People on the Boro 34

A couple days ago in the 77 Days post (which I’ve since learned added up to 79 days) I saw a mariner I know on the boro on a Maersk container vessel.

Most of the time though I don’t know the folks I see working on the water.  The folks in yellow and orange coats below are likely longshoremen mustering before ruunning in and driving all the vehicles out that are to be discharged here . . .  in the sixth boro.  

Note the mariners below preparing the messenger line down to the tugboat. 

The deckhand retrieves it, makes it to the tugboat, signals, 

and the ONE crew move forward to standby at the forward mooring area. 

Meanwhile, the deckhand secures the line. 

All photos, WVD.

Hat tip to the people out on the boro in all kinds of weather. 

 

Superlative 1

…you know. . . superlative like newest, biggest, fastest, most powerful,  most teu. . . it’s a series I should have started long ago, but tugster is a public work-in-progress.  And I’m skeptical of superlatives… since they change regularly.

A quick post today, but this is a story I need to find more out about.   See those orange slings hanging from a buff framework?   I’d noticed it several times recently but never paid attention until yesterday.  It’s not an art installation.

Notice the fine print in blue:  Bayonne Drydock and Repair Corp and Cimolai MBH 1280?  Well, I read that is the current largest mobile boat hoist (aka travel lift) in the world, capable of lifting up to 1280 tons!  That is a big a$$ boat lift!    And Cimolai is building a larger one–a 1500-ton lift– in Florida.

Here’s more on Cimolai, with some NYC projects already completed.  And one more site about Armando and Albina Cimolai  . . . here.

Photos, WVD.

If you’ve never seen one of these lift or splash a boat, here’s a video.

1000+ Days Ago

Note:  If you haven’t read “my” long comment to yesterday’s ‘SterCrazy 3 post, I added much more info from Robin Denny about the Bug roadster there.

March 23, 2017.    So how many folks are standing at a high point of the Evergreen ship?

Two?  Six?  More?

 

It was something of an optical illusion, because the lower roadbed was in its last days.

On April 2, 2017 . . . Maersk Kolkata was one of the first vessels to “thread the needle” and shoot through the

opening, where a roadbed had been for almost a century.   Time flies.

A week and a few days later, April 11, 2017

the “opening” in the lower roadway had grown to the point that it was difficult to imagine it’d ever been there.

Photos by Will Van Dorp, who did another post in April 2017 showing other vessels “shooting the needle” here.

 

 

Bayonne Bridge Transformation 3

Here was 1 and here, 2.  As others of you, I’ve been waiting for the walkway to open;  it’s been closed since August 2013!!

Today’s photos are all from the past six weeks, and my way of saying that workers are still active on this bridge

 

See the same guys above and below?

My son works in a fairly high “man basket,” but I doubt he’s ever

been in one this high.  These must extend to nearly 200′?

The next two photos I took earlier this week.

 

Since the Bayonne Bridge has appeared on every blog post (as header photo) I’ve done, I do know it better than any other bridge locally. Happy holidays from Will Van Dorp.

Geese and Glory

Only 13 months ago, Cosco Glory could not have entered Port Elizabeth.  Now the +14,000-teu boats –more accurately called NYC’s 1200-footers, have become routine like T. Roosevelt, J. Adams, and Chongqing.

The geese are not even spooked.

Jonathan takes the starboard, and Kirby . . . port

while JRT and Margaret leverage the stern.

 

 

 

 

As of this writing, this crewman has most recently been treated to views of the Savannah waterfront.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Riverbanks 10

Here are previous installments focusing on background.

Sometimes the partial reveal and the juxtaposition highlight what’s on the shorelines, like those triple deckers in Bayonne that would blend in perfectly in many 19th century mill towns.

Or the hugely forgotten Singer plant in Elizabeth, hugely forgotten by most residents of Elizabeth, that is.  Imagine, if someone could turn the clock back on that one, 10,000 people would have manufacturing jobs . . . either sewing machines, or

weaponry of all sorts.

 

But one detail on the bank over by the NJ-side of the Bridge caught my attention.  So I thought these beams would be trucked from the disappearing bridge to a scrapping yard.  How surprised I was when the crane lifted the beam off the truck not 1000 feet from where they’d been on duty for decades and

lowered them

one after the other

to what might be a series of trucks below.  I can’t quite see what becomes of the beams on the ground at Bergen Point.  And I think that’s the Passaic small boat.  ??

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Keep your eyes open and stay safe.

Suez Canal Bridge

or Bridge.

Below is a photo I took in October 2011 . . .

Also from October 2011, when the bridge looked like this,

squeezing under the roadbed looked like this, and

the McAllister stern quarter escort looked like this . . .

the mighty Maurania III, that is.  Here’s the complete post I did back then.

But five and a half  years have elapsed, not without change.  So earlier this week, Suez Canal in the KVK and under the Bayonne Bridge looked like this.  See the worker above the new roadbed?

See him now?

 

So this week it was Marjorie B on the stern, and

 

Ellen forward.

 

 

I hope to be around and doing this five and a half years from now to see what there is to see.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Yesterday I mentioned the request to help the Roaring Bull ferry project, and that’s now fully funded. Thank you.   Here’s another and more somber request that you might consider, the Captain Joseph Turi Memorial fund.

People on the Boro 21

If you want to see what I’ve done with this title in the past, click here.

I’ll reveal this set of photos without explaining what’s going on.  Check out the six people in this photo.  They divide into two groups by “uniform,” but how are they related?

 

I might add that these photos are shown in reverse chronological order.

 

See the two men (or one of them at that moment) atop the superstructure in the photo below?

Now we’re moving forward in time again.

 

So the two groups of six total men in the top photo have nothing to do with each other.  The ship’s crew wearing orange were simply photographing the bridge work, demolition at this point.  I can’t say if they communicated, but my guess is that at their closest they were within 50 feet of each other.

 

All photo by Will Van Dorp.

 

Watch the Gap

As of six days ago, that gap was all that seemed to remain for a complete span.  Who knows . . . by now, that may be bridged as well.  Here are some of the posts that show the project of modifying the soon-to-be 85 year-old icon I’ve had on my blog since day 1.  Here were a set of posts I did when the bridge turned 80.

 

Once the higher span is complete and open for traffic, the lower span will be dismantled.  I wonder what the arches are feeling.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Sixth Boro 8

You’d have thought I use this title more often, but it’s been almost three years since it last appeared. I’m starting with this photo of the lightship WLV-612, because this is where I’ll be this evening for a FREE and open-to-the-public 6 pm showing of our documentary Graves of Arthur Kill.  Seats for those who arrive first.

Over the years I’ve done many posts about the WLV-612, but my favorite is this one.

Here’s a very recent arrival in the sixth boro’s pool of workboats . . . Fort McHenry, just off the ways, although just yesterday an even-more recent arrival.  more on that one soon, I hope.  I don’t know how new Double Skin 315 is.

Ships in the anchorage and waterways must think they are in a tropical clime, given the temperatures of August 2016.

NS Parade, Iron Point, MTM St Jean …  have all been here recently.

Robert E. McAllister returned from a job, possibly having assisted Robert E. Peary.

MSC Lucy headed out past

Larry J. Hebert, standing by at a maintenance dredging job.

MOL Bellwether, all 1105′ loa of her, leave into the humid haze, existing here along with

some wind to propel this sloop.

Finally, just the name, sir;  No need for the entire genealogy. This photo comes compliments of Bob Dahringer.

Thanks to Bob for the photo above;  all others by Will Van Dorp.