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The first half of January 2013–a decade ago–was one long gallivant, taking in New Orleans to St Louis to Pittsburgh and then back home. In the spirit of these retro posts, let me start here, shooting right off the Algiers ferry. Barbara E. Bouchard is now Dann M’s Turquoise Coast, which I’ve not seen.
No stroll in the night life of Nola is complete without a stop at Igor’s Checkpoint Charlie, combo bar, music venue, and laundromat!!
Following the river by car, we next stopped in Baton Rouge, and among the dozens of boats, enjoy this one–Ned Ferry–with a sixth boro connection: It was built in 1959 Pittsburgh for Pennsylvania Railroad, which in 1968 merged with the New York Central to form Penn Central. In 1974 it was sold to Crescent, which repowered and rebuilt it . . . Find more in Paul Strubeck’s Diesel Railroad Tugs Vol 1.
The river is quite busy; here Creole Sun works on a fleeting job.
Richard‘s pushing a set of tank barges. You might imagine I’m toying with a Mississippi River cruise this year.
American Pillar is a good example of a line haul boat: 195′ x 54′ and working with 10500 hp.
Fort Defiance Park in Cairo IL is a good place to see the Ohio and the Mississippi River refuse to mix for a while. Note the difference in water color.
I never mentioned that my car was broken into in East St Louis in summer 2021; Malcolm W Martin Park right across the way is the place. I left a review on tripadvisor in September 2021 here if you scroll through.
Leaving St Louis in 2013 we made a stop in Kampville to catch the ferry across the Illinois River.
Then it was a lot of dry until we got to the Monongahela River at Belle Vernon PA, and the port of registry on these boats tell you where the nearest port (to the north) is.
We’ll leave it there. If you want to peruse the archives for January 2013, click here . . . they are in reverse chronological order. There were obviously many many photos.
All photos, WVD.
If they fly the flag, maybe they do the deeds,
or maybe they had been too busy shrimping to notice what the deckhand ran up the mast.
Maybe they were just both at Journey’s End.
Lizzy B. Moran returned from an assist.
This unnamed trawler–I forgot to look at the transom because I was so distracted by the next traffic–might be doing a local run or could be ending the Great Loop just around the bend. I just don’t know.
It is that season . . and Silver Fox is festive.
Ships with memorable names head upstream.
Angus R. Cooper
and Mardi Gras are two of the local assist fleet too.
All photos, WVD, who’s thinking to find a room down here, but I can’t gallivant back down until I sell the three more calendars I have left.
You might have known that I had the good fortune to gallivant most of last week, and it’s tough to gallivant without recording some images. I took several hundred photos, and not only of boats and ships. As with infants, humans in unfamiliar places detect patterns, familiar details.
Pattern recognition kicked in when I glanced across the Mississippi toward the Algiers side and saw Bouchard colors, although a little digging yielded info that Robert J. Bouchard, name notwithstanding, is now a Centerline Logistics vessel. I suppose she’ll be painted soon. Robert J. has worked in the sixth boro, but the most recent time she appeared on this blog was over 12 years ago here.
Dann Ocean colors are also familiar, but the profile is as well. Rodney is one of several formerly Moran boats dating from class of 1975. Rodney at one time was Sheila Moran. Of that same class, Moran’s Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen and Moran’s Joan is now Dann Ocean’s Roseada. There may be others I’m unaware of, like the barge Carolina.
“Diaspora” refers to those who depart from a location, and they should be distinguished from the incoming (I’m wondering if there’s a word for them more general than immigrant) . And as I understand it, Courageous, downbound here a few days ago on the Mississippi, was on its delivery and will be arriving in the sixth boro early this week, maybe today. I didn’t notice her on AIS, but FB reports her departing Charleston SC for the sixth boro yesterday, Sunday. She’s sister vessel to Commodore, involved in a mishap this past summer.
I’d never have guessed that Crescent’s Miriam Walmsley Cooper had a sixth boro connection, but a little digging shows the 1958 boat once worked in the boro as Harry M. Archer M. D., an FDNY boat. Anyone have a photo of her in FDNY colors? Was she single screw already then?
I saw a pattern in the photo below because another formerly huge Bouchard tug saw transformation in the same drydock, Donna J. Bouchard to Centerline’s Robin Marie.
As it turned out, this was the former Kim M. Bouchard, now to be Lynn M. Rose. Her eventual appearance will match Susan Rose.
And it appears that next in line for rehab and transformation, Robert J. will become a Centerline vessel as well.
All photos last week, WVD, who is happy to be back in the boros, any of the six.
Gallivants are intended to stimulate change, a path forward for which I’m seeking. How strange it was then when I exchanged business cards with a Nola gentleman yesterday and his card was in the form of a Tarot card; it was Death, the Grim Reaper signifying imminent major change in one’s life. The old has to die for rebirth to be possible, like with plants.
Speaking of change, the calendar year too is about to change and in preparation, I recently created a 2022 calendars, of which 15 are left for sale. I’m expecting the shipment will arrive at Tugster Tower shipping office today. More details later but if you’re interested, email me your interest and your address. Send no money at this time, please, but prices will likely be up a tad because, of course, (fill in the blank here with your favorite scapegoat).
Unrelated: Grain de Sail is back in the boro, their third time calling here in less than a year.
Crescent has fleets in at least three southern cities, and I’ve featured some of them previously here.
Providence, built 1953, has quite some history in the Northeast, including the sixth boro. Port Allen was built in NYC at Consolidated in 1945, and Angus R. Cooper dates from 1965.
I’d never thought of this before, but from this angle, it appears that W. O. Decker is painted in Crescent Towing livery.
Margaret F. Cooper, similarly, worked for a time in NYC’s sixth boro.
As did Miriam Walmsley Cooper! But southern living seems to agree with these boats, from what I could see as I passed.
Have another look at Providence. I’m sure some of you have photos of some of these boats back when they worked in the Northeast.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
The photo below shows a vessel with a quite rare place of registry . . . Washington DC! How often do you see that on a stern? More on that later. These photos were taken about a week ago, and have since scattered to the seven seas.
Florida has an unusual wheelhouse although it has to have great upward views . . .
I was surprised to learn Balsa 87 was built in 2012, given its design and small size.
Bonny Island . . . offloading
salt? Before Christmas it was in Savannah . . . now it’s–like me–is in the sixth boro.
Bright Hero has since moved from Savannah to New Orleans.
This one’s for bowsprite . . . who sometimes is afflicted with the same type of misperception as I am . . . Not surprisingly, this name has been given to many vessels, but this Ocean Pearl is currently departing Delaware Bay.
UASC Shuaiba has since traversed the Panama Canal!
And that DC-registed container ship . . . it entered Savannah escorted by Florida and
and –15 hours later–departed with Savannah as escort.
Washington Express . . . a great name.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
The first two photos above were taken from Mariner’s Harbor, Staten Island on Dec. 17. The next three were taken inbound Savannah, GA on Dec. 20. The last one is Dec. 21 . . . As of today–Dec. 27–I’m wondering where Maersk Denpasar is . . . All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I didn’t understand the name Bulldog until I put together the fact that the University of Georgia team mascot is Uga, the bulldog. And there have been Ugas going back for a long time. Google it.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping to get from the #4 US port for volume to the #3 port by the end of Sunday. All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
Georgia. Peacemaker. What a name . . .! If only we all agreed on what that would have to be . . . . Happy all-the-holidays in all the languages. I like this one I learned from frogma: mele kalikimaka. Or this one I made up: mare. eek! charisma’s.
Type peacemaker into the blog search window for some info on her Brazilian provenance.
To see the four Savannah posts from almost five years ago, type “savannah” into the search window on left side of the blog page. It hardly seems possible that a half decade has passed since the last time I was here.
Anyhow . . . on the road and enjoying seeing these Sun, Moran, and Crescent tugs . . . and all the rest.
From the air you can see the traffic . . . the sinuous lines it scribes into the legendary river.
From the bank, you can see sometimes three tugs abreast (l. to r. Bobby Jones-1966, David G. Sehrt-1965, and Born Again-1974) pushing more than a dozen barges slipping around the turn between Algiers and the 9th Ward. And when I say slipping, I mean even big vessels seem to slide through this crescent. That erosion in the foreground bespeaks higher water.
Uh . . . a variation on seasnake?
Crescent’s J. K. McLean (2010 at C & G Boatworks of Mobile, AL) and New Orleans (1998 at ThomaSea) maneuver in front of 1995 American Queen.
Close-up of McLean.
Empty Barge Lines’ Grosbec (1980).
Olga G. Stone (1981) pushing oil downbound.
Miss Abby (1960 ?) upbound.
Slatten’s Allison S (1994) light and headed upstream past Bollinger’s.
Ingram Barge Company’s Mark C. A few years back, I saw Ingram boats all the up in Cincinnati, OH and Pittsburgh, PA.
Another Ingram vessel featured a few days ago . . . David G. Sehrt.
Vickie (1975) pushing . . . crushed concrete maybe . . .
Port Allen (1945?!!)
Chelsea (1989)
I’m back at work in environs of the sixth boro, and this is the last set about Nola strictly defined. Tomorrow I hope to put up some fotos from a jaunt-within-a-gallivant southwest from the Crescent City, a truly magical place to which I really must return soon because there’s much I’ve yet to understand . . . like why
the nola hula only appears to salute certain vessels.
And is it true there’s a nun driving a tugboat somewhere on the Lower Mississippi? Here’s a ghost story, and if you have a chance to find it, listen to Austin Lounge Lizard’s “Boudreaux was a Nutcase.”
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who also has tons of fotos from Panama to put up.
tugster: a waterblog 
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