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After I return to CSF with a camera, I’ll pick up part 1 again. For now, let’s look at another ferry line that crosses the Sound. By the way, how many ferries do you see in the photo below?
It was a foggy day in Port Jefferson that I chose to walk on for a jaunt across the Sound.
Grand Republic, certainly not the first vessel to carry that name, was getting some maintenance, so her sister vessel, P. T. Barnum, would be my ride. More on a much-earlier Grand Republic and a question at the end of this post.
This Grand Republic and this P. T. Barnum were launched four years apart, in 2003 and 1999, respectively. Mr. P. T. Barnum was a co-founder of the line, creating a ferry route that ran between his hometown of Bridgeport, nicknamed Park City, and the port in Long Island farm country, Port Jefferson.
We backed out of the dock of a very foggy village of Port Jeff.
Here’s a phenomenon I don’t understand: on either side of P. T. Barnum, I saw these rainbows. Why there?
Mid-Sound we passed Park City. She’s the oldest (1986), smallest, and greenest of the current fleet. When Park City was launched in Florida, she apparently made alligators fly; read about it here.
Back in March, while in Seaside Park, one of the big parks in Bridgeport, I watched Park City sail into the port.
Later that same windy and cold March day, I watched Grand Republic sail in.
Here I’m looking north from just inside Port Jefferson harbor. It’s worth a glance at a map to see how protected this harbor is.
All photos, WVD.
Related: I’ve heard there’s a difference between the McAllister family and the McAlister family, the latter referred to here. Can anyone jog my memory? Of course, that may be yet another story than the one recounted in the 150 Years of Family Business book, in relation to the tugboat Iona McAlister. Has anyone been to the Greenpoint bar called Grand Republic?
Mostly unrelated: Here are two interesting postcards, one featuring the Starin fleet, which McAllister acquired to form their own ferry business, and second . . . an appropriation of the Statue both from 150 years ago.
If you ride the ferry or just visit Port Jeff, spend a few minutes inside the office for some vintage photos like Nonowantuc (a native name for part of the Port Jeff area) and
Victor. Info on all the boats can be found here.
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New London with bow ramp open here . . . has to be the fastest and one of the cleanest boat for Cross Sound Ferry (CSF). I mean cleanest burning, with its recently added Tier 3 Cummins power. She was CSF’s first new build, coming off the ways in New London in 1979.
What I like about New London is the design allows a passenger to see over the vehicles at the wake, vehicles oriented toward the stern
or the bow.
John H, the largest CSF vessel, was built for the company in 1989.
She has the capacity of 100 vehicles and 1000 passengers.
Mary Ellen was in 1983 by Offshore Shipbuilding in Palatka Florida as Grand Republic for the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry (BPPF). That fleet will be next when I post more on ferries on Long Island Sound.
Once loaded at Orient Point NY, she backs out of the rack while lowering the bow ramp. In that she reminds me of Badger, although there, it’s the stern ramp that lowers upon departure.
I did several trips on BPPJ ferries back in 2000 as I shifted domicile from MA to NY, so I’m guessing I rode or saw this vessel ass Grand Republic at that time.
Caribbean Ferry is called that because she originally worked in the Caribbean after coming off the ways at Blount in the 1970s.
And until I get photos of the remaining CSF boats, we’ll end here with the most distinguished, Cape Henlopen, launched in 1943 as USS Buncombe County (LST-510) from Jeffersonville Boat and Machine Company. In early 1944 as an LST, she departed NYC for a convoy crossing over to Europe, where she took part in the D-Day landings. Subsequent to the end of WW2, she worked as a ferry crossing the Chesapeake Bay, then Delaware Bay, before coming to CSF in 1983. She also operates with Tier 3 engines at this point. That’s the light on Little Gull Island in the distance.
One goal I’ve set for the nearer future is to ride or at least see all the other CSF boats.
All photos, WVD.
See the previous 17 posts off along this tangent here.
Let’s start here. Name that truck. Answer follows.
How about this vehicle, with its brand info stripped off?
It should be easier from this angle.
If you were wondering about the context for the top photo, here’s more of the field. Note the USCG members on either side of the “bridge.”
This “marine highway” shows that the ferry needs to rotate to put stern to at the dock. Know the ferry line? This ferry itself? The ferry in the distance?
On the same run as the top photo, that’s a mighty narrow bridge to the pier.
Ditto. I can’t tell the brand of the red truck above or the blue below, although it would be safe (though not necessarily correct) to say a Peterbilt above and a KW below.
It takes expert judgement to drive onto and off this ferry.
And finally . . . here’s the top mystery pickup. The name’s on the tailgate.
All photos, WVD, from the ferry New London. The red pickup is a 1950 Chevrolet. The black/gray pickup . . . a 2021 Jeep Gladiator. The other ferry is Susan Anne. Click here to see the whole Cross Sound fleet, including the ex-Zephyr.
. . . or at least among the newest.
Above, the new Governors Island ferry–I am a bit late with this but had not seen it until a few days ago–and the previous one–Coursen–meet. For a vintage photo of Coursen with a USCG bowstripe, click here.
I believe it carries vehicles as well as passengers, but I didn’t get a thorough enough view to confirm what that may look like. Does this new ferry have a name?
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who posted about another attempt at a new ferry to the island some years ago here.
And if this ferry is late news, here’s more late news about some boats NOT currently in the sixth boro because of the Golden Ray project down along the Georgia coast: Atlantic Salvor, Atlantic Enterprise, and Meagan Ann are all assisting with the salvage.
I heard it long before it emerged from the morning fog at Saint-Siméon. I was on the north shore waiting t catch the boat to the south, Rivière-du-Loup.
Canadians must have a surplus of !!! available for their signage, but seeing this made me walk away from the immediate area.
Some of you can likely already identify this self-unloading bulk carrier, heavy laden most probably with ore. Her identity is given at the end of this post.
I mentioned previously that the Saint Lawrence is wide,
so wide there’s never been a thought to build bridges downstream from Quebec City.
Trans-St. Laurent is in its 56th season on this run, operating until ice thickness prevents it.
Note the steering pole, aka spear pole to “point to the course.”
This is NOT a great pic or even a good one, but that white speck is one of the several beluga whales that passed during the crossing.
Brandy Pot Light is on the Rivière-du-Loup (Wolf River) side of the crossing, and here’s a glance at
Saguenay Fjord National Park . . . in that hollow almost center of the photo.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
And the laker with the fog horn I heard . . . it was Algoma Mariner.
The 11% grade, per road signs, leads to a strawberry vendor if you make the left and a ferry dock if you follow all the way down to the Saint Lawrence. See the two ferries in the distance? Click here for a view from roughly the same location in March two years ago.
Ferry Joseph Savard approaches for the ride to L’isle aux Coudres, 60 miles closer to the Atlantic than Quebec City, nominally island of hazelnuts, crowding this side of the stream, where the deep water channel for all traffic . The flats around the island show the result of a 13′ tidal range. The page on this ferry has not been translated, but it was built in 1985, has two Bombardier engines, possibly this one, propelling a single screw and generating 3894 hp. Capacities are 367 passengers and 55 vehicles. And it’s free.
One, of many, appeal of this ferry is that on the island side it lands immediately next to Ocean Group shipyard.
Vessels outside and on the hard included Fjord Saguenay, a Rio Tinto boat! Rio Tinto has a large aluminum plant at the head of Saguenay fjord, my destination.
Also in the yard are Ocean Arctique and Ocean Sept-Isles. The latter is a Collingwood product; click here and scroll to see what has become of the Collingwood shipyard.
And just north of the blue hulls, it’s Ocean Brochu. Note the Voith-Schneider drive and skeg under the hull.
Two vessels I’ve published in ProfessionalMariner about were built here, Ocean Traverse Nord and Ocean Taiga. The latter vessel has recently moved to the Arctic on Baffin Island duty.
We’ll return to L’isle aux Coudres, but for now, let’s cross back over to the mainland to catch this traffic and more. It’s the other ferry Radisson, named for the fur trader and explorer. Savard is named for an early, maybe first, French settler of the island.
Here you see a container ship in the channel located on the narrow strait between the mainland and the island. Just ahead of the ship, you see the 11% grade hill from the beginning of this post. And the village atop the hill is a hamlet in Les Eboulements.
Here’s a side view of the church prominent in the village; notice the river above the car to the left?
And let’s end with another snapshot of the church, presbytere des Eboulements. Here’s the best “eboulements” translation . . . .
Let’s leave it here. Tomorrow we return to the island.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Sometimes voices talk to me as I’m taking photos. I realize I’m leaving myself wide open when I write something like that, but I’m not joking. Especially when a vessel named Opportunity comes in. Be honest. What would the voice in your head say?
And then it goes away?
So once you register that “opportunity comes and goes,” and then you see other vessels doing the same . . . .?
sure . . . Yankee comes and goes. Her sister vessel . . . Freedom comes and goes.
Even clunkier names . . . RHL Agilitas . . . yup . . . .
she comes and goes . . . from Kingston Jamaica to Halifax Canada.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who himself comes and goes. Then other times he eats shoots and leaves.
Tuira II anchors west of Perico.
Different sites related to Canal and Bay Tours say this boat was built by Wiley Manufacturing of Port Deposit MD, makers of sixth boro’s Patricia, Norfolk’s Hoss, and Erie Canal’s Capt Alix, but Wiley history doesn’t reflect this. Any help?
Also in the Canal and Bay Tours fleet is this vintage 1912 wooden vessel in Neponset MA by Lawley & Sons, Islamorada. A claim is that Al Capone once owned her.
Here she shares a lock at Miraflores with a bulker. More closeups of the locks and tugboats soon.
Below is the same Islamorada I took in mid-March 2012; that’s a range marker in the foreground to the right. I prefer the 2012 color scheme.
Fantasía del Mar, here docked in Gamboa and alongside Atlas III, is the third of three US boats operated by Canal and Bay Tours . . . and said to be built by Eastern Shipbuilding of Boothbay, but I know of no such yard.
Las Cruces . . . she could be US built, but again . . . no info. I thought it looked US built, and thanks to readers and some following up on my part, I can say it is a 1961 Blount vessel still carrying its original name.
Safari Voyager, not flagged US but operated by UnCruise Adventures, is definitely a US bottom, built in 1982 in Salisbury MD, the yard where many of the recent Vane vessels originate from. That’s also the shipyard that has built American Cruise Line vessels.
Wind Star, featured here just recently, was built in France in 1986.
And finally . . . in the background one morning was Maasdam, heading for Mexico, launched from a Fincantieri yard in Italy in 1993.
The green trimaran–I’ve forgotten the name–was super light and fast, heading for the Marquesas. She transited the Panama Canal maintaining the requisite minimum of 6 knots with an outboard! According to her owner, she can make 5 knots in 2 knots wind.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
And again a repeated request: Please send me a photo of your seat. What I mean is this: I’d like to do a post on captain’s and/or pilot’s chairs. I’m looking for the luxurious all the way to decrepit or basic. Email me a photo of the chair and identify the vessel. You don’t need to be sitting in it. I’ve got photos of two seats so far, but I’d like a half dozen before doing a post.
Here are previous posts in this “whatzit” series, the most recent being components of The Vessel.
So what’s this craft below?
Well, back in September 2010, she was excursion vessel Commander running into the Hudson Highlands out of Haverstaw. She nearly made it to 100 years in various excursion assignments after being launched in North Carolina in 1917 as SP-1247.
I next saw her next to the marine railway in Greenport in May 2015, and then
she had quite the makeover on Staten Island and Brooklyn, converted into a floating marina building in front of Brooklyn Heights. Quite the second . . . or tenth life for this former naval vessel. I do hope to see inside later this year.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
The challenge here is to have clear photos and lights. Evening Star with B. No. 250 starts us off,
Jean Turecamo is on assignment with a barge,
Reinauer Twins heads back for the Kills,
TRF Memphis waits in Stapleton anchorage,
Mount St. Elias departs her barge,
and Alice Austen, usually the wee hours ferry, runs early.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
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