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A few photos from the recent week . . . like Cape Fear heading over to Gowanus Bay and
Miss Madeline coming from there, passing the KV buoy and
more . . ..
Notice anything unusual but entirely understandable about the photo immediately below?
The barge is the 80,000 bbl Edwin A. Poling and the
tug is Saint Emilion, usually mated with barge A87.
All photos, WVD, who will be inland and rolling on the rails most of the month of March….
Part B of this post is a corrective. The lead photo I used two days ago was NOT the first photo I took in 2023; rather, the one below was: a pristine 1969 or 1970 Buick Electra (?) parked here by another photographer wanting to get golden hour photos of the sunrise over waters near the VZ Bridge. I knew I had to step back from my vantage-point cliff to get a photo of this museum quality piece of automobile history. If you’ve been following Tugster for a while, you know it’s a waterblog that occasionally strays into automotive land machines, although not self-driving kind of “automotive.”
A while later, with the sun still quite low, I caught Copper Mountain pushing A-70,
likely upriver.
Above and below, it’s Shiloh Amon aka Jillian Irene. Unrelated, has anyone gotten a photo of Marilyn George aka Steven Wayne, ex-Patapsco, currently in the boro just west of Caddells? I’m wondering if Marilyn George might soon be wearing a lion . . . .
Already on the first day of the year, loaded garbage barges move toward the railhead and empties . . . to the marine transfer stations, here with James William in the foreground.
Ava heads out for a just-past dawn job, as
does Jonathan C.
All photos, WVD.
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.
Many thanks to my friend Lew who sent along the next two photos of MNI (Mohawk Northeast Inc.) boats. Michael is a 2004 Bayou La Batre build, 71′ x 28′ and bringing 2100 hp to the job. Previously, I’d seen MNI tug Swift, with its unique yellow livery, in the sixth boro.
Lew also got this photo of Judy M (57′ x 22′ and 1200 hp) and Bridgeport (82′ x 28′ and 2400 hp). Tug Bridgeport used to be a regular in the boro as a Gateway boat, but this is the only the second time I see her in MNI yellow. Before the Bridgeport moniker, she was known as Dragon Lady.
I saw Copper Mountain in Tampa Bay this summer, and got photos, but they must be among ones OBE (overcome by events) and I’ve not posted them yet; Tony A caught her light. Note she’s a triple engined boat and large: 116′ x 38′ and 6000 hp.
Tony also sends this next batch along. Name the tug below?
Here’s context . . . lots more boats: Vulcan III (I think), Iron Salvor, HJ Reinauer, Caspian Dawn, and Shelby Rose to the right.
Here, with Diane B in the background, is a better profile of Caspian Dawn, which with her 73′ x 26′ dimensions and 2380 hp spent most of her life on the west coast. To me, her lines say west coast, not unlike Lynx.
Many thanks to Lew and Tony for sending along these photos. Any errors, WVD.
Lightning is here and has been for at least four years, and Thunder is on its way.
From 2014 and therefore two years newer than Lightning, Adeline Marie, previously Denise A. Bouchard, was heading over to the Industry Day on Wednesday. I caught a few photos of her as Rubia in between her original and her latest livery.
The 2006 Kristin Poling first came to the sixth boro as the 5000 hp 111′ x 36′ Chesapeake. Here was my first good view of her as a Poling/Cutler tugboat.
Atlantic Enterprise has been keeping busy with runs with dredge spoils from the North River passenger terminal out to the dump site aka HARS. For a day’s worth of reading, click here for a July 2022 report on HARS.
The 1981 Susan Miller pushes a small deck barge through congested waters here. She’s been working in the boro for as long as I’ve been doing this blog.
The 1968 Marie J. Turecamo has worked in the Moran livery for over 20 years.
Scale is clear from this side-by-side photo of the 2007 Saint Emilion (105′ x 38′ and 4800 hp) and the 1982 McCormack Boys ( 74′ x 26′ and 1200 hp), both hauled out over at Bayonne Dry Dock.
The 2007 Normandy (79′ x 27′ and 1900 hp) has been in the boro since 2015.
The 1981 Navigator (64′ x 24′ and 1200 hp) has to be one among the busiest boats in the harbor and the region.
The 1975 Mary Emma (100′ x 31′ and 3900 hp) has worked under this livery since 2021. I caught her transformation here about a year ago.
All photos and any errors, WVD, who thanks you for continuing to read this blog.
Here was the post I’d planned for yesterday, put together in a moment when I thought a single focus was too elusive, random scenes, like a container ship anchored off Stapleton, elusive detail in a set all diverging from usual patterns.
Or seeing a Mein Schiff vessel in town after a hiatus… with Wye River passing along her stern?
Or this bayou boat discovering it offers solutions all over the boro and beyond, here passing a lifting machine?
How about this speedboat chasing a tugboat, or appearing to, with lots of hulls in the distance?
Or a single terrapin crawling out of the surf in a non-bulkheaded margin of the wet boro?
Two pink ONEs at Global terminal?
A ketch named Libra or Libre heading south with a scrap ship at Claremont?
Two commercial vessels out at Bayonne?
Two Ellens?
And finally two elongated RIBs with
camouflage-clad Coasties aboard?
All photos, seen as slight deviants from existing patterns, WVD.
Numbers are hard to keep straight, but I think we’re up to 11 in this series. The most relevant preceding post would be “High and Dry 8” here.
Yesterday I think I caught Saint Emilion getting hauled, with quite a few folks looking on, although maybe that number of folks is standard. Doing the honors was the mobile boat hoist over at Bayonne Dry Dock & Repair.
See the ladder in the water to the left? I’m supposing it’s standard practice to have divers ensure that the slings are properly positioned before hauling out.
All photos, WVD. Because so many interesting shapes of a vessel can be seen only when it’s hauled out, I’ve done a long series of posts on such. This might be a stretch, but when exposed, the hidden lines and features of a vessel can seem a bit like nudity.
No . . . what follows is not a count down.
But here was nine, and eight is already linked above,
four and H & D Caddells 4,
three and an erroneous three. [See . . . I have a challenge with numbers. I’ll have to go back and renumber at some point. Unintentionally duplicating numbers is the result of working too fast.]
two and another erroneous or at least inconsistent II
and then there were others, only some of which werePegasus and Patty Nolan…and some schooners . . .
Count them . . . at least four very different vessels: Saint Emilion with barge, JRT waiting to assist, Grace D shuttling people and supplies, and a sloop.
Here’s more from hither and yon around the sixth boro: Navigator at “old navy” topping off the ferry reserves,
Popeye fishing in front of Ellis Island,
Meagan Ann taking the stern of this interesting sailing trawler,
another sloop passing the Statue line, a Circle Line boat, as well as a Statue Cruises vessel,
and a NY Media Boat touring RIB.
Yes, I’m back to that trawler. It’s called Briney Bus out of Miami, but besides that, I don’t know much. My guess is that, like many boats, it’s heading for the NYS Canal system, which opened two days ago.
The parting shot . . . Meagan Ann.
All photos and any errors, WVD.
Just photos will appear here today, and I realize I’m contradicting that statement by writing this sentence and the others. However, inspiration was failing me, so I decided this post should be not photo-driven, but photo-dominated. Names are provided in the tags.
Sunday started sunny, but then clouds moved in.
To highlight the variety, this post will focus on size, horsepower, and age.
Matthew Tibbetts, 1969, 92′ x 27′, 2000 hp. All numbers rounded up if .5 or more.
Brendan Turecamo, 1975, 107′ x 32′, 3900.
Crystal Cutler, 2010, 67′ x 26′, 1500.
Bruce A. McAllister, 1974, 112′ x 30′, 4000.
C.F. Campbell, 1975, 100′ x 31′, 3400.
Ava M. McAllister, 2018, 100′ x 40′, 6770.
Saint Emilion, 2007, 105′ x 38′, 4800.
Christian Reinauer, 2001, 119′ x 40′, 7200.
Magothy, 2008, 100′ x 34′, 4200.
All photos, WVD.
Two blog-related issues: Sarah Dann and the big blue crane are now below Quebec City. And, bidding has begun on Grouper and Chancellor.
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