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Thanks to Jan van der Doe, enjoy these photos of a radschleppdampfer, translated as “side wheel steamer,” a museum ship in Duisburg, Germany.
The side wheel barge tug Oscar Huber was built in Duisburg Ruhrort in 1922. She towed barges until 1966 between Rotterdam and Karlsruhe, about a 300-mile trip on the Rhine. She’s a sole survivor, the only of its kind on the Rhine River saved from scrapping. In 1974 it was turned into a museum.
See her in her 1950s b/w glory in this video, with all narration in German. Color video sans narration can be seen here. More video here.
She was recently moved w to a shipyard in Friedrichsfeld–15 miles down the Rhine– as shown here by Herkules IX and Franz Haniel 14. Both push boats operate for HGK.
Note the folded down stacks.
Many thanks to Jan for sharing these photos.
Click here for some posts of Swiss side wheel steamers, photos thanks to Rich Taylor.
Speaking of HGK and inland river towing, my latest favorite YouTube channel is marktwained, chronicling the work of a Mississippi River captain/pilot.
Many thanks to John Jedrlinic for sending along these photos, and thereby piquing my interest in the Kiel Canal. At just over 60 miles with draft of 31′ and airdraft of 131′, it strikes me as a model of what could have been with the almost equally-long Delaware and Raritan (D&R) Canal. The Kiel Canal cuts distance and challenging waterways off a transit between the North and the Baltic Seas; the D&R at one time cut off even more distance and challenging waterways between the sixth boro and Philadelphia.
photo date 14 June 2018
Tugboat (aka schlepper) Kiel works the Canal for STK, Schlepp- und Fährgesellschaft Kiel, translating as tugboats and ferries, Kiel. The tug is 104′ x 36’and powered by an ABC diesel generating 5632 hp.
John took all these photos the same day.
Tailing this barge transporting what appears to be a refinery module
is Stein, 88′ x 32′ and rated at 3554 hp.
As I said earlier, many thanks to John for these photos. Kiel Canal just landed on my list of places to see, waterways to transit.
February is turning into tugster “thanks” month, as I work on some projects that are keeping me housebound.
Unrelated but just plain interesting, check out this new installment from vintagediesel.
or . . . the final installment from the west side of the Atlantic . . . and I’ll use (what I imagine as) NASA times here, but I’ll modify it from “t-minus” to “U–as in underway” minus and plus.
So, at U minus 53 minutes, there’s a man-basket dangling off the portside.
U minus 48 . . . a crew boat arrives with the pilot.
U minus 37 . . .
the pilot boards Combi-Dock III,
U minus 9, the crew boat, Nicholas Miller, departs . . ., likely off to deliver three technicians departing Combi-Dock III.
Judging from when I first detected “under way – making way” from my vantage point, 1616, the photo below is U plus 11 minutes. Movement at first was barely perceptible, gauged by watching juxtaposition of Peking masts and background features.
U plus 13.
U plus 14. The traffic in the background will welcome me when I leave my station . . . A note on the flags here: the red one (below) is Hamburg’s flag, and the one high in the mast of Peking (next photo below) is that of Stiftung Hamburg Maritim (SHM).
And finally–I shifted my station about a mile to Camp Gateway, Staten Island . . .U plus 21.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
No need for much language here. I started these photos around 0830. Despite some rain, conditions were ideal for this loading . . . or engulfing.
Here Dorothy J gently moves the antique barque foot by foot closer to Hamburg.
Combo-Dock III, the engulfer, lies in wait.
Robert IV assists when needed.
Without the zoom, I imagined the gentleman with the yellow helmet to stand by on the helm.
We have 20 meters and closing . . .
With big power on minuscule tolerances, Dorothy J eases her in.
The barque floats gently forward in the hold.
Lines to capstans on the heavy lift ship are doing the work, as the tugs stand by until released from service.
Peking is now engulfed. Time is about 1130. Operations to make fast and secure now begin before they head out into the Atlantic for Germany.
Many thanks to Jonathan Kabak and Jonathan Boulware for the floating platform.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp, who is thrilled to have seen this today.
Yesterday at 13:31, Combi-Dock III is in sight . . .
14:04, she approaches the VZ Bridge . . .
I don’t know how many crew are on board, but soon they’ll be quite busy until they depart with their cargo . . .
Peking–I imagine–will float in here, as through a dropped tailgate on a pickup.
Who is this Peking, you ask? Peking is a 1911 barque and veteran of the nitrate trade from Chile around Cape Horn to Europe that has been featured in dozens of tugster posts . . . but take the time to check out these two: this post with photos supplied by Joe–from his uncle– show her under sail midAtlantic in 1929 or ’30 . . . and this post showing her 1975 arrival in the sixth boro aka New York City, on a towline.
I expect Thursday will be spent arranging the cradle and ballasting the ship so that Peking can float aboard on Friday. As to a little info about Combi-Dock III, click here to see her under construction in 2008-09.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who may post a second time later today.
If you’re not sure where to place Cuxhaven, the image below may help. Another clue is that in Cuxhaven inbound, you could choose either to make for Hamburg or for the Kiel Canal. All these photos come thanks to Aleksandr Mariy, whose drawing we featured here recently.
Wal was launched in 1992. Dimensions: 101′ x 32.8′ x 17 and Gross Tonnage is 368.
Luchs, 1991, 95′ x 29.5 x 15.1 and GT 229.
Wolf, 1993, 105′ x 26.2′ x 17′ and GT 368.
Bugsier 15, 1991, 92′ x 29.6 x 15.1 and GT 239.
Bugsier 10, 2009, 108′ x 42.7 x 19.3 and GT 485.
Steinbock, 1977, 92′ x 26.2′ x 14.1′ and GT 213.
And Steinbock here is underway through the Kiel Canal.
Here’s more info on Cuxhaven.
All photos here come thanks to Aleksandr Mariy, to whom I am grateful.
Let me share photos from three Eagle visits in the past decade. Here she arrives off the east end of Wall Street.
2005, I believe.
Note the teams hauling on the docking line.
docking at then Pier 17
Charles D. McAllister tucks her in to the dock.
Here she lies at anchor in 2011 with
crew in the rigging doing
work.
departure 2011
And here are details I focused on earlier this week.
To reiterate what I wrote yesterday,read Captain Gordon McGowan’s The Skipper and the Eagle.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
For a similar set of closeups of another German-built sail training vessel–Dewaruci–click here.
First . . . a foto from Cape Town thanks to Colin. Any idea what purpose the wire coils around the bulwarks of Teliri serve? Answer at end of post.
Next, from French mariner Herrou Xtian, a LeHavre-based rotor tug RT Claire, now working in Bremerhaven. For a sense of what she looks like below the waterline, click here.
Also from Xtian, it’s a huge salvage tug Abeille Bourbon. Xtian’s has a model-building question later in this post. And I hope to have fotos of a huge tug myself in the next few days.
And from Dave Chappell, Mobro’s Rio Bravo (ex-Gus Candies, 1973) towing a scow through Jacksonville, FL.
Also from Dave, two old tugs (anyone identify??) travel under the Ben Franklin swing bridge near Charleston, SC.
Teliri has been laying cable in pirate/gangster? infested waters, so it could be construed the coils of barbed wire intends to discourage unwelcomed visits.
And here’s Xtian’s question, stemming from his work on Crowley’s former vessel Centurion. On his model, the lighter strips represent the keel coolers. How far do the ones marked A and B extend, and what exactly do they look like.
Here are fotos I took of Centurion high and dry on Mighty Servant 1, about to leave NYC’s sixth boro for Nigeria. However, the portion Xtian wants to see is obscured in all my fotos. Anyone help?
Final shot, also from Colin . .. who’s following the progress of Alwyn Vintcent inland from Cape town on a 90-wheel rig operated by ALE. Here’s a previous ship-haul job by ALE.
I won’t post tomorrow or friday most likely . . because I’ll be gallivanting “on assignment.”
Thanks much Colin, Xtian, and Dave.
Hercules . . . (keel was laid in 1915) has never visited the sixth boro and never will, but some rough water
she appears able to handle. You saw Hercules on this blog a few months back burning some coal to set a towing record here. Read the narrative here in the July portion of the log here.
The body of water in question here is between Zierikzee (marked with the red balloon with capital A) and Veere . . . on the island off to the southwest. Also notice Rotterdam, Antwerpen, and Brugge on the map.
Speaking of Brugge, notice what they call this Brugge-registered vessel working on the Rhine?
Top two fotos used with permission from Kees (pronounced “case”) and Ingrid van Trigt; bottom foto thanks to Patty Nolan‘s own Capt. David Williams.
Finally, tugster made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and . . . no ATF, FBI, IRS, EPIRB . . . no handcuffs, no raincoat covering my face, no sex or financial scandal, no announcement of an imminent run for office. Running FROM office to pick up a copy of the paper sounds like a much better idea. Lots of thoughts there from Cornell‘s Capt Matt Perricone there too. See “Old Salt” Rick’s post on the article AND the upcoming 19th annual Great North River Tug Race here; watch the video and you’ll see some of Rick’s and my footage from a previous race.
Unrelated: This weekend tugster has dispatched me on assignment/hazardous duty at the Pageant of Steam.
When tugs race on Sunday, government boats will officiate. Here are a few players.
When Liberty IV splashed into her element in 1989 at the Washburn & Doughty yard in East Boothbay, ME, she began a career that she still occupies: to ferry Park Service employees and supplies from the “mainland” to several stops in the sixth boro archipelago, i.e., Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Besides bearing a heritage relationship with such diverse vessels as Pati T. Moran, Shearwater, and Black Knight, she also carries a unique escutcheon on her stern.
Does anyone have fotos of Liberty I or II or III? Would Liberty I be sail or steam?
John D. McKean, foto taken one sunset a few weeks back, started service in 1954, first splashing into the waters in Camden at John H. Mathis, the same yard that built Mary Whalen!
A Perth Amboy Fire boat zipped eastward in the KVK last month. That’s K-Sea Baltic Sea in the background.
USACE Moritz, in hurry toward Newark Bay last week. Moritz comes from Kvichak Industries, soon
disappeared round the bend at Bergen Point.
Other recent fotos of government boats include this ones entrusted to Union County (New Jersey) Police,
and New Jersey State Police.
Finally, certainly NOT a government boat, but a German ship that has vessels that experiment with alternative propulsion. Foto was taken by bowsprite from her cliff last week. Did anyone catch the name?
Finally, as of Wednesday morning writing, Flinterduin will approach the Narrows near dusk tonight and start offloading tomorrow at dawn. And I have to be at work . . . from dusk today until dawn Friday . . . maybe I can sneak away to do tugster’s bidding.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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