ULCVs: A New Take

The new take is this:  “ultra LIGHT container vessel,” which this surely is.  Judging by her draft markings, her draft is less than that of the larger tugboats in the harbor.

When a vessel enters port this empty, or light,there has to be a story.  Did it just come out of the shipyard?  If so, why?  For example, Laura Maersk had to be towed into port almost half a year ago, and left here ultra light, i.e., with nary a container, visible that is.

A short search reveals ALS Juno suffered engine failure less than two years ago near the Sea of Marmara.  It was then towed by Ocean Ergunto be repaired.  She’s arriving in the sixth boro from ports in the eastern end of the Med, i.e., Turkey and Greece, which she departed two weeks and a day ago.  Additional misfortunes are listed in that link.

The 2009 build has also seen a lot of name changes:  Rueitv Schepers, Rudolf Schepers, AP, Arkas Africa, and now ALS Juno. 

It also turns out that she and several fleet mates with names all beginning ALS (ALS Venus, ALS Mars, etc.) are part of the ONE group, best known for its distinctive magenta hulls.

Greetings, Al.

All this is inconclusive, but I wonder what the story is.

I don’t mean to sow confusion:  ULCV does normally mean ultra large container vessel, and even though I tried, I couldn’t come up with a better acronym for such an empty one.  Maybe there’s a technical one.   Maybe a reader will propose both a better acronym and the backstory for the empty vessel.

All photos and info, WVD.

LCM through Hell Gate

I had a notice, so when the LCM came around the bend, I was waiting.  This LCM I knew well from Jake Van Reenen operated it for barging in the Seaway areas of the 1000 Islands and Lake Ontario.

The 1000 Islands is a very different environment than this, the East River headed into Hell Gate, or at the time I took the photos, Hell Gate water running west.  

Right now, it’s headed to a new home in Maine.  Note the crewman looking back along Roosevelt Island and getting a photo.

The background is Mill Rock, entirely Mill Rock Park.  Read much more about Mill Rock here. See the travel home and pickup inside the LCM?  That is exactly the raison d’etre of landing crafts.  I know somewhat out there who’d appreciate knowing that it was once LCM 8219.

The land mass to the right is Randalls/Wards Island.  Remember . . . the five boros comprise many islands.

The two bridges here, for outatowners, are the Triborough (now RFK) Bridge and the Hell Gate (RR) Bridge.

Randalls is home to an enormous sewage treatment operation, i.e., it’s home to NYC DEP, those good folks with fine boats who deal with what I call the “gross universal product,”  or GUP.

But I digress, Seaway Supplier heads for the Sound and eventually downeast Maine.

All photos, WVD.  Many thanks to Jake for the heads up.

Whitherward 7

She’s been over at Mariners Harbor Yacht Club (Staten Island)  for at least two years now.  She started life in 1953 as Mars for Boston Towboat.  Dimensions, then as now, are 96′ x 25′.  In 2000 (?), Mars was sold and a conversion began to make her an expedition yacht, owned by the online job search site monster.com, hence the name Sea Monster.  Here‘s a description of work done, and a number of dollars spent.  Any guesses on that dollar amount?  The answer is in the link two sentences back.

It’s way outside my budget, but I like the look.  And I’d imagine for folks who don’t think twice about several million dollars for a yacht, this would make a great tender.  Anyone seen photos of the actual interior and machinery?

Photo and rumination, WVD.

Truckster! 16

Don’t they call this “truck Friday,” you know . . . that day after T’day?  After all trucks deliver the goods as part of the supply chain.  Or they retire and graduate to advertise goods.  Answers follow.

1.  The one that carries the corn . . .

 . . . the green truck and below …

2.  the red pickup?

3.  This one could be yours for $2500.

 

 

You’re making guesses, right?

4.  I took the photo in the Netherlands.

5.

6.

7. 

8.

9.

My answers follow. 

1.  1950 GMC 1.5 or 2-ton

2.  1961 International C-Series

3.  1930 Ford Model A stake body

4.  1957 (Dodge) Desoto

5.  late 1920s Graham Brothers

6.  1930 Ford Model A pickup

7.  1939 Chevrolet stake body

8.  late 1940s Reo Speed Wagon.  By the way, REO are the initials of Ransom Eli Olds.

9.  I have no idea.  It appears to be a kit truck. . .  like the VW kits.

All photos, WVD.

 

People on the Boro 27

Essential workers spend the holidays at the job site.  They always have.

 

Here‘s a list of types of essential workers, note that this crewman needs to catch up on sleep.

I’ll let you read the faces and body language, but I’d say they’re catching up on news since they have a signal on their devices.

 

Seafarers might be thrilled to see non-crew when they come into a port.

See the workers on the bunker barge?

Well, they saw me and then wanted their photo taken.  I suspect they may be Fugro Explorer crew.

These are local workers high over the East River.  Their platform or their task?

They appear to be at the level of Civic Fame, the lady inspired by Audrey Munson atop the NYC Municipal Building.  NYC artists made Audrey Munson famous, but her life did not end well.

 

All photos and sentiments, WVD, who thanks you for reading this, especially today, the 14th anniversary of this blog, which began here over 4700 posts ago.  Since then, you all have made over 13, 400 comments.  Comments are always welcome.  Thank you.

And since it is Thanksgiving, here’s a Thanksgiving story from Thanksgiving Day 1952 and a photo with at least three people on the boro from 21 years later of the boat that almost burned, Dalzellera. 

“During 1952 and 1953, the Dalzell Towing Co. was completing the diesel conversion of their “new” Dalzellera, which was formerly the Central RR of NJ (CRRNJ) tug Bethlehem, a steam tug built around 1915. It was Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1952, and there weren’t many people at the Dalzell yard just west of the Bayonne Bridge on the Kills as my uncle, Bob Munoz, pulled into the yard on a tug, possibly the Dalzellaird. He pulled alongside the Dalzellera and tied up the boat. As he crossed over to the Dalzellera to go ashore he noticed that there appeared to be extreme heat coming from the galley at the after end of the house. The boat was all locked up for the long holiday weekend, but with some help Bob found some tools and broke the padlock off the hatch door. Upon entering the extremely hot galley, he realized that the galley stove was inadvertently left on and set for maximum heat. He immediately shut it down and ventilated the galley. It appeared that the stove was being used to keep the workers warm that were finishing up the tug and preparing her for service, but forgot to turn off the stove before leaving for the long holiday weekend.

However, when the yard staff returned back to work on Monday morning, he caught hell for breaking the lock on the hatch; that is until he told his story about preventing their “new” boat from catching fire before she even docked her first ship.

Shortly after this incident, Bob worked on this boat as mate and captain for about 12 years.

Photo by Steve Munoz, who sent along the story.

 

New York Media Boat 2

The NY Media Boat has a pick up point in Manhattan, but I chose to board the boat at Liberty Landing in Jersey City, where this view of lower Manhattan awaits. From here, our goal was almost 20 nm away, even though we’d not take the shortest route.  Some tasks call for efficient and direct routes, and other tasks crave scenic, gunk-hole exploration routes.

This was the goal, the station boat, in this case Pilot No. 1 New York. Of course,  “on station” may not be at anchor, rather it might be steaming slow circles or figure eights in the vicinity of the entrance to Ambrose Channel, with an America class boat ready to deliver pilots between ships and the station boat.   This is entirely stating the obvious, but standing on shore, you may not be able to see the station boat; however, from the station boat, you can clearly see a large city spread out before you.  Obviously, you can’t see the tidal zone of the beach  . .  and more . . .  because of the curvature of the earth.  At one point, an Ambrose lightship was in this vicinity.

Our actual goal was the “A” buoy, aka the “sea buoy,” which marks the “sea” end of Ambrose Channel.   Note the green patina “whistle” in the lower half of the buoy;  it makes a sighing tone as water motion pressures air through it. Click here to hear a variety of buoy noises.   Here‘s another view of the type.  By the way, in the image below, that’s the station boat in the distance, the white speck to the right of the buoy.

But all that is not the story.  See the bird “swimming” to the right of the A buoy?  Well, it was trapped, tangled in discarded fishing line. 

This turned into the adventure.  Click on the image . . . and you’ll see the rescue and hear the sounds, including the buoy whistle and VHF crackle.  That’s Bjoern at the helm and then carrying the bird after I cut the main line.  I’m the guy with the white hat and knife. 

The gull’s body and right leg had been entangled in the line.   What this photo doesn’t show is the blood on Bjoern’s foot and my hand.  Gulls have a reputation for biting the hands that disentangle it . . .  as reward for saving them from certain death by starvation.   Oh well, you’ve seen blood before, and salt water heals everything.

Here’s closeup of some of that line.

Click on the clip below for the context of the video.   By the way, the footage comes from the in-cabin CCTV camera.

Fall 2020 Fishing

Fishing grounds . . . the NJ Upper Bay portion of the sixth boro. Quick question to be answered at the end of the post:  how many commercial fishing ports does NJ have and can you name them?  Eastern Welder is a perennial boat here;  Hyundai Victory is one of the ULCVs newly recent here.

I can’t tell you the name of the nearer boat,

but it certainly shows the influence of the deadrise boat from farther south. Click here for a technical definition of deadrise.

Fishing from pedal kayak has surged in popularity, and

can be fishing where they’re not expected.

Bjoern Kils and I on the New York Media Boat Defender visited the nearest NJ commercial fishing port, Belford NJ, the other day.

Although Belford has a lot of boats, it is NOT NJ’s largest fishing port. More on that assignment in an upcoming post.

Belford Creek is home to a diverse set of fish boats.

Given the trail of gulls following Trisha Marie, fish are being cleaned during the ride back to port.

Note the VZ Bridge and the Manhattan skyline visible from the Belford Channel.

Meanwhile dozens of small boats fish the Lower Bay this time of year, while whales gorge themselves on all the bunker in the Bay.

So . . . besides Belford, the other NJ commercial fishing ports are Point Pleasant, Viking Village in Barnegat Light, Atlantic City, Cape May/Wildwood, and Port Norris.  Viking Village is the largest at this time.  Belford is the newest.   More here. Looks like I need to do some more gallivanting . . .

If you’re looking for a non-traditional food for T’day in this non-traditional year, get fish.  It may not be all that non-traditional. Here‘s info on the Belford Seafood Co Op.

All photos and sentiments, WVD.

Whatzit 48

Yesterday I mentioned novelty.  This is mid November in this part of the sixth boro.  For outatowners, this photo looks eastward from Liberty Landing Marina (aka  the Morris Canal) toward lower Manhattan.   Mid november!  And there are sailboat lessons happening.  But the “whatzit” is SeatheCity, a boxy catamaran with scant rearview vision.  Note the attitude of the vessel . . . attitude in an air/water craft technical sense.

See the black “water line.”  See what happens as you follow that black stripe from stern to bow.  She’s a bit down by the nose.

Earlier in the day I’d seen the boat at the dock.

I couldn’t quite figure out what its specialty was.

Platforms . . . flimsy ones, I wondered.  Finally it came to me. 

To my good fortune, I happened to be back at the marina later in the day to see the activity now happening there.   It’s a startup, I believe, that launched during the pandemic!

It just goes to show  . . . novelty is everywhere.  Call me speechless.  Here‘s the website. Other cities like Seattle and San Diego have variants.  I guess the Dutch came up with the Hot Tub Hot Tug.  I suppose these are manufactured versions of hot springs, which are open all year round.

All photos, reportage, WVD.

Random Tugs 317

If you follow this blog, you know I look for novelty:  new vessels, new roles, new perspectives I don’t always even initially or ever understand.  Here’s for me a new boat, Cape Fear, 2018, another Sassafras class tug.

 

Brendan Turecamo, 1975,  has appeared here many times, but in the past week, I’ve seen her in two configurations, doing ship assist below and

slinging barge Connecticut below.  Yes, it’s the same tug, house down or house up.

With the bronze monument, aka Teardrop Memorial, in the background, Marjorie B. McAllister delivers nearly a dozen rail cars on NYNJ100

to cross over the harbor from NJ to NY. The run is usually performed by Brown tugs.

Chemical Pioneer, a sixth boro icon, here is assisted into the anchorage by  . . . Franklin Reinauer.

Matthew Tibbetts stands by as Dylan Cooper (correct me if I’m wrong) with RTC 108 lighters Gulf Coral. 

Taking a break from the dredge project over by Sandy Hook, Neptune travels west in the KVK.

Sea Lion pushes a barge westbound on the East River, past the old banana pier and Vladick Houses of the Lower East Side in the background.

Ivory Coast stands by with an Express Marine (former owner?) barge over in the Wallabout section of the East River. 

Christian Reinauer and barge RTC 145 stand by over in the anchorage below Fort Wadsworth.

And finally . . .  over in Red Hook, Eastern Dawn hangs alongside Meaghan Marie. Stand by for a new paint job of Eastern Dawn.

All photos, any errors, solely mine, WVD.

TEFC Lumber Carrier 2

This vessel–Mozu Arrow– intrigued me about two months ago, but I never saw it.  I’m grateful to Mike Abegg for these photos then.

I followed it on AIS, thinking maybe it’d lead to some Equatorial places, maybe to load tropical woods…  but instead, after hitting lots of US East Coast ports, it headed to Europe.

G2 Ocean has quite the diverse fleet, including some TEFCs, totally enclosed forestry carriers.

So when I noticed they were back in Red Hook–from Europe!!– I decided to take a boat ride.

Notice the two side hatches on the port side.

And, inside that RORO-like space, cranes operate, here discharging 10 bundles at once.  In high school I had a job offloading lumber, board by board, standing on the truck handing one board down to my boss–on a kiln rail car, as a furniture factory rep put down spacers so that air could get between the planks.  He also measured or scaled each plank, making notations on his clipboard to determine how much my boss got paid and to create an inventory of how much wood they’d put in the drying kiln.

Here, that’s all been done, so the pace is faster. 

But I still wondered where all this wood was coming from.  In the past, wood might come from the tropics but in the form of logs, forest giants, their buttressed roots cut off,  that might have fit only one log to a trailer.

So here’s the clue, and you can be sure I looked it up, especially when there’s an “over the top” slogan . . . perfection in timber.  Where might this be coming from?

It turns out this is European wood from forests and mills in central and eastern Europe, especially Romania.  I have to be honest . . . I’m not thrilled.  I know they likely buy our stuff, but don’t we have forests and mills in the US?  I’m guessing it’s planed timber, but there may be other products here.

All photos and sentiments, WVD.

As of yesterday evening, Mozu Arrow departed Red Hook for Baltimore.