Circa 3650 Days Ago

I’m working on some tougher posts, but here’s an easy one.  Let’s flip the calendar back approximately 10 years, give or take a month.  Then it was Barents Sea, not Atlantic Enterprise.  Rowan M. McAllister is still around, although in Charleston SC.  And the container ship under the “un-raised” Bayonne Bridge is Zim Qingdao, currently eastbound across the Atlantic.  The other McAllister tug I don’t know.

Melvin E. Lemmerhirt, now Evelyn Cutler, eastbound toward the Brooklyn Bridge  . . . well, all’s quite changed about all this.

Maryland –I’ve yet to see her as  Liz Vinik–was bunkering the brand new Queen Victoria.

Peking was then–as now–out of the water, although currently her dry dock is in Germany.

Penn No. 4 still goes by the same name, but it’s now a Kirby boat.

George Burrows was never a regular here, and I’ve no idea of her current disposition.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you enjoyed this backward glance.

 

Random Tugs 213

I’m not shifting the focus of this blog to photography–although it’s always been photo driven–but it’s fun to shoot what the light allows, which in this case somewhat obscures the identification of the tug in the foreground and highlights in profile the construction over by the Goethals Bridge.  Also, I’ve not forgotten a realization of a few weeks back about there being nothing random;  context here is recent sixth boro.

Anyhow, name that tug?

Meanwhile, north of the GW, it’s Joan Moran (1975) with a coal barge, from what I could tell.

Farther downriver, it’s Atlantic Coast (2007) with a dredge scow.

On that same dredge project, Shannon Dann (1971) stands by with GL 602.

Wye River (2008) waits over by the Palisades,

Sea Wolf (1982) holds steady over by –is that?–Edgewater.

Barry Silverton counts down for an appointment with Fight ALS,

Brendan Turecamo (1975) hangs with Connecticut, and

that brings us back to the first photo, now benefitting from a different light and easily identifiable as

Doris Moran (1982).

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 2

Leg 2 runs from Georgetown to Beaufort NC.

We did from Southport to near Wrightsville Beach in Gallatin’s ICW, past this bucolic campsite and

surf camp.  See the surfer’s legs lower left?

We headed into Beaufort/Morehead City passing this sailboat outbound.

Fun!

That’s bulker Aurora in the offing.

And a banker horse and a Great Lakes Reggie G (Booster No. 4) . . .

 

It’s was Derby Day and these equine could not care less. Bravo independence!

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

 

Riverbanks 10

Here are previous installments focusing on background.

Sometimes the partial reveal and the juxtaposition highlight what’s on the shorelines, like those triple deckers in Bayonne that would blend in perfectly in many 19th century mill towns.

Or the hugely forgotten Singer plant in Elizabeth, hugely forgotten by most residents of Elizabeth, that is.  Imagine, if someone could turn the clock back on that one, 10,000 people would have manufacturing jobs . . . either sewing machines, or

weaponry of all sorts.

 

But one detail on the bank over by the NJ-side of the Bridge caught my attention.  So I thought these beams would be trucked from the disappearing bridge to a scrapping yard.  How surprised I was when the crane lifted the beam off the truck not 1000 feet from where they’d been on duty for decades and

lowered them

one after the other

to what might be a series of trucks below.  I can’t quite see what becomes of the beams on the ground at Bergen Point.  And I think that’s the Passaic small boat.  ??

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Keep your eyes open and stay safe.

Chrononauts 7a

Many thanks to Ken Deeley for today’s photos.  The vessel with the red house is surely one of the Standard Boat stick lighter fleet, but I can’t read the name on the bow.  A half decade I posted a photo here (scroll) of a decrepit Ollie, the stick lighter that used to tie up at South Street.   He can’t quite put a date on this photo taken at South Street Seaport Museum’s pier.  Can anyone date these photos?  And what was that green/white dome in the background?

Coming down the Hudson, Ken got this photo of suction dredger Sugar Island.  Currently, Sugar Island is working off Bahrain.

 

Many thanks to Ken for sending along these photos.

Click here for a 1992 publication by Robert Foster and Jane Steuerwald called “The Lighterage System in the New York/New Jersey Harbor,” referencing stick lighters and much more.

Small Craft 13

As much as this crew boat laboring through the water appears an apt metaphor of my own laboring through the dog days of August this year, pushing so much water seems unproductive.  Am I wrong in thinking this?  Just wondering.

It did make for some photos I liked though.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Here are the previous “small craft” posts.

 

Random Sixth Boro 8

You’d have thought I use this title more often, but it’s been almost three years since it last appeared. I’m starting with this photo of the lightship WLV-612, because this is where I’ll be this evening for a FREE and open-to-the-public 6 pm showing of our documentary Graves of Arthur Kill.  Seats for those who arrive first.

Over the years I’ve done many posts about the WLV-612, but my favorite is this one.

Here’s a very recent arrival in the sixth boro’s pool of workboats . . . Fort McHenry, just off the ways, although just yesterday an even-more recent arrival.  more on that one soon, I hope.  I don’t know how new Double Skin 315 is.

Ships in the anchorage and waterways must think they are in a tropical clime, given the temperatures of August 2016.

NS Parade, Iron Point, MTM St Jean …  have all been here recently.

Robert E. McAllister returned from a job, possibly having assisted Robert E. Peary.

MSC Lucy headed out past

Larry J. Hebert, standing by at a maintenance dredging job.

MOL Bellwether, all 1105′ loa of her, leave into the humid haze, existing here along with

some wind to propel this sloop.

Finally, just the name, sir;  No need for the entire genealogy. This photo comes compliments of Bob Dahringer.

Thanks to Bob for the photo above;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

 

More Cutterheads

Here’s GLDD’s cutter suction dredge Florida as seen from above the cutter head and

photo taken October 2010 in the KVK

from alongside.  I took the first three photos in this post.

photo taken October 2010

Here’s Weeks cutter suction dredge C. R. McCaskill,  with Sea Wolf serving as a tender.

photo taken near Rockaway Inlet September 2013

USACE E. A. Woodruff was built in 1873 and worked the Ohio. Technically, I think Woodruff was a snag boat.

USACE Florida was the most technologically advanced dredge built when it was launched in 1904.  Unfortunately, she sank with loss of life 14 years later and is currently a dive site.

USACE Barnard was built in 1904 as well in Camden and sold to Mexico in 1942.

Here’s another view of Barnard with

a tender alongside.  It looks a lot like the buoy boats on the Erie Canal.

Dredge Welatka was built in 1925.

Dredge Congaree was built in 1914 in Charleston SC.

Here’s USACE Potter originally built in 1932 and still in use.

For many more vintage USACE photos, click here.

Many thanks to Barrel for this trip through USACE technological history.

Atlantic Star Sixth Boro Arrival 4

I admit to feeling a thrill.   There were rainbows in the upper bay, here falling past the Liberty statue and raining onto Liberty Island,

drama loomed as Atlantic Star was back in the Ambrose on the return from the Norfolk and Baltimore, Firefighter II was also outside the Narrows,

I could get the closeups,

clouds were dissipating at just the right moment,

Eric McAllister met the Star on the Con Hook Range,

there was even a private sailboat–Ratty’s Wisdom–that possibly carried VIPs . . . .  but nothing happened!  I had built this up too much for myself, and no sprayed salute occurred.

 

I’ll keep a watch . . . it has to happen one of these times.  Maybe it’s not proper, since Atlantic Star has not yet seen its Liverpudlian christening yet.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Thanks to Barrel 3

Here’s Ocean Traverse Nord, 213′ loa and a trailing suction hopper dredge built in Quebec City in 2012.

photo taken on St. Lawrence in June 2015

Here’s Manhattan, trailing suction hopper dredge built in Sparrows Point in 1904, hull #43.

 

And this is Atlantic, hull #44, also from Sparrows Point.

Finally, Dodge Island, loa 275′ and built in Slidell LA in 1980.

photo taken off New Jersey in November 2015

Thanks to Barrel for the archival photos;  the two color photos by Will Van Dorp.

Related:  click here for lots of photos of vintage USACE dredge equipment.