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Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON. In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy. Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.
Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses. Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.
Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine,
and two more I took in September 2019 in
the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals. Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist. Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.
Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold
can be tricky.
Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island. Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots.
Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.
Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . . sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . . it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina.
Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro.
Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . . the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.
Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class; the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind. If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver. I have lots more photos that you’ve sent. If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.
If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working. This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life. I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.
Four years ago, I saw Alder in Duluth, where she had worked since her launch in Lake Michigan in 2004. Believe it or not, I appear NOT to have taken photos of her, as unlikely as that seems. In 2005, Alder replaced the 1944 Sundew, which is still in Duluth, now as a private vessel. I was in Duluth after an interesting ride up from Milwaukee, but I appear not to have been in a mood to take photos of USCG vessels.
Alder is no longer in Duluth; earlier this month she traveled out of the Great Lakes. Jack Ronalds got these photos from Strait of Canso. Here she arrives from the north and heads for the lock, which is Seawaymax size. The pilot boat Strait Falcon makes the pilot exchange.
USCG in foreign territory . . . Click here for the other Juniper-class cutters, of which Alder is the last.
Here‘s a story about one of the pilots in the Strait area.
Getting back to Alder, might this be a tad hubristic?
From here, Alder headed to Baltimore by way of Boston. I’d held off posting this because I though she might pass through the sixth boro, but . . . I’ve read that after rehabbing, she heads to new duty in Hawaii. I wonder who’s replacing her in Duluth.
Many thanks to Jack for use of these photos, and for seeing an eye on the Strait.
Many thanks to Trucker Tim Powell for sending along these photos taken in Superior WI back in May 2008. She was launched in 1944 as ST 7067, later transferred to the USACE. Given the timing, Forney had already changed owners and would soon be painted in Heritage Marine’s gold livery, and renamed Edward H.
She looked quite good in USACE livery.
She’s still ST 707 gray inside.
I believe Forney, now Edward H, has been repowered, so this Enterprise DMG-38 engine is likely no longer in the boat. Does anyone know what she currently has for power, and what became of the Enterprise engine?
It turns out I saw Edward H from the air back in June 2017, although I was unable to identify her (I believe from bottom to top here we have Edward, Helen, and Nels.)
Here’s a similar shot from the other direction. More of this flight I posted here. The pilot had all the skills.
From Ingrid Staats . . . the most famous tugboat, Theodore Two, at least the most famous tugboat that isn’t really a tug boat. Bowsprite caught this famous non-tug here in the sixth boro, a decade ago. Ingrid took these photos in Toronto very recently.
Theodore Two has made quite a few meet-greet stops along its month-long journey from Halifax to Hamilton, salt to fresh water. Notice the bark canoe as tender?
Photos I saw from various Canadian stops (The pandemic prevented her from calling at US stops along the way.) show as many folks coming to meet-greet as used to appear whenever Urger stopped at towns along the Erie Canal.
From eastriver, enter the The Black Belt along the lower Mississippi.
And finally . . . a research question from Eric Wiberg: where is 1945 Bushey tug Chaplain? See text below for more info. Eric has even more info.
Many thanks to Tim, Ingrid, eastriver, and Eric for these photos.
From Eric: “This tug was at the last U-boat attack ever and is believed afloat in US or Bahamas. In May of 1945 a tug named CHAPLAIN crewed by Louis Alfred Coley, Jr. and others was used by U-853 under Oberleutnant zur See Helmut Frömsdorf of Germany as a disguise to hide under and sink the US merchant ship BLACK POINT, off Point Judith, RI, with the loss of 12 US sailors and naval gunners. Because the tug crew carried on towards New York with a light scow, history missed her, until 2018 and Capt. Colley described the events days before his death. Now, a Bahamian / US maritime historian is seeking anyone has any information on this tugboat, completed in Brooklyn NY in early 1945 by Ira S. Bushey & Sons, steam-powered with a Fairbanks-Morse engine of 1,000 horsepower.
Owned by Red Star Companies and Spentonbush Fuel Transport Service; Bushey affiliates. Sold to Farrell Ocean Services, then McKie Marine Co., and Russell Tripp (Bay State Towing Co.), retaining name CHAPLAIN in all three sales. Russell Tripp sold her to Constellation Tug Co. of Beverly and Boston, MA, who renamed her CARINA. She was sold to a company in the Bahamas in 2005 as CARINA. Names: CARINA believed to be in Bahamas 2009-present, owned by Kermitt Waters, Liberty Oil & Gas exploration, Las Vegas, NV and West Palm Beach, FL, aggregate trades Arawak Cay Nassau. Ex-OCEAN KING, Jeffries Point East Boston, Jan. 1951 to July 2004, ex-MARGARET SHERIDAN (New York), Jan. 1946 to Jan. 1951, ex-CHAPLAIN (New York) early 1945- Jan. 1946. Specs: IMO: 5260382, GRT: 179, LOA: 95’ X beam of 25.25’. The author is from Bahamas and has been scouring the waterfronts there since c.2015 to no avail and have contacted Liberty Oil & aggregate traders there to no avail. It is possible she has changed names again. Believed to still be US-flagged, she is probably in northern Bahamas or Caribbean, east Florida or US Gulf.”
She may have been renamed.
Click here for the previous 85 posts with this title. Lead photos today come from former owner of this push boat in West Burlington, Iowa.
The vessel, then known as Izona, has since traveled the Interstates and two-lanes to Highlands, NJ, towed by the much-loved Peterbilt of John Zook, of Lewisburg, PA.
Maybe you saw them on the roads, or since then, at a marina in Highlands NJ?
“Mister __” is a common name for tugboats. Here, from a secret salt is Mister C.
Hobo has appeared here before, but never with this outstanding fendering created here. Hobo is a 1953 product of Caddell Dry Dock. She’s now living the good life, in the hands of Donna and Charlie Costa.
Emery Zidell is a Centerline tugboat, currently in the sixth boro. She’s the older twin of Barry Silverton, a more frequent visitor to the boro. Photo comes from Capt. Anon E. Mous. Zidell is married to Dr. Robert J. Beall.
And finally, currently underway in the western center of Lake Erie, it’s Sarah Dann, pushing this huge crane on a barge from Manitowoc WI to Kittery ME, almost 3000 nm.
Get ready to see Sarah Dann and “Big Blue” in the Welland Canal and Saint Lawrence. You might see them passing Strait of Canso too.
Below, Jeremy Whitman caught a fabulous photo of the unit passing the 10th Street lift bridge in Manitowoc WI. Thanks much, Jeremy.
Here’s part of the story from John Buellesbach and MKE Marine Reports in “Around Wisconsin” “Konecranes of Finland partnered with Illinois-based Broadwind to build several large cranes for the U.S. Navy at the Broadwind Heavy Fabrications yard in Manitowoc, former site of Manitowoc Shipbuilding. The first, a portal jib crane for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, was completed in early May. It weighs 2.7 million pounds, has a lifting capacity of 140 tons, and stands about 160 feet tall. This custom designed crane incorporates unique features that allow it to be operated on the multiple rail section sizes, straight or curved, located at the naval base.”
ETA in New Hampshire is around the 18th. Track them on AIS.
Thanks to Jeremy, John, the Powells and the Costas, Great Lakes mariner, and other nameless contributors.
By the way, does anyone have photos to share here of CMA CGM Marco Polo and from the same day, Kurt J. Crosby?
At some point, maybe days before April 23, 1921, at McDougall Duluth Shipyard, this vessel, Interwaterways Line Incorporated 101, or ILI 101, had taken shape on the ways.
After it slid down the ways at launch, it was followed by four sisters, all before summer began in 1921. The 101 traveled via the Soo, three Great Lakes, and the Barge Canal to New York with 83,000 bushels of oats (approximately 1300 tons… count the trucks or rail cars) at a rate 60% below the railroad cost.
As you can read below, 101 was the “advance courier of a fleet of new type of ships,” freighters specifically designed to transit the newly opened Barge Canal or Eriemax vessels.
The telegram below details of communication between 101 management and Canal management regarding a “representative familiar with the canal” aboard. I’m wondering if this was a way of saying they needed a pilot, someone with relevant local knowledge.
That initial transit was made eastbound with wooden tugboat Lorraine.
Between 1910 and 1920, the time of the opening of the Barge Canal, the population of Fairport grew by almost 50%. Note the low profile cargo hatches on the vessel at this time.
Later in August 1921, spectators were photographed coming to see her at E-21. The steering pole hints at her Great Lakes roots.
Through the years, a number of modifications, detailed here, were made to the freight ship. She was renamed Richard J. Barnes and later Day Peckinpaugh, her current name. As Barnes, she carried coal along the East Coast and once dodged a torpedo launched from a German submarine.
1959? Here she is just below lock E2 and the “flight of five” in Waterford. All the other commercial vessels behind them, stretching all the way back to the Hudson River, I’ve read they are stuck there because of an issue with another lock in the flight. In other words, this is a smaller version of the back up a month ago due to Ever Given in the Suez Canal.
Also note in the photo above tug Urger on the opposite side of the channel. Urger is no stranger to this blog and, in my opinion, another critically endangered vessel with a NYS Canal history. I worked as deckhand on Urger for the 2014 season, when she was in her 113th year.
1963. Here she is northbound on the Oswego Canal at Phoenix NY.
1994. Eastbound at Rome NY with her last load of cement, the only type of cargo she carried from 1961 until 1994, she passes the freighhouse, now incorporated into Bellamy Harbor Park. The terminal lies less than a mile ahead, off her portside. At a special widening ahead either before or after discharging cargo, she’d turn around. Compare her special cement hatch/manifold arrangement below with the configuration in the photo taken in Fairport in 1921.
1994. Here’s a video still of her exiting a lock after having discharged her last cargo, heading home, so to speak, to an uncertain future.
2005. After more than a decade being “laid up” in Erie PA and just before she might have been scrapped, she was purchased by an alliance that included the New York State Museum, the Canal Society of New York State, the New York State Canal Corporation, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, and New York State Marine Highway Transportation Co., Inc. On this trip to a new role, the 84-year-old freighter was escorted by Benjamin Elliott, as she had been by Lorraine 84 years earlier. I missed this, but from accounts I’ve heard, this was a triumphal return. She’s currently an accessioned artifact of the New York State Museum.
2005. From that same voyage, she exits the downside of lock E17.
2009. During the year of the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial, she traveled under her own power as far south as the sixth boro of NYC and Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain.
2009. I took this photo of her hold, a vast space that has potential as an exhibit space inside a traveling artifact from NYS canal history, whose history demonstrates the connection the Erie Canal makes between the Great Lakes and salt waters.
2021. She’s still afloat, raised from the bottom of the canal as a result of the routine annual winter lowering of water level. She’s afloat for her one hundredth spring, but needs her potential recognized once again. Stan Rogers wrote a song performed here by Makem and Clancy that captures the attitude needed to rekindle the flame, clarifies the vision, and saves her from the scrappers or the reef. Maybe someone from the New York State Museum can comment on their vision for this last of her type. A sister vessel, ILI 105 lies rusting away in Staten Island.
Some of my previous posts on the vessel can be seen here. Many thanks to all who contributed photos to this post: Paul Strubeck, John Callahan, Craig Williams. Any opinions are my own and any errors mine as well.
One goal I have for this post is to try to unearth more images of this vessel pre-1994. Anyone help?
This is the same story as yesterday’s, but the perspective is different, thanks to a Great Lakes mariner. New York slides the 509A into Black Rock Lock, a USACE facility. By the way, Black Rock was a town that once rivaled Buffalo.
The photo above looks downbound, but the one below looks back toward Buffalo and to the stern of the tug. Depending on conditions, one or sometimes two tugs are used. To the left it’s Vermont; to the right, New Jersey. Vermont dates from 1914; New Jersey, 1924. It boggles my mind that one of the assist tugs is more than a century older than tug New York, launched 2019.
Here the unit heads down to Tonawanda. Note New Jersey and Vermont.
After discharging 50000 barrels of 300-degree hot asphalt, the unit turns back upstream.
Straight ahead here is the Niagara River and the speedy current this unit might never climb; Black Rock Lock is off to the left.
When the 509A is loaded, it’s deeper in the water; when it’s light, it’s way high. Notice how little of the rocky margins of the Canal you can see.
By this point, we’ve gotten south of the Peace Bridge; a few more zigs to port and zags to starboard . . . and we’ve back into Lake Erie.
That’s the Buffalo skyline back there, as seen here in a previous post. The barge goes onto the wire if the conditions warrant, and it’s Detroit bound, ETA 36 hours or so.
All photos, thanks to a Great Lakes mariner.
I hope you read my latest article, about Vane Brothers expanding to the Great Lakes. Here tugboat New York pushes Double Skin 509A (A for asphalt) into the Black Rock Canal (or channel) near Buffalo. Great history and aerial photos of the area can be seen here.
In the photo above, the Vane unit came off Lake Erie just beyond the Buffalo Breakwater Light on the white pedestal. Click here for the history of that light, that one in place since only 1961 because the previous was hit by Frontenac. GL tug Vermont, a strong and youthful product of 1914!!!, provides the assist. There are multiple turns in the Black Rock Canal, and bridges
such as the 1927 Peace Bridge.
The waterway is tricky because of the turns, bridges, and rocky sides. Of course, those factors can be controlled much more easily than the factors just west of the canal, the Niagara River which has currents up to 10 knots.
Past the lock, which you’ll see in the next post, it’s downstream. Vermont continues downstream, since it’ll be needed to assist in turning around at the terminal in Tonawanda.
I took these on a cold day in mid-December. Taking photos with a zoom outside is an excellent way to socially-distance. Others’ photos of this run and trade soon.
Click here to read an account in Vane’s Pipeline publication.
Well . . . a couple of Great Lakes mariners who prefer to remain nameless . . . but let’s start with a photo of Joel B from a few years ago. She’s quite the attractive boat! Thanks so much to a GL Mariner for responding to Saturday’s post by sending another of that boat in better times.
This was taken in Muskegon; the unnamed tug to the right sank at the dock, I’m told.
USCGC WMEC 146 McLane, launched 1927, has been a dockside display in Muskegon for more than two decades.
I’ve seen RV Laurentian once on Lake Huron, but here she is close up.
Andy Milne is a 1956 Russel Brothers tug, and as such, she’s well documented here at the Russel Brothers site. Click here for various Russel Brothers tugs I’ve posted over the years.
The next three photos, taken by another Great Lakes mariner out exploring territory, make up a panorama from left to right of the Lyons NY Canal drydock. Here from l to r, it’s a tender (Dana?), DeWitt Clinton, various dredges, Syracuse, and Grouper.
This continues that pan, with l to r, a quarters (or accommodations) barge, Syracuse, Grouper, and DB #2A. DB expands to “derrick barge.” On the hard and to the extreme right, note a buoy boat sans cabin.
And completing the pan, here are two new Canal Corp boats, wintering nose-to-nose, and DB #2B below them.
Many thanks to Great Lakes Mariners for use of these photos.
I’ve been to Muskegon a number of times and my photos can be found here.
Sorry about the photo size; it’s an ongoing struggle.
I took these photos back in early August 2019 in the village where I learned to swim . . . Sodus Point. When I asked a few people about it, I heard that it was a wreck, it was done . . . etc.
The small schooner clearly had been loved at one time.
Last week I learned the good news that the lift had loaded it onto a trailer to take it to a yard for . . .
restoration! So I finally googled it, which I’d not thought to do before, and lo and behold . . . it has pedigree! It was designed by William H. Hand, and launched in Rocky River OH in 1918. The S. S. S. means “Sea Scout Ship.” Thirty years ago, it had been trucked to Rivendell Marine, in Monument Beach MA in 1991.
All photos, WVD, and story to be continued.
Photo and discussion below can be found on FB, John Kucko Digital . . . December 21, 2020. By the way, John Kucko is a legend up in western and central NYS. Tugboat in the background is Donald Sea.
Since this post features a sailing post, let me share what I’ve been watching, based on a suggestion of a reader from South Africa.
First a trip from the Falklands to Capetown on an impressive boat this past summer.
Then I learned the name of the boat and the concept developer, Skip Novak. Here‘s more Skip Novak.
Then I learned of his latest project . . . 2020 into 2021, appropriate for these days.
Thx, Colin. This is good winter fare.
Ontario here means the province and the lake. In the NE corner of the lake lies Picton and Picton Terminals, homeport of a tug called Sheri Lynn S. Well, Sheri Lynn S just got a big sister, and one place to start the story is in UAE, Sharjah a few months back . . . in August.
Captain Tjalling van der Zee, of van der Zee Marine Services was engaged to deliver the new tug Amy Lynn D or ALD, a Damen 3209 Shoalbuster, the 9414 nm from UAE to Lake Ontario. Capt. van der Zee shared most of these photos. Here is more Damen Shoalbuster info. The first part of the voyage mostly circumnavigated the Arabian peninsula. Having lived there for three years, I can imagine the heat topping at least 100 F.
Part of the voyage transited areas of “unrest” and armed guards were on board for any annoyances, but these folks were just fishing. Jeddah was passed on October 17.
This is a view from the wheelhouse northbound in the Suez Canal around October 20. Pilots were required. Any guesses on the total number of pilots taken on this 9400+ nm trip? Answer follows.
ALD passed Sicily on October 26 . . . . it had traveled light until Algeciras SP, where a barge Jacob Joseph C carrying three Damen tugs was met. The small tugs were to be delivered to Halifax and Montreal.
This is the view of the barge from ALD after traveling offshore following the Great Circle.
Azores Ponta Delgada was seen on November 14. By the way, any idea of crew number? How about daily fuel consumption? All answers to follow.
An ingenious “selfie” was managed, albeit with an unsatisfactory camera, when instruments showed ALD and tow crossing fairly near an eastbound ship.
Big seas were part of the experience.
The tow arrived in Halifax on December 6. Mac Mackay documented the safe arrival here. Thx, Mac.
Two of the small tugs, both Damen Stan 1205 class, were offloaded in Halifax.
The remaining tug arrived in Montreal, where
it was discharged.
To enter the Saint Lawrence Seaway, Jacob George C was put on the nose and
I’m not sure who took this photo, but I borrowed it from the Picton Terminals FB page. It shows the tug and barge easing into a SLSW lock.
On the last morning, Nathan Jarvis, working on Robinson Bay, took this of the homestretch as ALD and JJC passed Clayton NY.
And finally . . . ALD and Jacob Joseph C tie up at Picton Terminals.
Many thanks to Picton Terminals and Capt. van der Zee for use of photos and time. Any errors are mine.
Some answers, 25 pilots, 6 crew (1 Dutch/South African and 5 Filipino), and approximately 1200 gallons of fuel daily. Last but not least . . . 82 nights on the boat.
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