The Delaware’s Doomed Ships 3

A relative’s big birthday brought me to Philly for the first time in a long while and afforded a few minutes to look around.  Name that carrier?  I once walked its decks as a visitor more than three decades ago, and have a friend who served aboard . . .  as a journalist in the USN.

On an earlier trip of the Delaware, I recall seeing that faded reddish, peeling gray on Arthur W. Radford (DD968) before it was reefed.

Got the name?

But wait, there’s more . . . including one that should not be there.

I’d heard that Powhatan-class Apache had just been decommissioned and towed there last week, and this was the vessel I wanted to check on.  The link in that previous sentence I posted a decade ago, after walking her decks.  Recognize the larger vessel to Apache‘s port?

I wonder where Apache‘ll end up, now that her replacement(s) are under construction.

The one below would not have been there if a tow last month has gone without issues, as seen here but you have to scroll. I wonder when she’ll attempt her final journey next.

Yup, it’s ex-USS Yorktown (CG-48), and the carrier is the JFK, another fading Kennedy.

All photos, WVD, who really needs to get to Delaware River ports more often.

RetroJune 2012-16

It’s hard settling back into the blog after being in steamy alligatorland for most of the month, and didn’t even expect to be suddenly back.  So my solution, the ether in my air intake, so to speak, is to just somewhat randomly choose and post photos I took in Junes from 2012 through 2016.

Starting with June 2012, behold Sam M and

Buchanan 1.  I recall learning that Sam M made its way to Alaska, and Buchanan 1 . . . to the Rondout.  Would you consider Sam M to be a lugger tug?

June 2013 took me to Philly a few times, where I got photos of  Madeline and Captain Harry in the distance and

Sentry pulling El Rey, San Juan bound.  The two Wilmington Tug vessels still work the Delaware River, whereas Sentry–last I read–flies the Bolivian flag. I should get down to Philly again one of these days.

In 2014 it’s Navigator and

Sabine.   Navigator is still based in the sixth boro and Sabine is in the GOM.

In 2015, it’s Stephen B–still in the sixth boro–and

Evening Star, along with Wavertree during her makeover.  Stephen B still works out of the boro by that name although Evening Star now has started working out of the boro again as Jordan Rose. 

And 2016, it’s Eric McAllister and

a newly arrived Jonathan C Moran.  Jonathan is still here, but Eric is in Baltimore.

All photos in a series of Junes, WVD, who does Junes from 2017 through 2021 tomorrow.

Retro Sixth Boro (and Beyond) 31

I took this photo in Waterford eastern terminus of the Erie Canal on November 1, 2010, and the canal had not yet closed.  I had just returned from part of a transit, and we had met lots of boats.  Although we had been bound for the Great Lakes, most, like the intriguing Baidarka, was bound for sea.  As of this writing, Baidarka is back on the Canadian Pacific coast.

A week later, in the sixth boro, docked in front of USNS Sisler, it’s the “love it or hate it” Sea Raven, now turned into new steel.

Sea Bear was engaged in the deepening of the sixth boro, and here a crew on the sheerleg was repositioning the anchor.

Lots of dredges including GLDD New York were involved.  More later.  Captain D, currently in the sixth boro on other duties, was dredge tender.

Then, as now Atlantic Salvor, was active.   I particularly like this shot with the 0730 “golden hour” light.  A very different set of buildings then largely defined the Manhattan skyline.

Wanderbird swooped through the harbor on their way south.

Padre Island and Terrapin Island were regulars recontouring the sixth boro bed.

Beaufort Sea, 1971, is no more. 

The brilliant colored Little Bear, built 1952, became a DonJon vessel, but I’ve not seen her since the Disch auction.

Susan Witte . . . I can’t tell you anything about her either.

Back then I would spend my Thanksgivings in Philly, and the high point of that holiday was not the excellent food and drink and company, but rather seeing the big barge for the first time.

Pilot towed in La Princesa, here assisted up the Delaware by Grace and Valentine Moran.   Pilot has been sold Panamanian, and La Princesa–577′ x 105′–I’ve neither seen nor heard from.  I believe Valentine is still active, but I don’t know about Grace.

All photos, WVD, who looks at these and wonders how a decade has so quickly passed.

 

Other Watersheds 7: The Delaware Redux

Almost exactly a decade ago I did this post.  Today I decided to add to it and broaden the geographic scope.  Stick with me to see how broadened this gets.

From the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the entrance of Delaware Bay is about 100 miles.  Near the entrance you see big water and big traffic, like a light Ivory Coast above and a working OSG Vision below.  OSG Vision is mated to OSG 350, a huge barge used to lighter crude oil tankers 342,000 barrels at a time.

Forty miles upstream from the Delaware Memorial, there’s the Ben Franklin Bridge, here with Pilot towing La Princesa and assisted by Grace and Valentine Moran.

Some Delaware River boats are rarely seen in the sixth boro like Jack Holland.

Almost 150  miles upstream from the Philly-Camden area is  Hawk’s Nest Highway, the part of the river once paralleled on the nearer side by the D&H Canal.

Of course I paddled the whole way up there. In fact, this stretch of the Delaware has enough current that a 21st century paddler would not choose to go upstream very far, and a 19th century boat-mule canaler would want to keep navigation separate from the river.

Early summer had its share of young  birds,

deer, and trout visible under the canoe.

Some mysterious paddlers shared the waters.

That New York side of the river . . .

if you look close, you can see in places that these are not natural rock formations. Rather, they support the towpath side of the D & H Canal, way up above the river.

Part of Route 97 is also known as Hawk’s Nest Highway.

To digress, the eastern end of the Canal–about a hundred miles to the NE–is in Kingston NY, and a transshipping point was Island Dock, which

has now overgrown.  I wonder if there’s ever been a project to clear the trees and undergrowth and contemplate a recreation of this important site.  Oil is today’s fuel;  coal was definitely king in this other age.

But let’s back to the Delaware.  North of Barryville, there’s this bridge. At least, it’s now a bridge, but when

John Roebling built it, it was an aqueduct for D & H coal boats bringing anthracite out of the Coal Region to the sixth boro.

 

Here’s a preserved portion of the Canal between Hawley and Honesdale PA, just upstream (water has long long) from Lock 31.   Honesdale was once the transhipping point between railroad cars and canal boats and deserves another visit and maybe a whole post, which maybe I’ll getto when the museum there opens again.

Pennsylvania has place names like Oil City, Cokeburg, and Coal Port.  The coal transported on the D & H came from aptly-named Carbondale, another place that deserves more time.  The commodity legacy is seen in these two businesses

and maybe others.

All photos, WVD, at different points over the past 10 years.  If anyone has ideas about high points along the river you’d suggest I visit, please let me know.  Since my jobs for this summer have fallen through, this might be the year to canoe and hike.

Unrelated, if you haven’t yet read this story about an Argentine in Portugal unable to get home because of cancelled flights and choosing to sail across the Atlantic in a 29′ boat to see his father turn 90, here‘s the link.

 

 

 

Retro 27 Gallivant

Nothing says the Delaware River up around Philadelphia and Camden more distinctly than a group of Hays tugs, here Big Daddy, High Roller, and Purple Hays.  That’s the stern of Grape Ape to the left. No company, I gather, has had more fun naming their boats than the Hays Tug and Launch folks.   I hope Ed Roth got photos of these boats.

And I’ve never had so much fun on the Delaware River area than I did the day my friend John Curdy took me on a tour there.

Timothy McAllister was docked nearby.  She’s almost a twin of the sixth boro’s Ellen McAllister.

Amberjack (1981) was still in gray. She’s now the latest Thomas Dann, but I’ve not seen her yet.

Jack Holland was pushing a scow. Today’s Jack‘s in Norfolk.

I’m not sure where the 1967 Jakobson-built Grace Moran is,

but Helen D is now Sarah D, and is regularly seen on the Hudson.

Active, a 1956 Blount product, has been sold south and is now Chandler B, operating out of Virginia.

Soon after I took this photo, Coral Sea was sold to a Nigerian company and, at last report, was operating off Nigeria as Uganwaafor 2. I suspect she’s currently inactive.

Texan here is mostly out of the notch of Ponciana. She’s currently near Beaumont TX on the Neches River.

And finally, it’s USS Arthur W. Radford (DD 968) getting prepped for reefing. About a year later that reefing happened about 30 miles offshore, which appears to be out of range for most fishermen.

All photos, June 2010, by WVD, who will be in and on the Delaware River later this week, way in in the wild part of the river in NYS, trying to commune with the wild.   Don’t be concerned if no new posts appear for a spell after Wednesday.

 

Special Cheer Port of Philadelphia

Many thanks to Lisa Kolibabek for these photos.  Any guesses what’s happening here, besides a green tug approaching a RORO?

See the mariners?  Lowering something?

Another ship . . . .

Dropping a line . . .

What’s that bag at the end of the line between the vessels?

Aha!   I include these photos out of order.  So we’re back to the mariners  . . . and the rest of the earlier photo.

and they’re RAISING something related to Philadelphia’s SCI Santa Run.  The delivery vessel here is Jupiter, a survivor from 1902.

This gives this photo a whole new interpretation.

Ditto this photo.  Crew dropped a line . . .

to receive a package from the tug that includes the “red guy” with the extravagant beard and unusual flotation jacket.

Indeed . . . a great idea.   Bravo to SCI of Philadelphia and South Jersey.

Thanks for these photos to Lisa, who reports visiting M/V MORNING LAURA, M/T FREJA HAFNIA, M/T LILLESAND.

She also sends along the Santa Run 2017 report from SCI:   “80 ditty bags were delivered to the 80 seafarers at the Packer Avenue, Axeon, and Paulsboro Refining terminals.   See our website at sciphiladelphia.org.  The top sponsors are Urban Engineers and Mary Ruth Talley.   During the month of December we deliver about 2000 ditty bags to all the seafarers of the Pennsylvania and South Jersey side of the Delaware River.   They include hats, scarves, work gloves, socks, and basic daily essentials of shaving cream, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.   Many of the hats and scarves are knitted throughout the year by volunteers from all over the region.   This year, as part of their rebranding campaign, Philaport sponsored over 700 ski caps.   The ditty bags always put a smile on the seafarers face.  To be thought about when so far from home during the holidays is so appreciated. ”

Here’s the SCI main site with the starting point for their archival photos.  I understand that SCI NY used to do a similar run with W. O. Decker.  I’d love to see photos  . .  from the 1990s or earlier.   PortSide NewYork used to as well.

For some of Lisa’s Christmas cheer photos from two years ago, click here and scroll.  Jupiter is one of the loved vessels of the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild. 

 

 

 

 

Random Tugs 180

Random means random, and I challenge you to come up with a more random set . . .

Let’s start with a Gmelin photo from 1930.  I’ll give the name of the tug later in this post so that all experts of arcane sixth boro history can play.  Since today is the V-Day, let me mention that Herbert Hoover was POTUS, and not very popular at that time, post-crash, in spite of his 1928 campaign slogan “A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage.”  Well, that did not work out so well.  A few things impress me about Hoover though, like . . . in what language would he and the First Lady–Lou–converse privately when guests were in the White House.  By the way, why is the 2nd Tuesday in November Election Day?  Answers at the end of this post.

Here’s a photo from my archives, Surrie Moran (2000 built) assisting with a big south-bound Crowley barge El Rey (1979) in June 2013 on the Delaware River.  I was shooting against the morning sun.   You see a little of Cape Henry (1967) on the stern also.   Any guesses which Crowley tug was towing?

And another photo from 2013, January,  in the KVK.  It’s Rebel, built 1976, with her odd hull.  Is she now scrapped?

So now a few from the past week . . . James D. Moran (2015) passes the KV buoy heading for the North River.

Genesis Victory (from 1981) heads into the Kills.

The 2002 Labrador Sea comes in from somewhere out east.

And over on a waterway I don’t get to see that often, I stumbled onto the 1940 Ireland,

1958 Bergen Point, and

the 1947 basic Harbor II.

And since a lot of things are cyclical, we’re back at the mystery tug.

With my magnifying glass, I read enough to make me think this is Richard J. Barrett, which would have been 11 years old in 1930.  Here’s Birk’s info. The ship is the 1925-launched MS Gripsholm, significant as the first transAtlantic liner powered by a diesel engine.

And Hoover and his wife spoke Mandarin for their secret asides when guests were in earshot.  I’m impressed.

And towing El Rey, here’s Sentry  (1977).

And we have our 19th century agrarian roots to thank for the 2nd Tuesday being election day . .  . here.

 

 

Thanks to Barrel 4

Since he worked for 35 years on the Delaware, Barrel has a lot of photos from there, including Brooklyn McAllister (1986 and McAllister’s first tractor tug),

Charles Burton (1967 and now painted red, I believe),

Ensign (1977), and

of course, Big Daddy (1954).

 

All photos from Barrel, whom I thank.

Deep-draft USACE Dredges

I remember the day I first saw McFarland, coming up the Delaware, the largest dredge I’d ever seen.  Barrel has recently sent along earlier generations–as I see it–of the big Mac.

Let’s start with Goethals, built in 1937.

Then there was Markham, seen here just prior to launch, and

here she traverses in icy waters.  Can dredge operations proceed with ice?

Here she pumps out.  Markham was reefed off North Carolina in 1994.

McFarland went into service in 1967.  Her operations are described here by the skipper.

Here she’s at work on the Delaware River.  This method of discharging is called side casting.

 

Here she’s preparing to discharge into the transfer barge.

All these photos come via Barrel.

For more background on these federal dredges, click here.

 

 

Thanks to Barrel 2

Alpha is the caption on the photo, but there’s no 1928 boat by that name on this list.  Might it also have been called Captain Eric Bergland?

Convoy is one of the four sisters delivered by Leathem Smith in Wisconsin in the spring of 1941. I love the coil on the hawser rack.   I posted photos of wo of the four sisters side by side in this post a few months back . .  scroll.

You can read here a story of Evanick, christened in 2006 by the widow of its namesake.  Here’s the Professional Mariner story of her, comparing the Texas-built Evanick‘s power (3000 hp) as twice that of Raymond C. Peck, the vessel she replaced. Peck became Martha T and , unfortunately, made casualty news here in March 2013.

Bluestone Drifter is not much unlike the self-propelled scows (SPS’s) used extensively on the Erie Canal.  This “crane boat,” as the USACE calls it, comes from Utica IN in 2001, making it much newer than the SPS’s on the Canal.

Grand Tower, also Indiana-built, was commissioned in 2001.

Prairie du Rocher is a 2002 product of the same shipyard as Grand Tower and Bluestone Drifter.

Ditto Sanderford, 2005.  I’m starting to want to make a trip along the Ohio visiting shipyards  . . . soon.

Iroquois, delivered in 2005 from a Louisiana shipyard, operates from the Nashville USACE yard.

Barrel calls this Racine, but I can find no info about a newish USACE tug called Racine.  Anyone help?

J. C. Thomas is a 2000 product of Jeffboat, also along the Indiana bank of the Ohio.  Click here for another product of Jeffboat, Cape Henlopen, some folks’ favorite people mover. Is it true that Jeffboat is considered the largest inland ship builder in the US?

I don’t know the date of this photo of Derrick Boat #7 and tug Pilot, but the style of the derrick is quite similar to what is used in the Erie Canal.

And finally for today, there’s an unidentified USACE tug pushing dredge William L. Goetz.  Anyone have an ID or an idea?

Many thanks to Barrel for these photos.  More of them to come . . .

For an article on what is claimed to be the largest diesel towboat operating on the Mississippi–I’m always skeptical about superlatives–click here.  That article actually describes what could be called MV Mississippi V.  The largest one I’ve ever seen is MV Mississippi IV, now pulled up on a bank in Vicksburg, MS, a museum.  Enjoy these photos I took there three years and four days ago.