East River Traffic 5

If you’re unfamiliar with NYC, most of the photos in this series are from Roosevelt Island, likely off most visitors’ list of places to see.  That’s too bad, since it offers a lot, including great views of Manhattan and the strait (East “river”) in between.  If you’ve not seen the Nelly Bly memorial at the north end, you’re in for a treat.

 Here are previous posts in this series. Let’s start with the NYS-built Ava Jude, a 600 hp boat not seen on this blog in a while. 

It’s also been a while since Shannon Dann was last on the blog, but that’s because she has had her 2400 hp engines working elsewhere.

Ava Jude‘s 1200 hp fleet mate, William Brewster, has been working on the bulkhead project under the 79th Street bridge for some time. 

This Brooklyn, a Vane boat now but formerly Labrador Sea , also brings 2400 hp to the task, and like Brewster, is Blount built. 

I notice King’s Point‘s training vessel too late to get a side profile shot, but her “name” 142, is a number of great significance at the USMMA.  If you click on no other link in this post, do click on that one. 

Coastline’s Kodi is another New England (Gladding Hearn) built small tugboat, the perfect boat for certain jobs. 

See more Gladding Hearn boats here, although that’s not a complete list, since I notice that Benjamin Elliot and others are missing in that link. 

Michael L. Daigle has appeared on this blog only about once before.  She’s a 4200 hp boat that once wore Kirby colors on the west coast as Mount Bona, named for a major North American peak in Alaska. 

 

All photos and any errors, WVD. 

Retro Sixth Boro 29

August can be hazy, and it appears that some August days in 2010 were, as below when Colleen McAllister towed dredge spoils scow GL 501 out and Brendan Turecamo (?) moved Bouchard barge B.No. 260 westbound in the Kills.  Colleen has now traveled from sun to ice out to the Great Lakes, where the 1967 4300 hp tug is currently laid up.   Brendan is alive and well and working in the sixth boro.

Kimberly Poling, then in a slightly different livery than now,  pushed Noelle Cutler in the same direction.  Both still work the waters in and out of the sixth boro.

These days I just don’t spend much time near the sixth boro at dusk, but here Aegean Sea pushes a barge northbound in the Upper Bay.  Aegean now works the Massachusetts coast, and I recall she’s made at least one trip back to the Hudson since 2013.

On a jaunt on the lower Delaware, I caught Madeline easing the bow of Delta Ocean into a dock.  The 2008 4200 hp Gladding Hearn tug is still working in the Wilmington DE area. Delta Ocean, a 2010 crude carrier at 157444 dwt, almost qualifies as a VLCC. She’s currently in Singapore.

Madeline is assisted here by Lindsey, the 60′ 1989 Gladding Hearn z-drive boat rated at 2760 hp.

Duty towed a barge downstream near Wilmington.

Recently she has sold to South Puerto Rico Towing and Boat Services, where the 3000 hp tug is now called Nydia P.  I’d love to see her in SPRT mustard and red colors.

I traveled from the sixth boro to Philadelphia as crew on 1901 three-masted barkentine Gazela.  In upper Delaware Bay, we were overtaken by US EPA Bold and Brandywine pushing barge Double Skin 141.  Gazela, like other mostly volunteer-maintained vessels, is quiet now due to covid, but check out their FB page at Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild.   US EPA Bold, now flying the flag of Vanuatu and called Bold Explorer, is southwest of Victoria BC on the Salish Sea. She was built in 1989 as USNS Bold.  Brandywine, a 2006 6000 hp product of Marinette WI, has today just departed Savanna GA.

Getting this photo of the barkentine, and myself if you enlarge it, was a feat of coincidence and almost-instant networking, the story I’ll not tell here.

On a trip inland, I caught Tender #1 pushing an ancient barge through lock E-28B.  I believe Tender #1 is still in service.

From a beach in Coney Island one morning, I caught Edith Thornton towing a barge into Jamaica Bay on very short gatelines.  Edith is a 104′ x 26 1951-built Reading RR tug that passed through many hands.  currently it’s Chassidy, working out of Trinidad and Tobago.

Here’s another version I shot that morning. For even more, click here.

The mighty Brangus assisted dredge Florida.  Back in those days, the channels of the sixth boro were being deepened to allow today’s ULCVs–like CMA CGM T.Jefferson— to serve the sixth boro.  If I’m not mistaken, Brangus has been a GLDD tug since it was built in 1965. Currently she’s in the Elizabeth River in VA.

Here she tends the shear leg portion of a GLDD dredging job.  See the cutterhead to the left of the helmeted crew?

On another hazy day, a light Heron heads for the Kills.  The 1968-built 106′ x 30′ tug rated at 3200 hp was sold to Nigerian interests in 2012.   I’d love to see her in her current livery and context.

Java Sea resurfaced in Seattle as part of the Boyer fleet and now called Kinani H, seen here on tugster just a month ago.    The 110′ x 32′ tug was launched in 1981 as Patriot.

And finally . . . probably the only time I saw her, crewboat Alert.  She appears to be a Reinauer vessel.

All photos, WVD, from August 2010.  If you want to see an unusual tugster post from that month, click here.

For some unusual August 2010 posts, click here.

 

 

Small Craft 24 a

I’m at a quo vadis point myself.  I appreciate the feedback you’ve given on the virtual tour. I could do more, e.g., guide to the Welland Canal, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and four of the five Great Lakes.  As to the Erie Canal, which was/were your favorite leg?  What info specifically did you find most interesting or startling?  As for myself, learning about the loyalists  . . . that’s topic I could dig into more, not on the blog but in my personal reading.  Three Rivers Inn nightclub is one of my favorite details.

Let’s have a look at small boats and their seasons. Below, that might be Emily Miller, black and white alongside the monolithic hull of USNS Watkins.  She’s acrew boat that operates all year ’round.

Savitsky is one sweet fish boat.  Fishing is a year round activity in the boro.

Emergency vessels are here year rund. NYPD has a number of these fast 70′ tactical response boats.  One I caught soon after arrival in the sixth boro exceeding 40 knots can be seen here.

Side by side, here’s a serious USCG 45′ nearer and a NJ State Police RIB farther.

And the 29′ Defiant looks like it’s made for

maneuver-

ability!

Marine 1 FDNY has the big boats, medium,  and small boats, although I’m not sure the length and other specs of this one.

And finally, the North Hudson Firestorm 36 is a rare sight on the KVK.  I first saw her here on her delivery from Canada.

All these photos I took in March or earlier.  As we move farther into spring, covid-19 notwithstanding, different types of small boats will be moving around the sixth boro.

 

Government Boats 45

Who even knew such a vessel as Integrity existed?  I can imagine all manner of things they dive for.  Here’s more info on requirements and job description.

Unrelated, the East River gets shut down sometimes if high profile traffic travels through the heliport.  One such event happened about a week ago.   Here besides two (of five) Gladding Hearn NYPD boats in the distance is FDNY’s Feehan, all asset in the sixth boro for under 10 years years now. Here and here are photos of Feehan— a FireStorm 70— before she ever arrived in the sixth boro.

I can’t tell you anything about State Trooper URT-7  (underwater recovery team??), but it looks legit.

USACE locally has a set of these small boats boats, which I believe do bathymetric surveys. It’s instructive to see this list of USACE missions.  In the distance, one of NYPD’s 55′ patrol boats can be seen.

The blue/yellow logo marks the NJ State Police . . .

here traveling in twos.

Sentinel II was hauled out when I last traversed the Troy lock in October,

but in summer 2016 I caught her just south of Albany serving as a push boat. 

And in closing, here’s a photo I took summer 2016, but so far as I can tell, I’ve never posted it, until now.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Pilots 10

What happens if you build a pilot boat in Massachusetts to be used on the Great Lakes?  It needs to get to its place of use.

Thanks to the NY Media Boat, I got these photos this week as the Huron Spirit hurried through

the sixth boro.   North of the watery boro, I was invited to ride through the Erie Canal  before it closes on November 20.

Above is the wall above lock 16 and below, it’s the approach to lock 19, where you have to first duck under the triple-track rail bridge.

The photo below, taken at lock 21, was Wednesday afternoon.  By now, the newest Gladding Hearn pilot boat has exited the Canal and is making its way up the Great Lakes chain.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who wrote this story on the Lakes Pilots.

Essex-built Schooner and the Huge Gray Haze

With a tip of the hat  to Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward, the title that came to mind as I shot these, and you’ll see why by the end.  See the road signs up there intended for drivers on the Triboro Bridge?

Rewarding my wait, it’s Jaguar towing Highlander Sea into the Gate,

past the Ward’s Island Footbridge, and

past Archibald Gracie’s cottage on the point. Click here for peers of the 1978 Jaguar.

Westbound the tow came at almost slack water and past

RTC 104 and

the Twins bound for Riverhead.

More on the brick building there with romanesque windows and green roof at the end of this post.

And here, when they were under the Queensboro Bridge,  the title occurred to me . . . having the same syllabication and cadence as the Swift and Ward title.

Now we need a story, one that starts as hundreds could in tiny but huge Essex.  Click here for my previous posts on Essex.

Maybe one about a fishing schooner design turned pilot boat turned yacht turned school turned . . .

fish market and restaurant/bar in the sixth boro.  I hope they sell monkfish.  These photos are compliments of my brother taken in Zwolle at a

pop-up market.

Thanks bro . . .

All other photos here by Will Van Dorp.

So, thanks to identification by Jonathan Steinman, the brick building there is ConEd’s cogeneration plant at East  74th St.  And this is a digression, but 74th Street has long been quite the interesting place.

Heidi

Now this is minimal.  If I had a use for it or lived where I could at least use it every day, I’d want to get it.

And all you illustrators out there looking for a winsome character . . . listen to me:   if I were an illustrator, here would be my next subject.  It’s modest in size, offers negligible protection from the weather,  and sports those huge old fashioned port lights . . .  as delightful as the eyes of

an owl or baby parrot or puppy that’ll grow huge.

To get into the realm of fact, she’s a 1957 Gladding Hearn product and has a 1956 sibling named Brian, which is supposedly still around and I’d love to see also. She’s older relative of lots of pilot boats and small tugboats.    And emergency boats and passenger vessels.

 

Anyone have any photos of Heidi and siblings back when she was a Perini?  And is this the same Perini Corporation now?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated and on a sadder note, click here for Rick Spilman’s “old salt blog’s” tribute to Peter Stanford, who passed yesterday at age 89.  Two years ago, I was pleased to review Mr. Stanford’s book, A Dream of Tall Ships, here.

Black Friday

. . . or I could call it “blue friday plus 700-something days.”  Here was “plus 21 days.”  Anyhow, on this day associated with shopping, Hayward and others were out for harbor maintenance,

Chesapeake Coast and others were out pushing fuel,

Seastreak New Jersey and others were moving passengers . . . (maybe here),  and

crews on ship and shore were moving bulk materials like salt here from Key Hunter.

And if you wonder what it looks like at the base of that tower, whose antenna arrived in the harbor 723 days ago, here’s a photo from Fulton Street I took two weeks ago when the news trucks and lots of others were hoping that two workers would soon be rescued.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

For a sense of how the Lower Manhattan skyline looked from New Brighton area of Staten Island about four years ago, click here.

Government Boats 31

Today’s post relates directly to the very first one in this series.  NYPD’s newest vessel is a Gladding-Hearn gem.  Any guesses on her speed?

As I watched this morning, she was doing a consistent 40.1 knots . . . heading here in the direction of Jamaica Bay!  For the specifics on her 3200 hp propulsion system, click here.   In the distance, that’s Twin Tube delivering supplies to Voge Paul, a Philippines-built bulker bound for Albany.

I’m not willing to enumerate all the Gladding-Hearn boats that have appeared on this blog over the years, but many tugs, pilot boats, fast ferries, and government boats are among the +400 vessels turned out by the shipyard in over a half century, but if you wish, scroll through here and see which ones you recognize.    Recently, six of their pilot boats were delivered to the Colombian Navy.

The new NYPD vessel is called 628 Dillon Stewart.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Treasured Ship 2

As Harvey (1931) made its way northward from a dry dock visit, Slater (1944) was a hundred miles upriver, making its way south.  The next two photos come from Birk Thomas, taken north of Newburgh NY as sun was lowering onto the hills  in the west.

Benjamin Elliot (1960) is the assist tug.   Margot (1958) has Slater alongside . .  the other side.

John Dunn caught this photo of the tow south of Newburgh, after sunset.

Since Margot cannot be seen in the photos above, here’s her profile as I shot it back in September 2013.

Many thanks to Birk and John for the photos.