Random Tugs 164

I suppose I could call this RT 163b, since the photos in both were taken the same day, same conditions of light and moisture.

Let’s start with Charles D. McAllister with Lettie G. Howard bare poles in the distance.

Evelyn Cutler with Noelle Cutler is tied up alongside a barge with Wavertree‘s still horizontal poles. Click here to see Evelyn as I first saw her.

Viking is high and dry, post the winter work.

Timothy L. Reinauer is back in town after a very long hiatus, at least from my POV.  This may have been the last time I saw her.

Mary Gellatly gets some TLC as well;  click here for the previous time she was in a “random” post.

Beyond Mister Jim, a pile of sand is growing in the yard just west of the Bayonne Bridge on the Staten Island side.

Elizabeth and Marjorie B. McAllister head out for a job.

Tasman Sea heads for the yard as

Amberjack departs.

 

And for closure, it’s Marjorie B passing in front of a relatively ship-free Port Elizabeth.  Click here for a photo of Marjorie B high and dry a few years ago.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And in contrast to all that, in Niigata earlier today, here’s some great vessel christening photos from Maasmondmaritime.

270 nmi to Rendezvous with Kings Pointer

This is day 8 of the GHP&W series, so let me break pattern a bit.  If you missed the beginning, GHP&W is not a law firm; it’s abbrev for “gunk holes, harbors, ports, and wharves.”  I haven’t dusted off any wharves yet, but two-thirds of the months still lie ahead.

The story here is that TS Kings Pointer was out serving as a training platform and not at Kings Point, although there was a potential meeting somewhere south along our track to Portsmouth, VA.

Mile 1, 0738 Wednesday, heading for the Throg’s Neck Bridge.

0756.  Passing SUNY Maritime and TS Empire State. Click here for photos from her summer sea term 2015.

0804, Robert Burton, a Norfolk boat.

0907, Mary Gellatly with a sand scow at the southern tip of Governors Island.

1010, passing the northern tip of Sandy Hook but looking back at Naval Weapons Station Earle, with USNS Medgar Evers at the wharf.

1017, Romer Shoal Light and Coney Island.

1517, Capt. Willie Landers northbound off Beach Haven, I think.

1612, FV Jonathan Ryan and tug Pops in the distance.

1618, entering a grid marked “numerous scientific buoys.”

1657 off Atlantic City, with unidentified tug and barge

1740 and about to switch watch.

Thursday, 0852, looking north into the Chesapeake after going wide around Fisherman Island.

0910 . . . it’s the current  TS Kings Pointer, ex-Liberty Star. . .

 

. . . heading along Virginia Beach

before turning northward toward Long Island Sound.  Her former sister ship–Freedom Star–was in the area but we did not see her.

Meanwhile, we head north into the Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel and into port, which you can follow tomorrow.  And that tug and crane barge in the distance . . . survey work for new infrastructure or maintenance dredging?

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.  It was a smooth trip.

Peter’s Evolution

November 2009, not very long after she was delivered  from the Thoma-Sea yard.

September 2013

January 2014 . . . Peter F. Gellatly has seen some subtle exterior changes.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Whatzit 14

Here was 13 . . . from what seems ages ago.

And the next few?  A freak snowfall in the sixth boro?

And might these be protest signs?

Not at all!  Today is open house in lots of places in NYC, including the “salt pile” aka Atlantic Salt.  And kids at local schools have prepared banners to adorn a ship.

This ship . . .  already seen in this blog last week here.  Here and here are fotos I took at the “salt pile” previously.

. . . out of the mouths [and from the brushes and paintpots] of babes . . .  and young’uns come some impressive sentiments.

Fotos 4 through 7 were taken by Brian DeForest, Terminal Manager, who also took the first six fotos here.  The others . .  Will Van Dorp.

Around the Sixth Boro 3

Here was ASB 2.  There might be eight million stories in the naked city, but in its primary boro aka the sixth boro at least half again that number of other stories could be told  . .  by the collective whoever knows them.

Captain Zeke moves with the diverse stone trade past folks waiting below our very own waving girl and

all those folks waving and taking fotos from the ferry and every other water conveyance.

The 1950 Nantucket‘s back in town . .  for the winter.

Yup . . . no one could have predicted these . . .

back when Shearwater was launched in 1929.

A cruise ship shuffles passengers as Peter F. Gellatly bunkers.

Kristy Ann Reinauer stands by a construction barge.

Mary A. Whalen . . . is a survivor from another time.

A barge named Progress has returned to South Street Seaport Museum, here between Wavertree and Peking.

Emerald Coast is eastbound on the East River.

Two views of Adirondack, one with WTC1 –or is it 1 WTC or something else–and

another with the Arabian Sea unit.

And Sea Wolf heads north . . . .

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension 7

Here are some more fotos by Seth Tane in the late 1970s /early 1980s.

Foto#1.  Princess Bay just south of the Old Bay Draw, placing her about a mile  of her place of construction.  Anyone know what happened to her, last known as Mabel L?  She was launched from Elizabethport the same year as Coral Queen.

Foto #2.  Jet Trader heads for the Arthur Kill.  Today Jet Trader has a new life as . . .

reef, among sunken NYC subway cars and army tanks off Atlantic City.  Here’s a foto of her last voyage on the hip of Taurus.   Click here to see fotos of motor tankers, subway cars, and army tanks being reefed.  Have you or someone you know had the experience of diving on these reefs and care to share the experience?

Fotos 3 and 4.  Mystic Sun waited in the Morris Canal for its last voyage to the scrappers in Kearney.  Click here for fotos of some of the Sun fleet including Mystic Sun in better days.   Can anyone identify the tugboats here?

Here’s the bow of Mystic Sun.  Here’s a detailed history of Sunmarine.  Mystic Sun started life in 1944, launched from East Coast Shipyards in Bayonne as AOG 38 and was scrapped in 1981, dating this foto.  Here are other AOGs in dazzle paint.

Last foto, #5.  Mary Gellatly, the tanker incarnation.  Click here and scroll for a recent foto of the current Mary Gellatly in the sixth boro.  Who was the long-revered namesake?  And anyone know the details of the launch and demise of this tanker?

Many thanks to Seth Tane for these fabulous fotos of sixth boro history.

Random Tugs 106

Upriver at Magdalen Island, here’s a followup to Ooops 3 . . . Mary Alice  (1974) brings in bucket on dredge Delaware Bay (2006) to begin process of raising the beached scow.  That’s Leopard Albany-bound on left side of page.  See Leopard anchored  in the sixth boro in the second foto here.

These fotos come thanks to Dock Shuter.

Resolute (1975) heads for a rendezvous with Zim Qingdao.  That’s High Mercury and the ferry terminal in the background.

Anyone know who takes credit for that white arch atop the terminal?

Headon view of the new Mary Gellatly (2000).  Actually, I wish the green trim along lower side of house windows were left . . . even enhanced.  That’s Maersk Caitlin in the background.

Tied up along the salt pile . . . it’s Vane’s Red Hook (2013) and Hunting Creek (2012) They may be the two newest tugboats in the sixth boro.

Catherine Turecamo (1972) closes in to meet UASC Jeddah.

And here . . . high and dry and needing a shave, it’s Specialist.  Here (scroll through to the end) is a foto of the same vessel–house up–three plus years ago.   Is she really a 1956-build?

And finally, heading into the Narrows, it’s

Sea Bear (1990).

Thanks to Dock Shuter for the Mary Alice fotos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  Here’s a NYTimes 12-minute documentary update report on the voyage of Break of Dawn and the Mobro barge of Islip garbage.  Thanks to Old Salt Rick for calling it to my attention.

Change

Some days more than others I’m only a bit more acutely aware of change.  Certainly this is true in the sixth boro if you watch it over time.    Name boards migrate from

one vessel to another.  Actually, I’m told the foto above is Mary Gellatly the third, with the second below.  It appears the first was a Navy built tanker.  I’d love it if someone know the whereabouts of a foto.

Companies buy and sell floating stock . . . renaming and repainting . . .

Freddie K Miller is the fourth name for this 1966 vessel that was first dubbed New Haven.   I can vouch that her interior looks brand spanking new as she nears the mid-century mark.

I don’t know that much about Sam M, 1972, other than that she was fire-engine red around Christmas, and

bleached-out white last summer.

Kimberly Poling, 1994, looks much better with the

modified roofline and more complex paint scheme.

June K in orange was one of my favorites some years back, but pushing old metal or

holding new metal as Sarah Ann . . . the 2003 vessel remains one of my favorites.

Herbert P. Brake 1992 . . .  red or

blue . . . I don’t see her that often.

To paraphrase Heraclitus again . . . only change is unchanging . . . and it surely doesn’t happen at a constant clip.

All foto by Will Van Dorp.

More Cargoes 15

Freja Pegasus, Turecamo Girls, and Arctic Bay . . . the previous cargo post begs this one, so I spent three hours looking around the sixth boro yesterday.  If you click on the link embedded in each large vessel name, you’ll get a sense of their range by reading the section “port history.”   What’s NOT listed there is the land-scape (as depicted yesterday)  cargoes travel to get to the ports and seas.

Tverskoy Bridge and Peter F. Gellatly.  The tanker is bunkering before heading for the Bahamas.

Stolt Sneland and Linda Moran stern and

areas around the bows.  A name like Atlantic Rose make me imagine a fleet mate named Atlantic Fell. 

OOCL Britain and McAllister Responder, I think.

Ever Deluxe and Laura K Moran.  I’d be interested in knowing how much over a million sea miles Ever Deluxe ‘s traveled since she appeared in this post more than three years ago.

Off Laura K‘s stern, it’s passenger vessel Regatta.  Here’s more info on her.

Here are two of the 109 daily trips the Staten Island ferries make daily.   Vessels are JFK and Molinari . . .  I think.

Suzuka Express

Tverskoy Bridge again as darkness ends my ability to use the camera.

An AIS screen capture is not that photogenic, but I find the names fascinating.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s a followup on SS Badger:  the coal-fired steam ferry gets a reprieve because of the trade in wind power!!!  Who woulda thunked!!?!

And finally, here’s a note I’d like to reiterate for anyone connected with the Gwendoline Steers‘ sinking of a half century ago:  “My name is Loary Milanese Gunn, you can see my posts on this Tugster blog re: the Gwendoline Steers. Steve Knox and I have since created the Facebook Page in Memory of the GS. We are having a memorial wreathe-laying ceremony to honor the 50th year of the sinking. I want to invite all of the crewmen’s family members. Would you please forward your email to me so I may extend to you and your family a proper invite?    Loary ”

I know not everyone does FB.  You can contact Loary through tugster.

On a different note, check out this video of a flotilla headed up to the tugboat roundup a few weeks back.

Outs and Ins

There are ports and bottlenecks, and the sixth boro is surely a port, not that within it bottlenecks do not exist.  Yesterday afternoon I caught Charles Island headed for sea, and ultimately Ecuador . . . so it’ll pass through that bottleneck called Panama, which has so frequently preoccupied me these days.

Zim Luanda also departed yesterday, bound for Savannah.

Meanwhile, an equal number of vessels enter port, the sixth boro, our enormous honey pot.  Like this one, huge but fairly empty.  This foto of CSAV Rio de Janiero –and the two after that–come compliments of John Watson.   CSAV Rio de Janiero leaves here (probably tomorrow) for the Mediterranean.

Also, new in town and caught by John’s eye, it’s USNS Grasp T-ARS-51.  Possibly in town for maintenance?  And while I’m on the subject of sharp eyes and unusual craft, check out Mage’s report from San Diego, featuring USS Peleliu LHA-5, Navy dolphins, and an unusual vessel that defies my ability to identify it.  Any help?  Ooops . . . here’s Mage’s link.

And finally, arriving this morning, Polish-built Ice Pearl, vintage 1980.

To a casual observer of the harbor, a lot of vessels come in, park, and then leave.  They all do, but some areas of the sixth boro ARE designated anchorages.  This explains vessels like Pacific Quartz (recently arrived here from the Arabian Sea) and Avonden.  Tug Mary Gellatly (1978, ex-Capt. Jentry, North Star, North Service) leaves her dock and heads north.

Thanks to John Watson for the three fotos in the middle;  all others by Will Van Dorp, who’s happy to find others too could while the time away doing the Otis Redding thing on a bay, any bay any day.  Just think, what if Otis had started waterfotoblogging!!!