Sorry about the washout colors below;  what happened was the dawn light was intermittently too bright or dull, as winds washed clouds across the sky.

Nevertheless, I headed out because I saw a Spliethoff vessel in the offing, heading into the sixth boro. Painted a unique copper brown, Spliethoff vessels all have names ending in -gracht, or “canal” in Dutch. Saimaa is a lake in Finland. since they carry unique cargoes, I wondered what Saimaagracht would be carrying.  I’ll direct your eyes, but won’t tell you until the end of this post.  Some of you maybe have guessed from the photo below.

Vertical beams connected to high-up horizontal one, cabins, and wheels.

Closeup of cabins on 182 and 170.  Ladders and landing.

Some of them are differently loaded, cabins positioned on the starboard side of the vessel.

Side view of Saimaagracht, showing escort Moran 6000 and all the machines.  Who knows what’s in tweendecks–if anything–and holds.

Slightly different angle of cabins, and

cabins in their full context.

Just guessing here, these machines are 25′ to 30′ high, with a spread of just under 9′ or 10′.  That actually a clue.

See the scudding clouds.  I’m now curious about something else . . . the structure on the starboard side of the superstructure and connected by horizontal ducting.  I didn’t zoom in on that in the moment.

 

My verdict is . . . they are a set of new Boxrunner straddle carriers, aka straddlers, by Kone Crane.  The ship was arriving from Finland, so the manufacturing may have been done there.  A next generation will be automated, just like self-driving cars, trucks, tractors, and ships.

And my conjecture is that starboard side stern structure is part of a sulphur oxide  (Sox) scrubber plant.

All photos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.  For previous photos of –gracht vessels, click here.  I was unable to find a photo of  Spliethoff vessel from the 1920s, when they began, but here I learned  BigLift–with their Happy vessels– is one of their subsidiaries.  Spliethoff was involved in a pilot container project between Europe and Cleveland a few years ago.

Unrelated:  read this and listen to the audio . . . NY Media Boat takes journalists to the islands off the VZ Bridge.