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Seth Tane took this photo on the Columbia in 2000. This was my sense of tugboats back then. I had little sense of their age, power, crews, skills needed for operation, etc. Take a guess on those features of this boat, and I’ll provide you some answers at the end of this post. Note that this tug and barge are at a log dock, a trade unknown in the sixth boro or the NE US.
Here’s a shot I took in 2002 while hanging out on what I called back then the “waterfront” and saw this vessel. Again, I had no idea of those same features as they pertained to this vessel, nor of the logic of this design. Test yourself, and then some info can be found at the end.
I took this photo in 2004. My 15 years in coastal NE had given me an interest in schooners but I’d never sought an opportunity to crew on one, until my move to NYS, first on and then off the live-aboard.
Note the warehouses still standing where Brooklyn Bridge Park is now located. Volunteer crewing on Pioneer and the other boats at South Street Seaport Museum kept me on the Upper Bay for long hours, and I saw lots of new things,
some things whose uniqueness I didn’t even fully appreciate. Anyone know what’s become of that tugboat Rachel Marie? I don’t.
Some things intrigued me,
and other things like this derelict sugar mill and sunken lightship were soon to disappear.
I started to see interesting tugboats in unexpected places.
Little did I expect then the changes that would happen. Know the boat above and below?
All photos, WVD. Answers below.
Craig Foss, 1944, 116′ x 30′. Here are more particulars, but as good as the boat appeared the top photo, she was purchased by unqualified parties, detained, and eventually scrapped. You need to read the story here; some crew were lucky to have survived.
The second photo shows Coral Queen, a motor tanker that carried petroleum from 1920 (!!!) until 2011. That is a long working life. Here are the particulars from Birk’s data base. From Auke Visser’s site, here are more particulars. And finally, from my Barge Canal series last year, here are images of her generations of fleet mates; her design relates to her work as a tanker in the “inter-connected waterways,” the Great Lakes and salt water connected by the Barge Canal.
The 1885 Pioneer still seasonally sails with professional and volunteer crews, and the 1893 Lettie G. Howard does the same on Lake Erie mostly.
I’ve no idea what became of Rachel Marie.
Meow Man traces are still around.
The sugar mill area now has an Amazon facility, and the old shipyard is the Red Hook Ikea parking lot, and the sunken ship reefed, the piers scrapped.
Grouper, frozen in ice, is still waiting to be scrapped, but as of March 2, 2023 is still entirely intact. The orange livery has disappeared from the sixth boro; that boat June K is now Donjon blue.
Ultimately, the more I found answers to questions I had, the more I was drawn in to learn more, a fact that keeps me looking and asking. I really never expected to be in the boros and fascinated by the sixth boro as long as I have been. Recently, I had a conversation with a friend from another NYC life and she reported never to have heard of the sixth boro. I guess that’s as shocking as hearing that someone’s not heard of the legendary Meow Man, the saltwater equivalent of Kilroy, or the US version of Maqroll, whose exploits need to be written down. As of the date of these photos, tugster the blog had not yet been launched.
I’m not sure when I’ll post anything next, but it could be tomorrow.
I’m back and just in time for the last day of the year, which –as explained in previous years— in my Dutch tradition is a reflection day, a time to if not assess then at least recall some of the sights of the past 12 months. A photo-driven blog makes that simultaneously easy and hard; easy because there’s a photographic record and not easy because there’s such an extensive photographic record to sift though.
A word about this set of photos: these are some “seconds” that did not make the final cut for my 2023 tugster calendar. The actual calendars are still available if you’ve not ordered one; find the order info here. I’m ordering a bunch myself.
One windy day last January I caught a Pilot No 1–the old New York–doing drills under the VZ Bridge. Just recently I met one of the engineers on that boat, a person with epic stories about the sixth boro.
A warm day in February, I caught JRT Moran assisting QM2 into her Red Hook berth.
March I spent a delightful day on Douglas B. Mackie observing the water side of a Jersey shore beach replenishment project, thanks to the hard-working folks at GLDD.
April . . . I caught Jane McAllister heading out; correct if I’m wrong, but my sense is that soon afterward she made her way down to South America to join the expanding ranks of US-built tugs working on various projects on the south side of the Caribbean.
As a member of the Canal Society of NYS, I had the opportunity to see Urger up close and sun-warmed on the bank of the Oswego in Lysander NY.
A clutch of Centerline tugboats waited for their next assignment at the base just east of the Bayonne Bridge. Note the fully foliated trees beyond them along the KVK.
From the humid heat of western Louisiana and onto the Gulf of Mexico, Legs III–shown
here spudded up just east of SW Pass, afforded a memorable journey on its way up to the sixth boro. Thx, Seth.
Back in the boro, later in August, a Space X rocket recovery boat named Bob–for an astronaut– came through the sixth boro. More on Bob–the astronaut–here.
In September, I finally got to my first ever Gloucester schooner race, thanks to Rick Miles of Artemis, the sailboat and not the rocket.
Icebreaker Polar Circle was in the boro a few days in September as well. Now it’s up in Canada, one hopes doing what icebreakers are intended to do. US naval logistics vessel Cape Wrath is at the dock in Baltimore ready and waiting a logistics assignment.
Ticonderoga certainly and Apache possibly are beyond their time working and waiting. I believe Ticonderoga is at the scrappers in Brownsville.
Passing the UN building on the East River, veteran Mulberry is currently out of the army and working in the private sector. I’ve a request: for some time I’ve seen a tug marked as Scholarie working the waters west of the Cape Cod Canal; a photo suggested it might be called Schoharie. Anyone help out?
And finally, a photo taken just two days ago while passing through the sixth boro during what can hardly be called “cover of darkness” it’s Capt Joseph E. Pearce on its way to a shipyard on the mighty Rondout to pick up some custom fabrication for a Boston enterprise. Many thanks to the Stasinos brothers for the opportunity.
I’d be remiss in ending this post and this year without mentioning lost friends, preserving a memory of their importance to me personally . . . Bonnie of frogma–first ever to comment of this blog so many years ago and a companion in many adventures– and Mageb, whose so frequent comments here I already miss.
I plan to post tomorrow, although I may miss my high noon post time because I hope to post whatever best sunrise 2023 photos I can capture in the morning.
Happy, safe, and prosperous new year to you all. I’m posting early today because I want my readers who live much much farther east than the sixth boro to get these wishes before their new trip around the sun begins. Bonne annee! Gelukkig nieuwjaar!
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.
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.
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.
Click on the photo below and you’ll see basic details of 1979-built LNG carrier LNG Virgo.
Click on the image below, and you’ll find a 9-minute video with details of a boatload of refugees rescued by LNG Virgo in the South China Sea and what happens 30+ years later.
Lauren Vuong, one of those refugees, writes: “I was seven years old when my family was rescued from the South China Sea in June 1980. We were part of the “Boat People” crisis. We were ten days at sea, lost and depleted of food, water and fuel. Barring a miracle, death was an imminent certainty. That miracle appeared in the form of a liquefied natural gas carrier flying the American flag, LNG Virgo, an image that forever cemented itself in my mind as being synonymous with life and freedom.”
Lauren, now making a documentary about their rescue, has a GoFundMe site if you want to help. Recently Lauren was at SUNY Maritime at an LNG conference.
Lauren’s story reminds me of an email I got a few years back and shared here; it involves a rescue conducted by a tug that went on to work in the sixth boro.
The sixth boro–just like those other ones–is a crossroads. In just a short span of time, boats from Texas (note the Great Loop pennant on the bow) and
Quebec pass . . . and they’re soon out of sight and gone. But occasionally,
boats pass through, singly or in twos, and
you can follow their journey, as is the case with TwoTugsTravelin’ aka Sally W and Salty Paws, who hope to do the miniloop and be back through NYC in mid July, by way of the Canal, Lake Ontario, Rideau Canal by June 19, Ottawa River by the 28th, and the Richelieu by July 3. And then in Maine waters
Will Van Dorp August 2015
by early August, by which time I hope the sun’s out. Happy traveling’…
Thanks to Glenn Raymo for the two photos directly above.
The others by Will Van Dorp, who invites any bloggers traveling interesting waterways this summer to get in touch. Here’s a cruiser going up the Pacific side of Central America.
This is my Janus post . . . which I’ll start with a photo I took in January 2007 of an intriguing set of sculptures, since licensed to Trinity Church in Manhattan.
Since I’ve tons to do today, comment will be minimal. The photo below I took near the KVK salt pile on January 14, 2016. Eagle Ford, to the right, has since been scrapped in Pakistan.
The history of Alnair, photo taken in Havana harbor on February 4, 2016, is still untraced. It looks like an ex-USN tug. Click here for more Cuban photos.
This photo of JRT Moran and Orange Sun I took on March 12.
This photo of Hudson was taken in Maassluis, very near where my father grew up, on April 4. Many more Maassluis photos can be found here.
Sandmaster I photographed here on May 6. since then, she’s moved to Roatan, I’m told, and I’d love to go there and see how she’s doing. Maybe I can learn some Garifuna while I’m there.
June 1, I took this, with Robert E. McAllister and an invisible Ellen escorting Maersk Idaho out the door.
July 14, I saw GL tug Nebraska yank bulkier Isolda with 56,000 tons of corn through a narrow opening and out the Maumee.
August 23 I caught Atlantic Sail outbound past a nearly completed Wavertree. And come to think of it, this is a perfect Janus photo.
September 9 at the old port in Montreal I caught Svitzer Montreal tied up and waiting for the next job.
October 18, I caught Atlanticborg and Algoma Enterprise down bound between Cape Vincent and Clayton NY.
November 4, while waiting for another tow, I caught Sarah Ann switching out scrap scows in the Gowanus.
And I’ll end this retrospective Janus post with a mystery shot, which I hope to tell you more about in 2017. All I’ll say is that I took it yesterday and can identify only some of what is depicted. Anyone add something about this photo?
I feel blessed with another year of life, energy, gallivants, and challenges. Thank you for reading and writing me. Special thanks to you all who sent USPS cards ! I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2017. Here’s what Spock would say and where he got it.
Here was my “last hours” post from 2015. And here from the year before with some vessels sailing away forever. And here showing what I painted in the last hours of 2013. And one more with origins “oud jaardag” stuff from the finale of 2011.
Fire off the free foton fireworks!
For 3286 times before today I’ve posted since
November 26, 2006. My very first post was here. In the big scheme of things, 10 years is a short time, yet I have seen a fair amount of change in my beat–the sixth boro–in that time, particularly shore features, bridges, and some of the actual vessels afloat. I certainly have learned a lot since 2006.
It does take some time every day, and I’ve thought to discontinue many times . . .
but I continue. Thank you all for reading, commenting, correcting my errors and typos, answering my questions, suggesting ideas, sending along photos, offering me jobs, giving me work, inviting me to stuff, indulging my made-up words, recognized me, alerting me of events to shoot, unlocking doors, sending me gifts, buying me elixirs, sharing company, entrusting me with secrets, keeping me off the partisan shoals on FB, and generally being friendly. You all have kept me going, have convinced me all this needs to be documented, and therefore, I’ve put at least 25,000 photos into the public domain.
Digital cameras make this documentation easy and the internet lowers the cost. So I hope you continue to read the blog, respond, send along photos, and more. If the photo enlarges well and it fits, I’ll use it, crediting you by name or pseudonym. (Cell phone photos do not often work, unfortunately.) The boro is complex, perspectives infinite, and the “gallivants beyond” just plain innumerable.
Will I keep it up for another 10 years? Who knows whether anyone will be alive next year . . . although I hope we’ll be.
Again, I am humbled and thank you.
Here was post 1000.
Here are anniversary posts from select previous years: 2008 2010 2011 2012 2014 2015
Recognize the red schooner? It’s shown here approaching the dock in Cape Town last week in a photo by Colin Syndercombe, whose previous photos you can see here. Here are previous photos of the red boat on tugster, and here is the blog kept by the crew of the red boat, Issuma. Since leaving the sixth boro in Fall 2010, Issuma has traveled up the St. Lawrence, northward leaving Canada to port and Greenland to starboard, across the Northwest Passage, southward through the Bering Strait . . . you get the flow.
![ISSUMA%20%2015%20March%202016%20001[3]](https://tugster.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/issuma20201520march202016200013.jpg)
It’s Richard Hudson. So if you didn’t click on his blog link above, after traveling southward west of the entire North and South American continents–with a stopover in Easter Island–he rounded Cape Horn, leaving it to port, and kissed Antarctica. Some time later this week, Issuma will leave Cape Town and head for New Zealand.
![ISSUMA%20%2015%20March%202016%20002[3]](https://tugster.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/issuma20201520march202016200023.jpg)
![ISSUMA%20%2015%20March%202016%20003[3]](https://tugster.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/issuma20201520march202016200033.jpg)
In October 2010, Issuma tied up briefly along the East River in Queens. Oh the stories he can tell!
Also, much gratitude to Colin for taking these pics.
tugster: a waterblog 
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