This follows on a post from two months ago, when ONE Blue Jay arrived, and I listed some of the recent Bird-class callers. ONE Owl departed yesterday, and within hours was speeding toward Singapore with an ETA of after day 1 of spring 2024. “Speeding” applies if 16 or 17 knots (approx. 20 mph) is what you’d call speeding, but Singapore by way of Cape of Good Hope is a long ways away.
Bow-first into the berth means stern-first out, and a number of tugboats facilitate the rotation from bow west to bow south and pointed toward the Narrows. Here it’s (l to r) JRT, Doris, and Kirby.
Count the containers? I see 20 wide.
One job done, a new team heads out to meet an incoming ULCV or smaller.
All photos, any errors, WVD, who went looking for references to sea owls.
I found these fish owls and this strangely named one.
A bit over two years ago, OWL 1 was in the boro here.
tugster: a waterblog 
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 23, 2024 at 12:38 pm
Mike
I remember working as an agent for Hapag Lloyd and Global Terminal had its own list of requirements for arrival and departure for ships based on drafts due to their having to go broadside to the harbor current in order to line up for the terminal. Its been a long time and those neurons are long since burned, but a boat this heavily loaded would be a high-tide only departure, and they would not move out until 1hr after high tide peaked. Same for inbounds, though they would have to time their arrival to be at a specific buoy off Robbins Reef at the high tide +1hr mark.
Ships loaded 27ft-34ft could move within an hour of High, Low and Slack water, lighter than 27ft could come and go anytime.
It was also exclusively a bow-only arrival port. At one point we had to back in a containership, I think it was the Kobe Express, because it had a yacht or ocean racer on its Starboard side that needed to be craned off. McAllister sent 6 tugs to do the job and put all sorts of weather restrictions on the move, but it went off without a hitch.
February 23, 2024 at 1:32 pm
tugster
Thx, Mike. That explains why the pattern is often one ULCV leaves and almost immediately another moves in, as happened yesterday. One goes and another arrives in the same tide window. I get it now; it’s not coincidence at all. It’s choreogrpahed. Again, thx for making that apparent.
February 24, 2024 at 6:13 am
tugster
A sad owl story from yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo-dead.html