Daily Harbor Work

Actually that title captures 98% of this blog’s +1800 posts.  And just as elsewhere in Gotham or anywhere else, so on the sixth boro what work you see depends entirely on your station.  And my station this particular day was Tchefuncte River’s  Equitable Equipment‘s hull # 1428, delivered in August 1966 as Red Star Towing‘s New Haven.  Now she’s Freddie K. Miller;  I took the foto below just over five years ago when she was Stapleton Service.    I use this foto here because a downside of being on the tow is my inability to get a foto OF the tow.

At 0520 hrs, dawn was sweetest and coolest, from this point a mile south of Miller’s Launch.  When I reported at 0530, the Miller’s yard was already busy.

The crew of Freddie K Miller’s had a job: pick up Weeks Crane Barge 552 and its crew and proceed to the East River ConEd.  By 0615, crew was making the tow.

0645 we were crossing west to east across the Upper Bay.  Buchanan 1 was towing a scow  and

Douglas B. Gurion headed west for passengers.  The ferry is named for a victim of September 11.

0715 . ..  near Red Hook container port, we passed this ex-MSC vessel Transatlantic.  I will post more MSC soon.

0730 . . . we had passed under the Brooklyn Bridge and now could feast on this potpourri of  Manhattan skyline.  Side by side on the right are Gehry’s flowing-facade 8 Spruce (2011) and Gilbert’s spiky-tower (1913).

0745 . . . we pass GMD Shipyard, where morning shift has already started its work on Massachusetts Maritime’s TS Kennedy  (1967).

0815 . . . the crew have tied to the ConEd dock and Weeks’ crew has begun setting the spuds, for stability as the load is transferred.  My very general understanding of this load is that ConEd purchased equipment from  Manufacturer M.  Company A trucked it to the Weeks yard because installation by land (by Company B) was less feasible than installation from water.  Miller’s job was to move equipment on crane barge to ConEd so that Weeks–with collaboration from Company B–could set equipment exactly where it will be used.

0915 . . . first equipment is lifted and rotated over the East River counterclockwise to avoid obstacles on land, and at

0920 . . .  crew guides unit into exact location.  If half an inch off, then lift and get it right.

1010 . . . next piece of equipment is moved.   While the tug stands by with the crane barge, Miller crew does fine carpentry work in wheelhouse.

Since my self-appointed job is to record details, check out Carolina IV, sailing westbound on the East river . . . hailing from Stockholm,  Yes, sailing!  and  . . . yes . . . that Stockholm while

eastbound are Gage Paul Thornton and a floatplane.

1115 . . . heavy-duty pipe elbow gets lifted into place. Tower protruding from the building just right of MetLife is Chrysler Building.

1215 . . . the spuds are up,  the crane boom lowered and secured, Freddie K Miller has spun off the dock and now heads back westbound for the Weeks yard.  If the grayish vessel in the foreground is locally known as a “honey boat,” then this has to be one of the sweetest scenes possible in these parts.

1300 . . . as we approach the Weeks yard we cross Buchanan 12 towing three stone scows, possibly headed for a quarry up the Hudson.

1330 . . . Freddy K Miller is now “light,” having left the barge at the Weeks yard.  Ever Decent is outbound for sea, and by this writing is southbound off Cape Hatteras.

Meanwhile, close to Manhattan, Asphalt Star takes on bunker fuel from a Vane barge.  That black hose . . . that’s like the hose at the pump where you fill your car tank.

By 1400, I’ve said my thanks to the crew of Freddy K Miller —who await their next job on this or another vessel–and the dispatcher, and take a break to examine a familiar sight:  Alice, she who inspired my first ever blogpost!!

Back on the bank and before heading home, I get another shot;  she’s loaded deep with her Canadian aggregates.

Imagine my delight, then, later that day getting a foto from Mike C. of Alice Oldendorff north of the Navy Yard self-unloading her cargo of crushed stone.

Many thanks to all the folks at Miller’s Launch.  Also, thank you Mike for sending along this last foto.  All other fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Pilots 3

For a low-emissions all-weather pilot boat, the Dutch port of Rotterdam  looked . . .  to the US.  Kvichak has built for many ports.  Fotos courtesy of Fred Trooster.

So would that be a Dutch pilot in middeck with the bare-shoulder uniform?

Sandy Hook Pilots, serving the port of New York, have gotten some of their boats, like Yankee,  just up the Sound at Derecktor Shipyards in Bridgeport.

Docking pilots travel in  . .  tugs like Laura K. Moran.

Click here for a link to vessels carrying pilots in a number of East Coast ports.  A highlight of 2011 has to be the ride on an Edison-Chouest C-Tractor, thanks to JED.

Unless otherwise credited, fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Midsummer 1

The solstice happens in a week.  Is your household ready, mobilized.  Can you safely take it out onto the highways and wetways?

Thoughts of anything but summer . . .  with its adventures and gallivants . .. are elusive, for me.  Dana Spiotta writes of that in tomorrow’s NYTimes magazine, recounting a voyage on the Erie Canal by rowboat with Tide and Current Taxi‘s very own Marie Lorenz.    You could go fishing:  both Marlin and Minnow are currently in the sixth boro.

You could just go sit by the water and see all there’s to see.  I saw a classic loon yesterday–who dove before I could snap evidence.  This Corsair passed more slowly, less skittishly.

A week from now you could swim around Manhattan . . . or volunteer to keep swimmers safe by emailing cweber@nyc.org

You could swallow new herring and gin.  Here’s more info.

In a week you could go to the Clearwater Festival.

This foto from last year comes from Yen.  I know where, like these monks, I’m going . . . .

Next Saturday . . . the sea will again boil with hot blood and creatures rarely seen will emerge and parade.  It’s  the 29th

annual Mermaid Parade and Ball!!!

Thanks, Yen, for that foto.

Meditations I

I . . . illusion.  [I know I skipped “H” and trust you’ll understand in a few days.]  Remember, click on a foto to enlarge it.

Illusion . . . bedevils me . . . and lots of other folks.  I sometimes create pain for myself by believing the “truth” I want rather than what my senses (including hearing) tell me.  Clinging to such illusions might confound lots of people;  illusions might also doom groups of people.  “Group-think” has led more than one vessel–real or metaphorical–onto the rocks.

This post is then intended to have fun with potential illusions of the optical sort.  The tall white chimney directly above the house of Pilot No. 1 New York stands at least 300 feet from the vessel.  I tend not to photoshop my fotos, but if I removed the hint of foliage between vessel and chimney set back on the shore,  I could get SeaBart kind of excited.  By the way, what is that chimney?   And, anyone know the place/date of construction of Pilot No. 1 and 2?

While on the topic of pilot boats, recently I caught Yankee and USCG Wire (WYTL 65612)  milliseconds from what appeared to be collision.

Some Native American myth calls the North America continent “turtle island,” since the “bedrock” of the  continent was in fact a gigantic turtle where a hapless “sky woman” had created a new life for herself.  In the foto below, a clamshell dredge seems to fill a vast barge on which a metropolis with a skyline greatly resembling Manhattan’s also exists.  I guess that could suggest “barge island” as a synonym for that boro.

I’m an admirer of Don Sutherland’s fotos and sense of humor.  Twice in the past year, using the magic (ok . .  illusion) of juxtaposition, he has created fun compositions.  In one, Ruth Reinauer seems to have the Statue of Liberty loaded onto its afterdeck.  In another, an unidentified tug seemed to carry a zigzag ladder on its boatdeck to reach grant access to the Weehawken cliff.  Here’s my version:  a ladder from the top of buoy 13 almost directly to Franklin Reinauer‘s upper house.

Finally, (and NO this blog is not transforming into a pet gallery but if my friend Peter can link to a LOLcats version of Moby Dick, then I feel licensed to proceed) the foto below shows the same green bird that appeared so regal and calm in yesterday’s post.  The image is a video still showing said-bird’s displeasure with a video camera.  Might this illusion give rise to a sixth boro version of the Montauk monster?  Which is the true nature of the bird–this view or yesterday’s.  Or . . . am I my truer self on one of my best–or worst–days?  Maybe the possible choice is just the real illusion.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp except the one of the illusory evil parrot, taken by Elizabeth.

Boats in the Day

Bowsprite and I have neologized . . . coined another new term:  “tanlogging” from collapsing “tandem blogging.”  By the way, if any has a more elegant conflation of the two words, please suggest it.

Anyhow, she recently did “Ships in the Night 2,”  and since we strive to be, among other things, the yin and yang of sixth boro waterbloggers, I couldn’t resist a reply.  Yin and yang you wonder?  Well … some  personal disclosure :  when I telecommed with her recently at dawn while drinking my go-to-work coffee, she was about to call it a night!!  We occupy opposite watches.

Anyhow, all fotos below were taken between dawn and work yesterday:  the cheery orange Michelle Jeanne was returning at dawn + one hour  from surveys.

Wanderer, the pilot built seven years ago in Mamaroneck, was –of course–wending along its 24-7-365  routes throughout the sixth boro.

NS IV, stealing seaward while the undifferentiated urban mush starts to awaken–or call it a night in some cases–I know you’re a crew boat I see all the time, but I don’t know your people.

Now here’s a day boat I’d love to learn about:  over in the transition of Arthur Kill and Newark Bay . . . what were they doing?

Enough for now . . .  ships in the night lead to boats in the day.  One set gets observed by the watchkeeper of the darkness and the other by he of the daylight, and yet between us we miss an immense amount.  And the sixth boro, non-stop, never ceases to amaze and delight.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.  More tanlogging soon.  Please someone coin a better word for “tandem blogging.”

Pilots

While researching this post, I stumbled upon a blog that seems to have ceased after a quite promising start.  Check out this Norrie Point pilot boat along the Hudson here.  Tom, I’d love to hear from you.  I believe the foto below (I took it a year ago in Tottenville) shows a Hudson River Pilot boat of the sort I’ve seen from a distance at Norrie Point.  Besides Ambrose,  many vessels do  Hudson River Pilots operate?  Is this the 1979 Gladding Hearn Ambrose?

Below is the a foto showing the closest I’ve ever come to Norrie Point, with pilot boat on station.  Is the building the Norrie Point Environmental Center?

Sandy Hook pilots recently acquired two Derecktor-built 53-foot pilot boats.

Coming or going or

holding station with a famous marine photograher (not me!)  on the foredeck,

I’m impressed by these vessels.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  today is EVR Day.