Grain de Sail 3

Barebones post today . . .  since these photos I took between 1030 and 1130.  By now, 1230, they’ve dropped the pilot at the end of Ambrose and set a course for . . .  warmer weather and

(but first sails need to be raised…

and adjusted.)

… warmer weather in Dominican Republic, where a load of cocoa awaits in that tropical heat, two weeks or so ahead.

Mid North River, they tacked and 

waved at the French Lady and

us . .  on the Media Boat

and they headed for the opening.

Bon voyage.  Many thanks to Bjoern at the New York Media Boat.

All photos, WVD.

More context . . .  see previous installments of Grain de Sail here. For info on their cargo, click here.

Grain de Sail 2

First you might want to watch these three videos of this vessel traveling from France to the US.  They merit subtitles like setting out,   riding the storm,  and fooling around.  All the talk is in French, but you don’t need to understand to catch the spirit.   OK, here’s a fourth clip with more great sailing.

When I posted part 1, I wasn’t sure I’d get to visit the boat. You also can visit the boat by “buying” a free ticket . . . a crowd control protocol.  As soon as some sail repairs are complete, the schooner heads south to the Caribbean to pick up coffee and cocoa beans, then to France, back to NYC . .  etc.  They call it a virtuous circle, not triangular trade.  The virtue part of the trade is delivery of humanitarian goods from NYC to parts of the Caribbean, e.g., school supplies . . . 

The cutaway below shows the hold, between the masts.  There’s space there for 28 pallets, 50 tons.  A photo of the hold I took follows eventually below. 

Grain de Sail is a prototype.  It’s referred to as a VOTAAN 72, seventy-two feet loa, and VOTAAN is the acronym for “V oilier O céanic de T ransport tr A ns A tlantic i N novating“, which translates as “innovative [cargo] transportation by trans-Atlantic sailing,”  which, IMHO alludes obliquely to the fact that the point is to carry cargo, in this instance, wine, up to 18,000 bottles of a number of varieties of it. Here’s an interview with Matthieu Riou, U.S. Wine & Spirits Director at Grain de Sail, vessel name and company name .  As to it being a working prototype, designers in France are already working on the follow up, a 50-meter sailing ship with five times the capacity.

Although Marseille is the port of registry, the home port is Saint-Malo in Brittany. Many more details on the vessels, its sails, and its captain can be found here. The captain, Loïc Briand, joined the project as a way of doing something different after years of working on North Sea wind projects.

The vessel can fly seven sails:  mainsail, foremast, staysail, ORC, solent, genoa and asymmetric spinnaker.  It also has a 115 hp Nanni engine, used only for maneuvering in port. 

Here’s the open-though-protected helm, with stowage space for harnesses and helmets, and forward of that

is the enclosed cockpit.  Children of Grain de Sail employees by in France have sent along their stuffed animals as proxies for themselves seeing the oceanic marvels.

And finally . . . this is the hold.  Attention has been paid to secure cargo stowage on motor vessels in designing this hold.  Pad eyes abound, and air bags are placed in voids to prevent cargo shift.  A custom hand truck (yellow and festooned with straps) stows very low profile.

Here’s a shot of the cargo being loaded into the hold, and

Showing scale, here Matthieu and Stefan Gallard hold their logo, and

topside, there’s more.  L to r, it’s daughter with bowsprite, Laurent Apollon, Capt. Loïc Briand, and yours truly . . .  WVD.  And to the right, the gwenn-ha-du, the flag of Brittany.

Again, see above for tickets to visit the boat in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  No wine is available for sale on the boat;  that was offloaded in Port Elizabeth last week and “resting” after the voyage.  You can get info on that purchasing here. 

All color photos, WVD.

Grain de Sail

I look forward to seeing this wine transporter up close in a few days.  Meanwhile, hat tip to Bjoern Kils of NY Media Boat for getting this one.  Cargo . .  includes 18,000 bottles of French wine, many varieties.

Many thanks, Bjoern.  See his blog here.  See Grain de Sail website in English here.

Other Peoples Photos 76

75 was in Paris, so let’s stay there.  Many thanks to Lew for these photos from Paris.

Moving cargo on European rivers brings with it a very different lifestyle.  For starters, check out the Opel automobile nestled rear starboard abaft the house of Belcanto.  I posted many cars on barges before, as here, second photo.

The live aboard community is well-established in some old boats,

well-maintained but old boats. You too can rent a barge or a bed in one for your stay in Paris . . .   or London .  . . or Toronto . . . or for that matter, Timbuktu.

And Lew points out that the marine fire fighters are considered part of the French military.  I didn’t know that, but here’s corroboration.  Note the logo on the farther red-hulled boat.  Click here to read the resume of the current fire chief of the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP).  Commandant Beinier appears to be a barracks barge, also called CS la Monnaie. Click here for a photo of the entire vessel.

I said it before, and I’ll repeat . . .

it’s high time I get back to Paris, where this place

would look different.

Thx much, Lew.

 

 

Other Peoples Photos 75

This post was inadvertently launched last week but I re-boxed it.  I received these photos more than a year ago from Jonathan Steinman, who has shared many other photos here.  Can you guess where these photos were taken?   There’s a significant clue in clear view.

 

Titanic might not be an auspicious name for a vessel, but then some people like the excitement.

As Titanic sails toward the next bridge, you might start to get a sense of where this is.    If it helps, the Titanic photos were taken from Passarelle Leopold Sendar Senghor.

 

By now, you’ve probably guessed France, Paris, and maybe even not far from the Louvre.  I’ve been there only once, and that was shamefully long ago . . . 1977!!  gotta go back.

 

I’m eager to see all this commercial traffic on the Seine.

 

 

Here’s more on that first clue . . . the Franprix boxes.

Thanks, Jonathan.  I’d received these just before traveling last year, and it was a pleasure to rediscover them again recently.

 

New Yorker

Photos will be forthcoming in this post;  I’m just using unusual formatting deliberately.

Ponder this:  what association do you have with the phrase “new yorker”, not “new york or ny”?

person?

personality?

quality or lack thereof?

place?

thing?

publication?

There are no right or wrong answers here.

time period?

business maybe?

I repeat . . .. just what association comes first to mind when you hear or read the phrase “new yorker”?

Well . . .

. . .

I’ll bet you did not expect this.

Many thanks to Xtian Herrou, frequent contributor on this blog . . . he sent these photos along yesterday, taken in Brest, in NE France.

Technically, the name is Newyorker, and she’s currently approaching LeHavre from Brest.

 

I’ biased of course, but  it warms my heart to see this, although I must admit that my association involves a magazine famous for its nonfiction and cartoons. In fact, an image from that magazine has appeared on this blog here (scroll)  and here. By the way, in that second link, tugster himself is holding the tooth–not of a mammoth but–of a suction dredge cutterhead, and if anyone wants to claim that 35-pound tooth, I’d be happy to pass it on.

Many thanks to Xtian for these photos.

 

Illuminations 2

Happy 4th of July!  Here’s the first post by this title with a story of what John Adams wrote Abigail around this time 241 years ago.

So why do we celebrate this day?  Uh . . . the British surrendered?  It marks the first battle for independence?

DDG-55 Stout  (photo taken May 20, 2015)

We got freedom to say what we want, pray to whomever we choose, buy as many guns as we want, refuse to be unreasonably searched, charged too much bail, have access to lawyers in court, and things like that?

The founders of the US signed the Declaration of Independence?

Nope!  Nope, nope.  None of those is correct.  The British didn’t surrender for another 6 years and didn’t vacate their occupation force from the sixth boro–the only boro then–until 1783.  The Constitution wasn’t written for another decade and some!!

Here’s a good quick “not fake” read for today called “9 Things You May Not Know About the  Declaration of Independence.”

I’ll get back to that . .  but what is that military gray ship over there trying to camouflage itself against Staten Island ferry orange?  I took the rest of these photos about 24 hours ago . . .   The flag at the stern is NOT US…

It’s French.  So maybe they’re here to help us  celebrate the contributions of Rochambeau, DeGrasse. and Lafayette?

Nope, they helped after 1776 . . ..  In fact the Alliance had not even existed yet for a few years .  . .

Well, maybe the crew of the French L 9032 is here to ride the NYWheel?

Nope.  That’s in some turmoil.

See the billboard there?  Maybe they’re here for “the lowest cost health plan?”

Maybe they’re here for Macy’s !!?  Rowland Hussey Macy WAS a sailor, after all;  the red Macy’s logo star was the tattoo he wore on his hand . . .

 

Actually  I have NO idea why FS Dumont D’Urville docked over at the old homeport yesterday . . .  maybe someone can illuminate us . . .?

But to get back to 4th July . . . here was the response of George III–the accused– to the Declaration:  I’d never read it until now and it’s short and precious and defensive!!

Here’s another 4 July tugster post from the archives . . .  And if you still have time to read, here are “Six things you (probably) didn’t know about the 4th July. . . .”  And the flag of that year?  Maybe here.  And the drink of choice to fete the day back then . . .?  Well, it was not beer or rum.  Rick Spilman has it here.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp, who offers another link to the big document of the day here, and wishes you a happy independence day.

 

Two Ships and a Tale 2

I had something different planned for today’s post, but when long-time reader and contributor Michele McMorrow sent along this photo, I was intrigued.  It’s cable layer Ile de Sein, which I’d noticed on AIS off Belmar NJ for some time, but  . .. as they say, I had other fish to fry, or roast.

It turns out Ile de Sein was involved in an interesting if sad project back in 2011.  So a question for the day . . . what’s it doing off New Jersey these days?

Click on the photo below and you’ll see it and lots more on Alain Quevillon’s interesting Flickr page.  I put up the next photos because of a response I got to the posting about CCGS Tracy being for sale.  Ken Deeley wrote that so is CCGS Alexander Henry, and for a price lower than you’d pay for Tracy.  It seems the maritime museum in Kingston, ON included it for a time in their collection but then the museum, in financial distress, thinking to reef it in the deeps of Lake Ontario, learned that it would cost at least $420,000 to do that.    As an alternative, the big red boat will be towed to the Lake Superior port of Thunder Bay ON, near where it was built, to be part of a maritime museum there.  Current, the boat is docked in Picton ON–near Kingston on Lake Ontario–as its fate becomes clear.

Ken also sends along the photos below, taken from the defunct museum’s website, he says.

This outdoor telegraph looks in fine condition when this photo was taken.

Many thanks to Michele, Alain, and Ken for these photos.

The tale is here . . . transporting fuel to northern Quebec by a very long flexible hose.  Go to Leo Ryan’s story on p. 74.  I’ve recently added Maritime Magazine to my blogroll.

Here’s the previous post by this title.

Checking Back 2015 b

Picking up this retrospective post with the beginning of May 2015, it’s a nearly 40-year-old and tired Barents Sea, waiting then as now for what’ll likely be a “fish habitat” future.

The end of May saw Quantico Creek move Mary Whalen to its public space over in Atlantic Basin.  Was there a docking pilot calling it out from the drone?

Here’s first glimpse of an early June trip I’ve never reported on via this blog.  More on this vessel will appear soon–currently working in the Dominican Republic.  The red vessel in the distance is F. C. G. Smith, a Canadian Coast Guard survey boat.

Eastern Dawn pushes Port Chester toward the Kills.

July opens with the ghost of Lafayette arriving back in the harbor aboard L’Hermione. Click here for the set of posts I did about this person. 

I’m omitting a lot from my account here;

The end of July brought me back to the south bank of the KVK watching Joyce D. Brown go by.   July was a truly trying month . .  is all I’ll say for now.

In early August Wavertree awaited the next step into its rehab, and I

made a gallivanting stop in New Bedford, a place I’d not visited in too long.

 

All photos by will Van Dorp.

L’Hermione & Independence Day

First, for a focused statement on the importance of this vessel and Lafayette on US independence, click here  . . . from a Portland Maine publication.   More on Lafayette, click here, but skip the partisan dribble in paragraphs 3–6.  Also, here.

Most of the photos in this post I took on July 1, by which time the French shore contingent had done a great job setting up a pier display, and here’s my favorite poster.  Doubleclick on the photo to enlarge it and read the numbers.

Soon after all lines were made fast, the ceremony started:  music, uniforms, flags, and the CASK!  It’s to be auctioned off.  I’d love to know the price.

Thanks to Linda Roorda, Peter Boucher, and Xtian Herrou for answers about the flags and uniforms.  The uniforms here and in Wednesday’s post of the Breton bagpipers and the two matelots are French Naval summer uniforms. The flag flown below the US flag on L’Hermione is the Serapis flag–or a variation thereof– flown by John Paul Jones.

 

Yesterday I stopped by and was fortunate to here speeches under the FDR.  Here, with microphone, South Street Seaport Museum Executive Director Jonathan Boulware talks about the ships, the museum, and all six boros of NYC.

Then a parade set out from the pier and headed via Wall Street to Bowling Green, stopping

briefly at Federal Hall.

Happy Independence Day.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

If you have time for a little history of LaFayette, click here.  If you want more complicated history, sorting out fact and fiction about the signers of the Declaration, click here.