Something Different 72

Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and the Port ‘Liz had ships aplenty, 

but the very next day it was almost empty.  

In a different part of the US, TS Empire State, which just two months ago was alive and lurking beneath Throgs Neck bridge, has delivered itself to the breakers in Brownsville. 

Heading back to the sixth boro . . . go to the infrequently–it seems–updated google map satellite view for the east side of Staten Island, and you ‘ll see this impressive flotilla . . .

ten tugboats and eleven tank barges.  I know some of you might be able to identify some or all of these 21 vessels, now scattered to the seven seas.

While I’m posting about online visuals, I enjoyed Sal’s discussion here yesterday on the current state of piracy around the world but particularly off West Africa.  This reminded me of how long ago already the Maersk Alabama aka Captain Phillips incident happened;  before clicking on the link, guess which year that vessel was held.  USS Bainbridge, which visited the sixth boro in 2016, was involved in retaking the ship.  Here’s a helpful site Sal mentioned that tracks incidents of piracy around the seven seas.

And one more . . .  can you imagine spending 11 days and nights on an open boat at sea?  How about that period of time riding the top of a tanker’s rudder!!?  Read about it here. 

 

Names 50

Sometimes dragons seem to gather in the sixth boro.  Last weekend seemed to have an esoteric South American theme, which I took the liberty of intensifying by adding to this post some vessels from before last weekend.

Bulk Colombia is still in port over at Atlantic salt discharging white stuff . . . salt of course from northern deserts of Chile to keep local roads savory. 

Lila Amazon departed the Upper Bay this morning, but is possibly only gone as far as the anchorage off Long Beach NY. 

The huge CMA CGM Brazil has become a regular, at least as regular as can be on her globe trotting ( navigating) voyages.  She’s currently between Sri Lanka and Malayasia. 

Ditto CMA CGM Argentina, currently over along the western coast of Mexico. 

Polar Colombia . . . I’d say that name qualifies as an oxymoron, whereas

Polar Chile makes a bit more sense, since southern Chile.  That reminds me of Richard Hudson’s  Issuma circumnavigation of the Americas and more;  he left the sixth boro, made his way south by going north:  up the Hudson and across the Erie Canal, into the Saint Lawrence, west of Greenland, across to Northwest Passage and the Bering Strait to the Pacific, around Chile’s Cape Horn, over to Cape Town . . . . and ultimately back to the sixth boro.  Now he’s on another lap, with the boat in Newfoundland.   Lots more of Richard on his YouTube channel. 

All photos, any errors, WVD, who might be thinking about South America right now because the area is about to cross into summer.

Northstar Integrity

I could not make out what this barge was, although I knew the tug was one I first knew as Petrel, and first posted on this blog in 2008 and reprised here. Back then she had Sugar Express in tow. 

Here was one answer;  Northstar Integrity was moving Hughes 181 barge, chock full of equipment. 

I’m not sure what project they’d all been working on or what this equipment was for. 

 

After dropping off the barge on the west side of the Bayonne Bridge, she returned light. 

Here’s a close up of the 1977 75′ x 25′ 1800 hp tugboat. 

 

All photos, any errors, WVD, who’s offering these 2023 calendars that can be in your mailbox by week’s end. Today only, if I read the site correctly, use code CM22 at checkout for a 60% discount. If you try that, let me know if it works.

Blue Moon and 2023 Calendar Going . . .

I’ll get to the blue moon reference in a moment, but first . . .

Need one or more calendars for 2023?  I’ve approached the project differently this year:  the calendars are ready, you can preview, you can order here, and they’ll come directly to you.  That’s good for me because it frees me from tedious packaging and mailing, leaving time to be out taking photos.  Watching sixth boro traffic, traveling among traffic, taking photos of traffic, and researching traffic . . . are all preferable to me, as you know.  Case in point . . . blue moon, which is actually a sea story with the usual losses and gains, some photos I took yesterday.

Don’t the lines look somewhat Chesapeake…ish, a bit of bugeye in her lines?

Yesterday morning she crossed the Upper Bay, heading south late in November all under sail.  

Blue moon and today’s post photos have a tighter connection than blue moon and my 2023 marine calendar.  Here’s the connection:  the “three-sail bateau” aka ketch here is called Blue Moon.  The 69′ aluminum-hulled sailboat was built in the late 1980s as a cargo schooner, transporting tropical hardwoods.  Later she was owned by a co-founder of Crocs shoes. Now she’s a Nantucket-based excursion vessel whose owner makes an interesting sea story himself with a maritime Covid love story thrown into the mix.  Teased enough?  Find the details here.    There are even references to King’s Point USMMA, color blindness, and lobstering in the story.

She was not on AIS yesterday morning, so I needed to do a bit of research to identify her, and researching is another time-consuming task I enjoy.  In a past life I may have been an intelligence analyst.  Puzzling things out certainly beats waiting on line at my local USPS.

Here’s more on the boat.  It was designed by Thomas E. Colvin, designer of Rosemary Ruth and Le Papillon and built by Reuel Parker. 

All photos yesterday, WVD.  Fair winds, Blue Moon.  

Repeating myself here:  my 2023 calendars are available here.  At that link, you can preview all the pages;  no sailing vessels are included despite Blue Moon‘s, going south, appearance in this post.  The calendars could be going out into the USPS system tomorrow. 

If you want something customized, I can do that too.   

 

Road Fotos 2022 A

This series goes back to the last days of December 2010, the first post here.  I could break the 2022 installment into three posts, each covering a third of this waning year. 

Things creep, including the definition of “road,” since a channel is not unlike a road.  In this photo from January 3, 2022, Ava and Bruce here guide Ever Far safely into her berth.  

This sign along the road in Orient does double duty;  to eastbound traffic it’s the last, but on the other side it equally accurately informs westbounders–just off the ferry–that it’s the first farm along this road.

This is a footpath under the Jackie Robinson Parkway.

This was a view from a rutted parking lot off a dirt road in the Appalachians in February.

These buffalo find a home in the 315 area code region of NYS.

Great Beds Light, as any lighthouse, guides vessels in channels between NY and NJ.

Here’s a welcoming sign along the east side of the Chesapeake, 

and this marks a lake that’s been drained several times and always comes back with a vengeance. 

That’s sand near Rodanthe, 

and a variety of farms near where I first lived.   Actually, the location of my first home is on the horizon center of the photo. 

Not far from the KVK, I transited this bamboo stand. and 

a few miles west of the Hudson, this trail required attention. 

Sidewalks and trails in Central Park get you here, and 

these ferries were idled near the southern tip of Hatteras.

All photos along various roads and taken in first months of 2022, WVD. 

 

From the Line Locker 37

I spent part of a quiet T’day thinking about doing a 2023 calendar, and difficult as it always is to winnow the choices down to 12 or so shots, I’m doing a calendar.  Price will likely be $20 again.    Sorry to bring up buying on this Black Friday.

Going back through the 2022 photos reminded me of the highs and lows of my personal year.  I also looked again at some gallivant photos I’ve never posted on the blog.  Today seems a good although dark, rainy day to open the line locker. 

Any guesses on this roadside attraction?  It’s a 3/8 size replica measuring 63′ x 13.’  I’ll let you do the math.  Answers below.   Doesn’t the design suggest a Zumwalt class destroyer?

I took the photo in April 2022. 

 

Here’s another roadside attraction.  Maybe I could do some road photos 2022 posts.  Any ideas about this similar replica vessel, this one appropriately on terra firma, or terra mudda?

There’s a clue in this photo. 

So before moving to the next sets, here’s some ID:  both are replica from the Confederate Navy and both are located in North Carolina, whose flag you see above.  The first is CSS Albemarle, moored in the Roanoke River in Plymouth NC.   The actual vessel–158′ x 35′ — was commissioned in April 1864, and sunk in October of the same year.  More here.

The second vessel is CSS Neuse II, a replica of a 152′ x 34′ steam-powered ironclad ram.  Also launched in April 1864, the underpowered and “overdrafted” warship bogged down and never left the immediate area of Kinston NC, where she was built.  Finally, in March 1865, her crew burnt the vessel in the river to prevent its capture by Union land forces.  More here. 

Previous US Civil War vessels I’ve mentioned on this blog are USS Cairo and CSS Hunley.   Any suggestions for other Civil War navies sites to visit?

The fine print on the vessel below says University of Maryland; it’s their RV Rachel Carson down in Solomons MD. 

I took the Carson photo from the decks of skipjack Dee of St Mary’s, a delightful cruise under sail as part of a friend’s even-more-delightful wedding. 

I’m not allowed to say much about the next set, but I have the privilege to see this tricky maneuvering up close.  

Note that this vessel, currently underway between Indonesia and South Korea, is assisted by four tugboats. 

Thanks so much for the hospitality.  You know who you are.  Again, sorry I’m not permitted to say much more or publish my article.  If you have any questions or comments about this last set, email or telephone me.

All photos, any errors, WVD, who’s thinking of doing a freighter cruise soon, with a destination in eastern or southeastern Asia.  does anyone have suggestions?  I’ve not yet contacted these folks.  

Random Ships 99

Every day is Thanksgiving, but we dedicate one day to talk about it.  One undeniable detail of the US popular T’giving narrative involves a transAtlantic vessel, Mayflower.  Some of this info about the Mayflower might be new. Less than a decade after arriving in North America, it may have been dismantled and used in a barn building project.  Reference to Mayflower, original and replica, can be found in these previous blog posts.

Of course, instances of earlier thanksgiving in the US exist, like this one from 1607 and involved a vessel named Virginia, in Maine.   My point is . . . it’s a story of migration by ship.

That’s the connection:  this blog features ships, and this post is a sampling of vessels that’ve called in the sixth boro in recent weeks and months, like The Amigo, a 2012 Croatia-built asphalt/bitumen tanker. Cargo in the tanks needs to be kept well above the boiling point to maintain liquidity.

MSC Shirley is a 2000-built Polish-built container ship with a capacity of 2024 teu.

Seaways Redwood is a 2013 South Korea-built crude tanker.  South Korea currently builds the highest percentage of global shipping, although other Pacific Asian countries are in second and third places, as you’ll see in this sampling. 

Grande Texas is a PCTC built 2021 in China, off Ningbo.  She has the capacity of 7,600 ceu (car equivalent units).

Ardmore Dauntless and Ardmore Enterprise, both built South Korea but in 2015 and 2013, respectively.  Enterprise has slightly larger capacity. 

Aruna Berk is a drybulk carrier launched in China in 2011.

Thor Maximus is a 2005 Japan-built drybulk carrier.

ONE Wren is a 2018 Japan-built 14000 teu container ship.

Atlantic Spirit is a McKeil tanker, launched in 2011 from a shipyard in China.

McKeil is a Canadian company.  McKeil tugboats work mostly the Great Lakes;  one company tug visited the sixth boro a few years back here. 

Thundercat is a 2008 crude carrier built in China.  

Given a 1980s cartoon series, I had to chuckle at this name. 

Key Ohana is a 2010 Japan built bulk carrier.  

MSC Agadir is a Korea-built 8886 teu container ship dating from 2012.

Note the scrubbing add-on for emissions.  MSC Shirley, above, also has an exhaust-filtering system.

Northern Jaguar is a 2009 8400-teu container ship built in South Korea.  Small size as it is relative to the ship, the rudder and prop spray size relative to a single container is gigantic;  think of following that down the highway as you would a trailer-mounted container.

Jag Leela is a 1999 South Korea built crude tanker. She appeared on this blog back in 2010 here. 

Poorly-lit but I include this photo anyhow because it shows Ever Forward, the newest and likely the best-known ship in this post, due to her not moving forward earlier this year.  She’s currently heading south in the Red Sea, getting chased by a friend named Mike. 

All photos and any errors, WVD, who offers this as an assortment of commercial vessels in and out of the sixth boro. Post 98 in the series appeared here way back in April.

None of these vessels will ever maintain the lasting hold Mayflower has on the US psyche, but the fact is that much of what folks will list as what they are thankful for involves conveyance of vessels like these in and out of the sixth boro.  That’s part of why I do posts like this one.

Happy thanksgiving today.

 

Other Peoples Photos 107

The first time I used this title, although with a pretentious spelling, was here, more than 12 years ago, a collaboration I immediately liked.  This year I’ve posted quite a few, especially in the first three months of 2022, all related to the Barge Canal. 

Here’s one I’ve not posted.  I wish more text existed on the image, but all I can make out, other than STEAM BOAT COAL is Chas. C. Wing, the steamer tug to the right.  Wing came off the ways in Poughkeepsie in 1894;  it makes me wonder when the last tugboat was launched from Poughkeepsie.   She measured 50 x 15, registered in Albany, and according to MVUS, had a crew of one.  That makes me wonder about a number of things. Here she tows at least three dry bulk barges up to lock E-3.   This photo was likely taken by George Michon.  The Michon Collection (of photos) is in the NYS Museum.  Thanks, George, since you were taking photos on the Canal 30 years before I was born.

Delta Fox has been in the boro around for a while, but I’ve never seen her work.  I’m told she’s been sold foreign.  The 1980 tug measures 66′ x  24′, built in   1980, and has 1200 hp. That looks like a substantial Little Toot beside her.   This photo and the next two were taken by Tony A. 

This is the Hudson-Athens Light, in the early 00s of the watch.  I’d never put together until now that this light’s twin sister is in the LI Sound:  Stepping Stones.  The photo shows a whole different meaning to “lighthouse.”

James Turecamo came out of the shipyard not far to the north of this photo:  Matton,  1969.  She ‘s 92′ x 27’ and brings 2000 hp to the job. 

The next photos all come from the erudite George Schneider,  And rather than paraphrase, I’ll just verbatim quote his inimitable wit and style:  “U S ARMY RET ST 893 was originally the Army ST 893, built by J K Welding in Brooklyn NY in July 1945.  At some point (apparently in the 1980’s) she was transferred to Humboldt State College in Eureka CA, still named ST 893 and undocumented.  They added additional deckhouse to her for use as an oceanographic research and training vessel.  Sold in 1998, she was documented about 2004 with the painfully long name she now bears.  Her home port was changed to Kings Bay GA by a Florida owner, but she is now owned by someone in Anacortes WA.”  It makes me wonder how and how often she’s transited the Panama Canal. 

Next, it’s Gina as told by George:  “GINA (1247922), formerly CATAHECASSA (YTB 828).  She is owned by Basic Towing of Escanaba MI, but with the death of Papa Kobasic a few years ago, the company is streamlining and it’s unlikely this tug will return to the Lakes, where she was built in 1974.”  She’s another Panama Canal transiting tugboat.  Other YTBs on this blog, other than the sixth boro’s Ellen McAllister, can be found here. 

“TIOGA (1021169) no longer has her red hull and red stacks.  One might guess she’s in the process of being sold, but you’ll also note the Crowley logo is freshly marked on her, also with the blue highlights.  Is the company we knew half a century ago only as “Red Stack” becoming Blue Stack? “

George shares lots of photos, and I really should pass more on for you all to see. 

Next I’ll interject a photo I took a few years back.  If you don’t immediately know why I post this photo of a NRofHP plaque, see the next photo. 

This photo from Kevin Oldenburg shows Edna A pushing Chancellor, the “landmarked” 1938 tug to the location where she’ll be “dismantled,” a somewhat archaic word that I find preferable to “scrapped.”  Preferable words of not, many wanted to see Chancellor live on, and now she will only in photos. Edna A has been featured in some momentous projects the past few years.   For some of Kevin’s other work, click here. 

Thanks to all of you who send in photos now and then.  As blogster-in-chief at tugster tower, I sometimes post when I feel I can do justice to you and your photo. 

A bit more reflection this anniversary week . . . I’m reminded we all see everything through our unique eye/brain/personality lenses.  That could lead to conflict, but here, other perspectives help motivate me to devote time to this desk every day.  And the value of collaboration, that goes without explaining.  So thanks.  Thanks for the comments as well.  Today’s photos come thanks to George, Tony, and Kevin., but other days  . . . other people.  You know who you are. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

High and Dry 12

Since starting the blog, I’ve noticed constant change in the sixth boro, shorelines of the five boros and NJ, and a few other places I get to repeatedly.  For example, a year and a half ago Bayonne Dry Dock added their marine travel lift, and anyone looking in that direction gets treated to a rotation of work boats, revealing hull lines and wheels, the usually invisible parts of a boat. 

Saint Emilion (SE) spent about a month on the hard;  in fact, I caught her in the slings about to lift here a few months back.   In the photo above SE shares the yard with NRC Guardian, an oil spill response boat one hopes never to need.  Below the other boat is McCormack Boys. Seeing them juxtaposed like this illustrates the difference in scale between a 73′ tug and a 105′ one.

Beam on the two boats is a less dramatic difference of 38′ v. 26′.

Charleston, 95′ x 34′, has interesting five-bladed props, aka wheels.  For some sense of the variety of props, click here. 

Recently Alex McAllister was out of the water for a period of time, which could be as routine as you own car going up on the lift now and then. 

Note the Kort nozzles (ducted propeller)  that enclose the props on Alex. Nozzles can also be seen above on McCormack Boys.

All photos, WVD, whose previous high-and-dry posts can be seen here. 

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that this is the week tugster launched 16 years ago.  Back then and sometimes since, I sometimes describe this blog as a research project without a defined end point or goal;  observe, photograph, sometimes chat, analyze, repeat  . . . is the method. If analyze means reading, then google or whatever search engine you prefer . . .  is your friend.

That there are patterns is clearer now, even with and maybe because of occasional wrong deductions along the way.   Despite my frequent use of “random” in titles, my “patterns” geek level has climbed such that a newbie to the site might wonder about the minutae, the invented words and acronyms.  Trust me:  I still am (mostly) a sociable, balanced person albeit with the more maricentric perspective I strived for.  

In case you’re wondering, some video sources these days are What the Ship and marktwained, other maricentric and rivacentric sites.  Rivacentric . . . I like that   because seeing life from the perspective of rivers is not the same as seeing it from shoreless seas or  trails, roads and highways.  

I’ve been kicking a rival idea around in my head . . .  using the method described above, I’d love to do something–likely not a blog–about various agriculture/food production sectors now compared with how they were 50 or so years ago, the time when I was growing up with agricultural chores all year long on a family farm.  My brother dairy farms the “old” way on the land where I grew up, and friends work for today’s east coast megafarms.  Then there’s farming with poultry, beef and other meat animals, apples and other fruits, grains and other cash crops, produce, mushrooms,  . . . that’s only land farming and the list of farming types can go on . . .

I think about doing this ag then/now project a lot, but I have time to do only one research project, not both.

 

Last Offices

I had to learn this term, but it fits here. I knew words for what’s depicted here had to exist, and it turns out that different places have their own word(s).  No, I’m not referring to this blog or myself.    This deceased has been that way for years, no pulse for more than a decade, no heat or respiration.

The names since 1912 have been many:  Gary, Green Bay, Oneida, Iroquois, Alaska, and on the blog, Grouper.  With that many names–and I know others have given her additional names– come that many chapters in her book . . . or tomes in her library.

Photos I got here last week spur reflection in my mind, if not in others’.   What’s the big deal, some might say, a rusty, homeless, ownerless boat . . . so what!???

Last Tuesday morning I got this whole set, my effort to preserve her at least in photos on this blog.  At daybreak she was on the cradles in this mostly empty dry dock, a slight lean into the wall for support. 

Cold gray skies add a mottled weariness to everything here.

What work by folks long gone was once performed on this deck.  Below this deck in the forepeak, what tales were told by weary mariners. 

The fires are long gone out.

All environments have their beauty.  Grouper‘s curves, her lines, without any hyperbole, are sweet without rival.   

But the reason for this title is . . .

that midmorning last Tuesday, flooding the dry dock wetted her hull until she rose off the cradles to float one last time, 

approximating her work trim from all throughout the past century.  The 2022 crew on board were there to ensure all was well with the vessel as the dry dock filled, the wintering fleet brought in, and then the basin

drained again, exposing her hull after immersing it quite possibly the last time, like bathing the body.

More Grouper soon.   All photos here, WVD, who’s aware that this is the anniversary week of this blog’s creation.  The first post went up November 26, 2006, depicting what my eye was drawn to, my choices of what to memorialize in these digital photos in this digital medium on digital machines I’ve only the slightest sense of how they work.  More reflection on all this this week.