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It appears that Staten Island ferry John J. Marchi was crossing the Upper Bay just before 1800 hrs. Otherwise, it was still mostly government boats like
NOAA S-222 Thomas Jefferson, performing post-storm hydrographic surveys. I took this foto back in early September 2012. Buoys move, debris lurks, and bottom depths change. Assessing and correcting these and other conditions of the port are keeping lots of folks really busy . . . .
I braved gridlock and frantic traffic with very long lines at gas stations to get to my work. A detour–of course–led me past Arthur Kill Park across from the Howland Hook Container Terminal. As no doubt you’ve seen in fotos of docks, boardwalks, and coastal areas from Cape May to here, these fishing docks are wrecked. Remarkable here is that this dock is protected by 10 miles of waterway and Staten Island’s heights from the ocean.
Two vessels that rode out the storm in port are (l to r) dredge Atchafalaya and container ship CSAV Itajai, not sure why this latter stayed in port. Here’s my previous not-so-great foto of Atchafalaya.
As I said, lots of assessments are happening . . . which means very little traffic.
I believe this is survey boat Cape Elizabeth. In the distance at Fort Wadsworth–wonder how my goats are–notice the tents set up for Sunday’s NY Marathon.
And this may very well be the first tug/barge to leave the sixth boro post-Sandy . . . Morgan Reinauer, I think.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, and except for the shot of Thomas Jefferson . . . all taken today.
If you’re free and local, here’s a lecture on hurricane/flood risk coming up in two weeks on my friend Philip’s blog. And here’s insights on risk assessment/response driving the Dutch “deltaworks” project after their “once in 10,000 years” flood considerations post-1953 North Sea flood, which claimed over 2000 lives.
Guess what this is? I’ll call it T-time on Kraken.
Then this is T minus five minutes. Note the orange mass just forward of the channel marker.
T minus five seconds!
Believe it or not . . . this is T PLUS five seconds. So, there was a thud that resonated through the concrete barrier I braced myself behind on shore at least 600 feet away, and then the sound of spray seen in the first foto above. But five seconds beyond . . . mist had dissipated and some gurgles formed in the water.
T plus fifteen seconds . . . the first bird arrives and the water turns muddy.
T plus a half minute, the gurgles have grown, appear grainy and muddy, and a yellowish mist forms.
One minute beyond . . birds have heard the dinner bell . . . er . . . blast.
I wonder what the cormorant on lower right of center is thinking . . ..
Two minutes beyond . . .
And the zone reopens to traffic. All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who has a blast every time he goes down to the water. The last blast depicted on this blog–taken in Panama–was the final foto in this post from back in March.
I didn’t take these fotos quite right, but . . . look closely, on the left side of the foto and the channel are three orange channel markers, as they appeared on October 10. That’s Bayonne in the distance. Behind the camera and off the right side is Howland Hook terminal.
Of course Patrick Sky cleared that nearest marker without a slightest scratch.
But a few days later . . . October 14 and after a tip-off, I returned and
only two markers remained.
Of course, Irish Sea and Bering Sea had nothing to do with the lost marker. Nor did Kraken.
But one was gone, vanished, disparu!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who hasn’t returned here since . . . but might there now only be one? Click here for some background info on Patrick Sky. The Kirby unit in the top foto is Beaufort Sea.
Here was installment 2. Look carefully at the first foto . . . from back four years ago. An update follows, but . . . first, a foto from Chris Williams and the Erie Canal, it’s Kalyan Offshore‘s 450 hp Lil Joe.
An equal number of hours driving north of the sixth boro gets you to the dredging of PCBs from the Hudson riverbed near Fort Edward. A version of the story can be found here. Scows move through the locks with a small tug at each end . . . like here Turning Point has the apparent bow and
Champlain the stern.
Here, below the lock, Washington moves a scow upriver.
And here’s what I was referring to at the top of this post: the other day, much to my surprise, who emerged from the fog . . . . the indomitable Helen Parker. Almost exactly a year ago (October 13) she capsized and sank near Pier 84. The story is here, fourth one down.
Fair winds and smooth waters!
Was it my imagination, or did I see Rae appear on AIS the other day? I’m keeping my eyes open for her. Compared with these truckable tugs, she’s huge at 46′ loa. And as for the term “truckable tugs,” after the trek of Alwyn Vintcent, the definition of the category is greatly enlarged.
The days to use the westside pedestrian/cyclist lane of the Bayonne Bridge are winding down . . if plans are to be believed. And then, in 2014 or so when the work is completed, the walk/cycle lane will reside on the east side.
Note the bulb of a vessel appearing between the support members. I’m thinking that given the use of “flags of convenience” in this industry, this foto might make a suitable flag for an aquatic micronation like Republic of New Atlantis or Oceania.
Behold a possible 4892-teu vessel headed straight for the narrow channel at Mariners Harbor.
Fortunately, that trajectory will be modified by Amy C McAllister. But I wonder, what would happen if that bow tug should suddenly lose power.
That gray console on the portside bridge wing, can I cal that a bridge wing helm station?
Note the folded forward mast. Vessel is APL Oman. Any guesses where she was built? A clue is that builder is listed as a company named Daewoo.
Bruce A. McAllister acts as the starboard stern thruster.
She’s five days out of the Panama Canal. Here’s APL’s itinerary for the past two months:
| 2012 August 19th, 13:00:31 UTC | New York |
| 2012 August 14th, 04:00:44 UTC | Balboa |
| 2012 July 29th, 00:00:08 UTC | Pusan |
| 2012 July 27th, 08:30:05 UTC | Yang Shan |
| 2012 July 25th, 00:30:49 UTC | Hongkong |
| 2012 July 24th, 11:00:17 UTC | Yan Tian |
| 2012 July 21st, 22:00:58 UTC | Yan Tian |
| 2012 July 21st, 22:00:40 UTC | Hongkong |
| 2012 July 19th, 22:30:28 UTC | Kaohsiung |
| 2012 June 18th, 08:00:09 UTC | Norfolk |
The rotation is progressing well.
It seems the starboard bridge wing helm station is covered, so portside to the dock?
Color-coded overalls keep hierarchy pronounced?
While I’m up on my vantage point overlooking Newark Bay, I have a chance to see what else is around. From roughly far left to near right, it’s upper blue wheelhouse of DonJon boat, Bebedouro!!, an unidentified ferry, and Cashman’s drillboat Kraken.
All fotos taken today by Will Van Dorp, whose computers are happier than they were yesterday.
And the place of construction for APL Oman . .. Daewoo Mangalia in Romania!!
Yesterday’s post featured a dredge that vacuums diamonds off the seabed. I’d thought this remained mostly still the stuff of Jules Verne, but here’s a fairly recent assessment from the Economist, a half-decade-old article from Der Spiegel, and a southern African treasure trove of several sorts. Dredging in the sixth boro allows trade worth billions to proceed in orderly fashion and without . . . groundings. Here MSC Emma heads southbound out of Newark Bay and toward the Bayonne Bridge, KVK, and … the Atlantic. Notice the tallest building in NYC (as of today) about seven miles away in distant Manhattan across the peninsula of Bayonne.
For outatowners, check out the lower left of the AIS screen capture below; doubleclick enlarges. See Elizabethport? Move toward the right along the bottom . . . see Kraken? The foto above was taken roughly where Maurania III appears. Now move across Bayonne toward the upper right and you’ll see lower Manhattan, where 1WTC is located. The sinuous body of water along the lower center of the image is the KVK, the west end of which is crossed by the Bayonne Bridge, which you’ve seen at the top of this blog since post #1.
Below is the backhoe dredge Capt. A. J. Fournier, represented by the lowermost left magenta diamond. Elizabethport’s St. Patrick’s Church is in the background between Capt AJ’s spuds, which appear of different heights because one is implanted in a deeper portion of the channel than its mate.
Notice the red clay,
overflowing buckets of it, 105% full
buckets of it. On the south side of the gantry cranes at Port Elizabeth near the Horizon Lines vessel, another
dredge is working. Foto taken from F. J. Belesimo showing self-dumping scow looking west and
east, again toward Manhattan.
Finally, here crew inspects the swivel motors inside the cabin of F. J. Belesimo. Notice the diameter of drums that control the clamshell bucket.
Again, many thanks to Frank Belesimo for this tour of Cashman’s Newark Bay/Arthur Kill project. Any errors are my own.
And all this dredging relates to all the digging down in Panama.
Unrelated: Note the new button . . . upper left. Tug Pegasus (1907) and Waterfront Museum Barge aka Lehigh Valley 79 (1914) have teamed up in a grant application for $$ for preservation work each vessel needs. As a component of the decision-making about who gets the $$, Partners in Preservation have a “socialmedia-meter” running from now until May 21. To help Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79 register high on this “meter,” you can do two things from wherever on the planet you may be: 1) befriend them on Facebook and get dozens of your friends to befriend them as well, and 2) vote DAILY here. DAILY! Seems like a crazy way to run an election, but . . . that’s social media and in this case, the cause is worthy.
Here’s the Facebook link. For some background on Pegasus and its captain Pam Hepburn, watch this great video from almost 20 years ago. And you must watch this. . . a video made last week in which Pam and David explain their project . . . most compelling.
Ten weeks ago I did this post about Kraken–the best named vessel in the sixth boro. That day, I sat on the west shore of Bayonne looking at Elizabeth. But yesterday . . . with many thanks to Frank Belesimo, VP of Cashman Dredging, I got onto the water for a close-up tour of the Kraken and masterful description of how it works. Here we approach the boat with our backs to Bayonne. That’s St. Patrick’s Church to the right. The red tug is Jay Michael (1980).
The orange /red tint to the water speaks of the red clay soil of the area as well as
the cords that conduct the blast signal into the charges placed below.
Three bore-platforms operate along a rail, drilling into the bottom and placing the charges.
In the background on the Elizabethport shore is the huge now-defunct Singer plant.
This is intense work.
Moving inside the house, notice Elizabeth Marine Terminal/Port Newark in the background, along with the peninsula of Bayonne and the cliffs of Manhattan beyond. And on the line stretched betwen bore-platforms, those nodes at the end of each orange signal cord will
ultimately be clipped together so that when the time comes, a coordinated blast will occur down below, cracking up the
whatever hard bottom material needs to be taken away to reach the contracted depth.
More on this dredging project later. All fotos by Will Van Dorp; getting the tour the same day the Shuttle flew over . . . I positive NASA wanted a close-up view of the project as well.
tugster: a waterblog 
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