of these ATBs does Moran now operate? .
’07. This was the only time I ever saw Penobscot. Anyone know where foreign she went?
’06. Note the size of the yard workers around the wheels on Ralph E. Bouchard.
Again, some of these photos show what has changed in the sixth boro, spawning ground for this blog.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Kudos to Ginger, who guessed what the anniversary alluded to yesterday was. Today begins year 12 of this blog. So in the midst of all the references to CYBER- this and that, I’ll be my default contrarian self and call the next series a CYPHER series, lots of posts beginning with the number 12. In today’s I took a photo from the top “hit” month in each year since 2006.
So in 2006, December was the top month, and the photo below (or one like it) appeared in KVK.
In 2007, September was the top month, and this was from Historic Tug.
In 2008, June, and this was from Transitioning.
September in 2009 and from Divers 2.
In 2010, November, and this is from Pilot and the Princesa.
June 2011, and context is Like Groundhog Day 3.
2012, May, and Blueing Beyond the Sixth Boro.
2013, March, and Looking for a Ship.
2014, March, and Botruc Plum Isle.
March again in 2015, and this has context in Highway 4.
March yet again, 2016, and Backing Down Heina.
And finally, the greatest number of hits in 2017 was in July, likely because of the posts related to Peking‘s move.
A reason to glance backward periodically is to see what has changed. The corollary then is that a reason to do a daily waterblog is to record what was present when. And doing that permits me to see changes in myself and my tools. Blogging, as you might guess, takes a fair amount of my time and guides a bulk of my focus, but it rewards me enough to continue. I can’t say for how long, nor do I have to. I’ve always refused to sign my boss’s multimillion dollar contract, although that might cost me the cover story on some high-profile magazine . . .
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
And let’s hear some applause for Ginger.
A week ago or so I did a post called Sarah D moving light; in the next two photos she has a scow that appears light. Earlier this year, I caught her at the Narrows at dawn headed for Queens.
Just a little earlier, Jane A. Bouchard heads down bound with B. No. 225, her usual.
Click here for Jane/225 photos from back more than five years ago.
Carolina Coast and Pegasus nose up to a barge at American Sugar in Yonkers on a cold morning,
and Normandy hangs out just north of the passenger terminal with some extraordinary buildings. For a photo from five+ years ago with Pegasus pre-upper wheelhouse, click here.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who celebrates an anniversary today. Any guesses?
Of all the area Tilcon sites, this one at Clinton Point is the most conspicuous one as seen from the river.
If you’ve taken the train northward along the Hudson, you traveled just inland from this structure.
To see the cavity quarry behind the silos, click here and go to page 57 of what has become one of my favorite books. The quarry, where rock has been dug since 1880, dwarfs the shoreline buildings.
Buchanan 12, a regular on the river doing Mississippi style assemblages of scows, here prepares another group for travel downstream.
I wonder if Tilcon welcomes visits by reporters . . . as this one in Illinois does.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
It’s always a joy to be under way on the Hudson. Enjoy these shots from last week.
Stephanie Dann passes a chimney of what may once have been an ice house.
Click here for previous Stephanie Dann photos.
With the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in the background, Sapphire Coast approaches pushing Cement Transporter 1801.
Near Catskill she passes Coral Coast with another cement barge.
And here my first time to see the rebranded Kristin Poling, moving Eva Leigh Cutler.
x
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
From this blog and blogger to you and yours . . .
Happy Thanksgiving, today and everyday.
As if it’s possible to say anything new, I am thankful that so any of you read this blog and communicate back by some means. I am also thankful that I have the health and opportunity to get out and look for something new to photograph. Getting something new remains a goal; if I were shooting similar shots repeatedly –although some would say I do shoot similar scenes again and again–I’d stop. I think of the Heraclitus observation —about never stepping into the same river twice.
Take the shot below and the two above: it was serendipity, but I’ve never juxtaposed those two monuments that way, usually it’s either Tsereteli’s work of Bartholdi’s separately,
like here . .
or here.
Oct. 30, 2011
Anyhow, my perspective on this and most holidays is . . . celebrate good things every day. On my table today? Monkfish. No, that’s not my table; it’s a fish market in the Netherlands last year, hence the zeeduivel label.
But if it’s turkey that really interests you or you have some free time, here’s an old Bill Buford essay about talking turkey . . . .
When I woke up this morning, I realized I had more Buffalo photos, and my boss (??) could be convinced to post them ASAP. All photos of this boat to be auctioned off I took in September 2012. Here she’s approaching the Troy lock, and
this is above it. Buffalo leads the pack . . . .
with a handsome complement crewing her.
All comments are always welcome, but if any of her crew wish to add anything about the project and the history of the boat, here’s space.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who around that same time made this video and this one of the event, unfortunately NOT showing Buffalo underway. But HERE is Buffalo‘s engine running thanks to Nobby’s magic.
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