Meanwhile in Greenport

Thanks to tugster readers who snap photos and write tugster editorial offices, I sometimes can include dispatches from far-flung places.  Today’s post comes thanks to bowsprite who texted me the other day mentioning a pelican at the North Fork of Long Island.

I had limited wifi at the time, so I expected later to see a photo of a haggard fish-eating semitropical bird blown out of its usual habitat by this summer’s storms.  Later but before I could open the photo file, she asked about VIMS, and I could not imagine why.

But here is is . . . a vessel named Pelican looking faintly military and with ghost letters midships “VIMS.”

Click here for a thorough orientation to the boat since its adoption as VIMS flagship in 2003.  But according to this, a new vessel was ordered, and here it is (as a rendering) . . .

Here’s more about the shipyard in Matane, QC.

Many thanks to bowsprite, who’s especially buoyant these days,  for this photo and news.

Click here for previous posts featuring research vessels.

Agaain, thanks to bowsprite for sending this along.

postscript:  Now the vessel goes by Bush Master.

Tagster! 2

Since I’m off gallivanting in a very cold place, how about some warm five-boros’ tagging, following in the spirit here. Of course, in the sixth boro, meow man rules all tagging, as I paid tribute here three years ago. Photo below I took a few weeks ago in Manhattan.  It says what Manhattan can be . . . or NYC for that matter.

Here’s a photo from bowsprite, and no matter how ambitious she is with brushes, she did not paint this.  All her photos in this post are from Brooklyn. I apologize I have no Bronx photos, but the Bronx is the unknown boro for me.  Anyone help?  And Queens . . . is it me or is there no wall art there?

Here’s the other side of dreams . . . heartbreak.  Maybe someone more studied in this vernacular can explain the winged disks in her hands. Again, Manhattan and my photo.

Here’s another bowsprite photo of a complex tag, maybe some allusion here to meow man?

This comes from the edge of Little Italy, mine.

Hers, in Brooklyn.

Faded by too much spotlight.  Mine.

Staten Island has a different character;  I took the next ones just off Bay Street, where NYCArtsCypher.org seems to base itself.

And the images are as diverse as the area is, as polyglot as this city is.  Less than 300 yards behind the Tapas place, you’re in the water, in the Bay, in the sixth boro.

 

I love the lobster there.

Photos by a team.

 

Ice 5

Taken Feb 4 by Bjoern Kils . . . the spearhead.

Taken this morning by bowsprite, the onslaught of frazil ice.  Is that Amy C. McAllister pushing the Bouchard barge? Anyone guess the light tug in front of Ellis Island?

And taken yesterday by Allen Baker looking over the stern of Mediterranean Sea northward toward Albany, the state of the Hudson right now . . .

ditto all . . . here’s the view from the wheelhouse of Mediterranean Sea.

And as if by magic . . . some pics of the same unit by Allen from a remote vantage point . . . coming with

a sign of caution, unheeded

in this photo by Bob Dahringer of a coyote on ice up near Catskill.  According to Bob, “Stephen Reinauer was following us upriver, they said the poor thing fell into the water when they went by him, but he got himself out.”

And finally . . . from Ashley Hutto and taken on Monday this week . . . the NSFW belle of winter in the sixth boro. . .

Thanks to Bjoern, bowsprite, Allen, Bob, and Ashley for these reports on the ice.

People Movers 4 and More

Spirit of America . . . operates as an icon among icons.

I need to force myself to look hard to see the obvious differences between Spirit and S. I. Newhouse, and others.

Recently, though, Spirit has intruded into my photos more than any other one of the ferries.

Molinari . . .

John F. Kennedy and Spirit . . .

Either Newhouse or Barberi . . .

Positively identified as Newhouse.

And this is the old terminal, actually called Battery Maritime Building and unofficially the Governors Island ferry terminal today.  And how’s the progress on its roof?  What’s going on there?  Read all about it here and here. Glass boxes seem currently in vogue in NYC.

Click on the image below to see Battery Maritime Building and more of the sixth boro almost a century ago.

For info on all the classes of Staten Island ferries, present and past, click here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, except the nighttime photo by Seth Tane.

And finally . . .  here’s a bowsprite image used in a marinelink.com article without credit!  And by bowsprite’s report, she’s received no response from marine link.com when she’s contacted them about . . . crediting her art.  Hmmmm…  See her original published image from four years earlier here.

 

 

Merrily Merry 2014

I gave up sending Christmas cards quite a few years ago, but I do put up a holiday post.  I look for festive scenes, and this year my pick  was not on a creek upriver, or on a barge on the river.  This year’s does not involve Rockettes per se . . . .  But right here on our very own Richmond Terrace, I did chance upon what might be an end-of-year dance.  I think bowsprite started it and she just charmed the red-clad deckhands

into life!  Whatever bowsprite did, the deckhands mimicked!  I was so spellbound that I put down my camera and just watched, entranced.

Seriously but not too seriously . .  be happy with yours and what you have.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who wrote this version of 12 ___ of Christmas a few years ago and made a modest proposal here after an inspirational trip to Gloucester.   If you need some late gifts . . . or early ones for any event in 2015, check out bowsprite’s online shop here.

 

Random Nola Tugs 1

I’ll start with the greatest looking tug of all I saw.  It has a name, but I cropped it out and will reveal it as this post goes on.  But isn’t this a beaut?!!  It also has an evocative previous name.  Can you guess her vintage?

I’m in the mood for puzzling today, so what’s this?  I know there’s no tug in this photo, but . . .

now there is.  Check out the scale of those gift boxes!  Here’s the story of the Algiers Christmas bonfires. Scroll through here to photos 4 and 5 for last year’s Algier’s bonfire fuel.

So here’s a closer up of the tug Bunker King passing the tanker Bow Trajectory, heading for Plaquemine.

See the Algiers “gift boxes” over the stern of Cecilia B. Slatten?  See where she fits in her fleet here.   Can anyone explain what if any connections there are between Bisso Towing and Bisso Marine, who recently have had a project in NYC’s sixth boro?

Freedom . . . there’s nothing in the sixth boro with these colors and artwork.

M/V Magnolia . . . as night falls.

Night falls on James Dale Robin and Kimberly Hidalgo.  Less than an hour earlier, prayers had been offered and champagne spilled over these two vessels and another, Dale Artigue.

And nightfall means I should return to the beaut in the first photo . . . here it is with name restored, formerly called Havana Zephyr.  Check out this fabulous line drawing of her by Barry Griffin.

Here’s the whole vessel as I saw it last week.  Such lines!  I’d really love to see a bowsprite rendering of those curves!

Merlin Banta, which my defective eyes first read as ‘merlin santa,” came out of the St. Louis Boats yard in 1946, not long after the yard delivered a fleet of icebreaking tugs to the US Navy and then to the USSR!  If you click on no other links in this post, you have to see these icebreakers . . . last photo in a post I did a year ago here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Along Bayou Lafourche Again

Over a week ago I felt all the symptoms of impending illness, Gfever.  I suffer from that affliction quite a lot, as you know if you follow this blog.   It starts when I can’t sit for more than 15 seconds, atlases–paper or interactive electronic–beckon, the ear worms in my head are all about travel .  .  .  the only cure for this fever . . . Gfever  . . . is a gallivant.  And in this case, a Bayou Lafourche gallivant was the only remedy.  So from the airport any direction was fine as long as it was south.  Let’s cross this lift bridge and go . . .  farther than we did last time here.

Of course, bowsprite came along and sketched hither and yon . . . and who could pass up Intl Defender!

There . .  beyond the copse of backup rigs . . . it’s the boom town of Port Fourchon.

And rather than understand first and write later, I’ll just put up a sampling of vessels I saw. . . .  Here’s off the bow of Delta Power (127′ loa) is Dionne Chouest (261′ loa).  A random assortment goes on with

HOS Red Dawn (268′),

Dictator (140′), Candy Bear (156′), and Candy Stripe (130′),

the venerable Stone Buccaneer . . . ex-Eastern Sun.

the brand-new 202′ Capt Elliott,

a cluster that includes from l. to r. . . . HOS North Star, Seacor Washinton, C-Endeavor, C-Fighter, and Miss Marilene Tide.  The stern-to vessel in the foreground . . . I can’t identify.

Looking like they’re aground and on the grass . . . it’s HOS Black Rock and HOS Red Rock, recent builds and each 278′.

There are more and more . . ..

in Port Fourchon, as seen here from the c-store looking over the trucks, the single-wides on stilts, and the vessels beyond.

Many thanks to our guide, Aaron of Crewboat Chronicles, a blog I look forward to read all of. We knew Ben was around too . . . but in a short time, you can’t meet everybody.  Ben . .  catch you later.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Let me know whether you’re interested in another post from Bayou Lafourche.

 

Names 24

Many thanks to bowsprite for these photos;  Pretty Lamb raises the bar for unusual names.  Click here for more “pretty” fleet.  Or here:   https://tugster.wordpress.com/?s=pretty

From the Line Locker 18

Here was 17, a reminder of what this series is about:  I’m avoiding the word miscellaneous.

First, from Birk Thomas . . . a closer-up of another Blount this week.  Doesn’t it share some spirit of 1960 Ford blue?

From bowsprit, who wanted to know why a scalloper was headed southbound along Manhattan the other day, the windy day?  Well, I’m resisting the chance to set up an April Fool’s post . . . it was actually in the sixth boro to escape the stormy seas and 30′ PLUS waves out where it normally works.  Endurance is no timid scallop boat . . .

I’ve been eager to share this assemblage of old calendar, baseball card, and mermaid bottle openers from Greenport, a place with a distinctly New England ship-building history feel.   Are any of these anywhere still extant?  Click here for a photo of a City Island, NY yard that once built them.

Anyone know which sixth boro regular is a triple screw?  Answer follows.

Here’s Bayou Dawn getting some new skin a few weeks back.

I’m putting up this post with my apartment windows open . . . spring has vanquished winter . .  so it’s time for a few photos of winter’s recent oppression.   Ever wonder how the loader gets to the bottom of the hold of a bulker?

Odigitria came here with salt a few weeks back and those holds that were then filled with gleaming white minerals might now be filled with dull black stone now.

As summer gets cooer, I’m imagining doing some research on these boats and the larger tenders.  When I see a buoy boat, I imagine an Elco in industrial disguise.

I took these photos less than six weeks ago, and my finger are only just now thawed out.

Thanks to Birk and bowsprit for the first two photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Let me know what you think that triple screw is.

Time to clear the decks for spring!

By the way, did anybody catch a photo of DSV Joseph Bisso coming through the KVK this morning?

Bowsprite’s People Movers and More

Care for a shot of Melville?  ““Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries–stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”

Paraphrase that a bit, take liberties,  and you might come up with:  “When you gallivant, chances are you’ll end up in the water.”  If Melville were around the sixth boro these days, he might add something about the likelihood of seeing folks with digital cameras and–if among those gallivants there’s a bowsprite–inks/charcoal pencils too.

The whale lives

here, 100 miles plus east of the sixth boro’s easternmost reaches and if you go

up these stairs marked by a rendering of the orange ferry John F. Kennedy, you’ll

see this . . . 38 pieces of bowsprit’s art on display.

The exhibit called “Working Girls of New York Harbor” is up now til the end of May.

And if you feel a thirst that water fails to quench, the exhibit is located one floor above stainless steel vats filled with thousands of gallons of fermenting, living brews.

Here’s the front of the exhibit postcard, with evidence that bowsprite has turned her gaze and inked what she saw in increasingly distant waters.

Oh . .  and the opening’s tonight in Greenport.  Gotta run.   More Greenport soon.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.