Other Peoples Photos 64

I appreciate it when folks send in photos they’ve taken.  Sharing photos is one of the joys of the Internet.

Here from Ashley Hutto, Mister Jim pushing five barges, upbound through the Highlands.  If you could swivel the camera to the right, you’d be looking at West Point.  I love the reality-defying lens.

The next two photos come from Phil Porteus . . .  you’re looking across a scrap barge at a set of barges filled with special Delaware Bay sand heading west in the  KVK and

pushed by the fairly new Daisy Mae.

From Jake van Reenen, this is what a small tug looks like on an Interstate, in this case before heading north mostly on I-95.  Photo taken in Miami.

From Sean McQuilken, it’s commissioning time for

USS Ralph Johnson, its namesake being a 19-year-old Marine who died in Vietnam in March 1968, a half century ago.

And last but not at all least, thanks to Hugo Sluimer via Fred Trooster, it’s the “US pilot boat” Elbe on the hard near Rotterdam.  Post-publication note:  Elbe WAS a pilot boat in the US, but she was way way more.  See here.

Many thanks to Ashley, Phil, Sean, and Fred.

 

Helen Laraway 2

When Helen Laraway first appeared on this blog three years ago, I stated, accurately, that she was likely the only tug based in Coeymans NY.  How that has changed!!  Now there are more than half a dozen, and they stay busy with some high profile jobs like beer tanks and steam generators.

Enjoy some photos of taken of Helen in different locations recently.  Click here for my post Helen Laraway,  the boat as viewed by the stag on Bear Mountain.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is off on another gallivant.

 

Random Ships 59

Thanks to Ashley Hutto, here’s a salt ship lightering in the Upper Bay.

The ship–Sadlers Wells–has since departed for Houston.  I took the photo below, and all the others, on Monday.   That’s Mister Jim and barge alongside.  I’m curious about the name, given its association with an English theater opened in 1683 by a Richard Sadler.

I didn’t immediately notice that the blue stack logo was made up of four P’s canted so as to look like blades of a propeller.

Panstellar, a fabulous name, was also here discharging salt.  Click here to see the rest of the “pan-” fleet.

Seaenvoy is less than a year old.  I don’t know if the bow design is an upcoming trend.

 

It has since departed for Amsterdam.

Chemical Hunter–an intriguing name—gets around for a smallish chemical tanker.

 

Pacific Jewels arrived here from Venezuela.

Overseas New York, a Jones Act tanker,  was launched in Philadelphia in 2008.

George Washington Bridge, despite a sixth boro sounding name, is a “K” Line vessel. 

Thanks to Ashley for for first photo;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 221

Just to reiterate . . . random in the sixth boro these are.  And the other day, I felt blessed for reasons you’ll understand by the end of this post.  Here Atlantic Enterprise emerges from the Arthur Kill and heads for home in Newark Bay.  That church, “a scaled down copy of the great cathedral at Cologne,” makes this seem quite a European-inflected image.

I took all these photos that weather day last week . . . note how the rain in downtown Elizabeth washes out the Union County Courthouse tower.

A bit later Mister Jim enters the east end of the Kills and then

feigns a ship assist.

The mighty Patricia travels east for a scrap run.

 

as Janet D moves in the direction

of her base.

Why did I feel blessed . . . ?  In the same but of morning, I saw both Atlantic Enterprise and Atlantic Salvor

although not in the same frame, they must have met up in the DonJon yard over in Port Newark.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Fog ‘n Ice

For both photos today, thanks to Ashley Hutto.    When the air is much warmer than the water, Helen Laraway may look like this.

And when it’s just plain cold and clear, Mister Jim in broken and refrozen ice looks like this.  For a look at how Mister Jim looked just a year and a half ago, click here and scroll.

Here’s some Great Lakes icebreaking, and here’s a lot of foggy tugster posts.

And from exactly nine years ago as a plane-fishing Flight 1549 operation was going on, what a miracle that was!

Many thanks again to Ashley for sharing these photos.

Thanks to Paul Strubeck 4

Here are previous posts in this series, and here’s probably the most dramatic set of photos ever from Paul, taken January seven years ago.

Below, that’s the view of the mouth of the Rondout . . . . and the light at the end of the north breakwater, which looks so beautiful here.

Here’s a view along the deck of Cornell, when

Frances was about to pass, headed north on the Hudson,

which looks like the concrete parking lot of an abandoned shopping mall.

 

 

But commerce goes on, Katherine Walker on station

and Haggerty Girls moving heating oil.

Daisy Mae, however, is making her maiden voyage home, up to Coeymans.

Many thanks to Paul Strubeck, who sent me these photos as soon as he thawed out from the trip.

And completely unrelated, I just added a new blog to my blogroll, GirlsAtSea, started this month by a Romanian bridge officer named Diane.  Check it out here or from the blogroll.

 

Random Tugs 217

Genesis Vision has just gone onto the wire from alongside, and

tightens it, moving the barge outbound for Florida.  Click here for a 2013 photo of Genesis Vision as Superior Service.

Stephen Reinauer steams out to the Lower Bay to stand by with a barge just

vacated by Timothy L.

McKinley Sea returns in the direction of its barge out in the Upper Bay.

Hunting Creek provides a needed boost as Pokomoke moves Double Skin 39 out of the dock at IMTT.

In the fog, there’s a negotiation going on between Evening Mist and Evening Star that took me a bit to figure out . . . Ah . . .

Star goes into the notch of B. No. 250, and then Mist assists in the 180 degree turn.  Note the pink ribbon on Mist’s stack?

My father would say, “Dean‘s lit up like a Christmas tree.”

Helen Laraway . . . assisting?

 

The truth about Helen is that she was waiting as Anthem was departing.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Pairs 6

Here are all the previous “pairs” post, a direction I glanced at after seeing Bouchard Boys and Linda Lee Bouchard rafted up last weekend . . .  I’m not sure why the formation, but it certainly showed their relative size.

And once I see a pattern in one place, I start to notice it in others.  Here Otter and Pike almost appear to be in the right lane for Exit 10.   I’m eager to see Muskie and Gar.

Over in Hudson Yards below “the vessel” a pair of Schenectady’s finest EMDs hold a place in the rotation out east.

Between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres lies Lac St. Pierre, where I saw this pair.  To the right, I’ve already commented that Espada used to call in the sixth boro as Stena Poseidon.  Now I look up Laurentia–to the left–and discover she used to call in our watery boro as Palva!   If it’s about the witness protection program, the effort would be foolproof.  I’d never have seen Palva in her new color, suggesting to me that paint and color trump lines.

A report that continues to fascinate me about Lac St. Pierre is that it spawns “ice rocks,” which are rocks that become embedded in the winter ice in the shallow portions of the lake that freeze solid all the way to the lakebed, until these rocks are carried downstream encased in floating ice and become lethal targets for fast spinning propellers.  Ice rocks, what a concept!

Pairs of dug canal banks, as seen in midSeptember west of Rome, show how surveyor straight some parts of the waterway are.

Guard gates are essential canal infrastructure.

And I’ll conclude with a pair of liberty statues, one pointed east and the other west.  A few of you will know immediately where a pair of these “crowns” a building, and I’ll just wait for someone to make the identification.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who asks as treat that you share your favorite tugster post or obsession or vessel  . . . today with some friends.  Be safe.

Oh, and one of my favorites is this post I did about a Halloween-escape trip seven (!!) years ago.

 

Helen Laraway

My sidekick and I caught glimpses of Helen Laraway over a period of about 30 hours starting in Coeymans.

At the first sighting, Helen seemed to be moving astern with a load of scrap, whose origin I wondered about.  SS Binghamton perhaps?   My sidekick?

Oh, I borrowed this beauty from Diana, who had been called away on a mission.

 

Whatever my sidekick was thinking, I’ll never know, as she spoke not a word

in spite of watching with intensity.

While we were on the crag, Helen passed southbound and we caught up a bit later.

 

 

Safe travels.  Notice the Left Coast Lifter near the left margin of the photo above?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose previous posts with Helen can be found here.

Random Tugs 210

Different day . . . different character . . .  the Hudson can have thick patches of fog, which

allow Dorothy J to slip past structures on a mysterious shore.

Farther along, Miss Gill guards some incongruous piles of

coal that surely did not arrive through the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which I visited recently but didn’t dip my foot into.

Wendell Sea waits alongside a fuel barge, and

Christiana–not a frequent visitor in the sixth boro–does in her own way

up by the GW Bridge.

 

Helen Laraway stands by scows of different sized crushed stone.

And this gets us down to the sixth boro.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.