LV-112 Moves

Many thanks to Matt of Soundbounder for the heads up and to Lori of Jarvis House and Garden for use of these fotos.  As of this post time Wednesday, LV-112 Nantucket has just seen its first sunrise in Boston after languishing for eight years in Oyster Bay, hoping there to become a museum but facing the ever-approaching scrapper.  Leaving the dock, she escapes  the scrapyard fate this past Monday morning,

ready to dance with a tug named

Lynx of Constellation Maritime.  Here’s the specs on Lynx.  I wrote about a nimble Constellation boat sans propellers here.

Arrival in Boston was 3 pm Tuesday.

Here are some fascinating lightship links, starting with this one featuring dramatic art of LV-117 Nantucket rammed by RMS Olympic on May 15, 1934.  Scroll all the way through and you’ll see info on LV-112 including that it spent 1942–1945 painted gray and patrolling off Maine.  Also, an address is given there if you wish to contribute to the preservation effort.   Amesbury, MA . . . my favorite waters, the Pow Wow River flows through Amesbury!

Here’s a story from today’s Boston Globe.

Here are some tugster links:  WLV-612, 18 Lightships, and my own confusion.  And of course . . . winter/summer solstice and  my summer hangout . . . Frying Pan, rendered here in this exquisite drawing by  . . . bowsprite!

Thanks again, Lori and Matt.

Meditations E

E . . . enigmas.  I encounter many in my daily walkabout.  Although I  understand what happens if I don’t pay bills and what to do when I see a fury of red lights in my rear view mirror AND I understand “No” or “Oui” or “Sayonara” or their opposites, I rub shoulders and bump heads with lots of enigmas.   Sometimes I fail to understand my boss, my best friends, certainly the parrot living in my house, and even myself.  But if I had another life to live, I’d make it my business early on to understand engines.  My brother works on truck diesels and seems just to love them.  Some of you know tugboat engines well, but then others of you  have never seen one.

So here are a few.  Pegasus, which you’ve seen here and here.

Cornell, which you’ve seen here and here.

Orion, which you saw here and now works in Boston.  Notice the polished aluminium head covers!  For a similar engine room, see Fred Tug 44‘s fotos here.

This is the block of an engine that once powered a 150 . . . or so foot tanker that sank;  it was salvaged and will someday provide parts for a repurposed work vessel that might just catch your eye in the sixth boro one of these years.

Decreasing in size seems to decrease the enigmatic value of engines for me;  this relatively small Deere diesel powers Onrust when it moving without wind power.

I’m guessing the huge block just behind the crewman in the center of the foto is a transmission rather than an engine;  the block along with the assembly and head supported by the gigantic chain all submerge when this dredge assembly is lowered into its work environment, the bedrock beneath the sixth boro.  For a charming watercolor of the business end of this unit done in boiled crawdad red,  see Bowsprite‘s latest here.

Having called engines enigmatic doesn’t of course preclude my using them.  Something I really don’t understand is computers and the internet and cell phones and flip cameras . . .  and yet . . .  (Double click on a foto here and it enlarges;  I learned that today with ZeeBart’s help.)    If you know stuff about these or other engines, please share.  If you’ve a lot to say and fotos to go with, email me and you can do a guest post . . . fame and glory and big bucks . . . maybe even.  Otherwise,  engine room beauty shots . . . please send them.  From Steve, see the world’s largest diesel (maybe) here:  89′ long by 44′ high and generating up to 108,000  horsepower.

If you’ve never seen the engine room of a tugboat before, would you have expected a “white room?”

One things these fotos don’t represent is the deafening noise, but one of these days soon, I’m going to learn how to make these fotos talk and roar and maybe even sing in French.  Eh bien!  Till then, check out this tour of Moran tug Cape Cod‘s engine room.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Tug Redux

Orion now in Boston, foto thanks to Jed.

Orion nine months ago drydocked on KVK, showing the non-props.

Rae a few weeks ago in Arthur Kill

and Rae two years back known then as Miss Bonnie.

Both Miss Bonnie fotos happened in Tottenville.

All fotos except top one by Will Van Dorp.

August-est

The Dutch call this month augustus, with a happy throat trill on the “g,” and it sounds like the title. The adjective “august” means “inspiring awe and reverence.” Bernie Ente of the Working Harbor Committee took these shots this week on one of their public tours and I’m thrilled to pass them along. Wow! I’ve not seen Pioneer looking more magnificent.

This blog has posted nekkid fotos of Orion, Peking, and Rickmers-Rickmers in dry dock earlier this year. Below is Halve Maen, high and dry.

Finally, the Falls have attracted thousands . . . millions? . . . to the East River this summer. The first millisecond I saw this foto of Bernie’s I thought “rare bird,” imagining the tail as head of an avian and starboard horizontal stabilizer as bill not unlike a hummingbird’s.  Appropriately, the tug is Swift.

I look at these shots, sigh, and reflect on the sublime aka the most August.

Unrelated, some panamax cranes arrived at the Narrows this morning, but I couldn’t stick around to watch them squeeze under VNB.

Random Tugs 14

I like this NYTimes slide show called “Tugboat Minuet,” although I think tugs tango, no matter the number involved in shifting.

And …don’t know about you: I really take issue with some writing in the piece, like the lead sentence, i.e., “Tugboats are not as romantic as fire trucks, and they do not have the sleek aerodynamic shape of airplanes.” Such a land-biased statement! How many people do you know that have ever considered fire trucks romantic? I’ve never met one, and I’ve met a lot of people. Fire trucks are saviors on land, to be sure. Shrill and fast, of course. But in romance, I’ve never looked for a shrill and fast savior! Later in the piece, tugboats are described as “moving like children pushing a shopping cart for Mom” (I paraphrase) almost knocking over “stacks of cereal boxes and paper towels.” Please! I find this bordering on offensive.

Tugboats could be described as powerful, relatively silent, and mysterious. Agile. Supportive. Rugged. Reliable. Decisive. Versatile. And they’re hydrodynamic because that matters in their environment. Would you ever hear an airplane described as not as hydrodynamic as a tugboat? Tugboats certainly have classic beauty that ages gracefully . . . like Daryl Hannah or Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini… And children in the supermarket are annoyances; I’ve been a loving parent and know of what I speak. Is the insinuation here that tugboats propel themselves around the harbor wreaking havoc and chaos, reckless and immature?

Great fotos; problematic writing. So I’ll just list names today.

From left to right: Baltic Sea, Amy C. McAllister, Nicole Leigh Reinauer, and Maria J ex Jesus Saves, closest.

and a few seconds later.

Specialist and

Specialist too. . . or II.

Tucana . . . ex-Exxon Pelham, high and dry. Foto thanks to Ted.

By the way, Tucana and Daryl Hannah are both vintage 1960.

Except where stated otherwise, photos . . . WVD.