2020 Calendar September

If you ordered a calendar last year, you might recall that I promised that I’d “extend” the photo set each month.  Well, here’s September, following all the other months.  Call this . . . “how Cleveland turned a toxic industrial sewer into a recreation area, while maintaining industrial activity.”  Recall while looking at these photos that THIS is the Cuyahoga, the object of shame back when I was a teenager, the river on all East Coast folks’ minds when the first Earth Day protest happened.  WestCoasters had the Santa Barbara oil spill uppermost in mind.  It took vision and –see the article– ongoing effort.

If you’ve never visited Cleveland, you’ll thank yourself for doing so.  If you’ve never looked at Cleveland from the perspective of the Cuyahoga, you can do it right here thanks to the miracle of Google maps . . .  it winds and winds and a few miles up, there’s still a lot of industry, so bulk carriers like Algoma Buffalo need to get up there, and getting there requires the assistance of tugs to negotiate all the turns.

Note all the recreation in boats happening all around this Algoma Buffalo, a 1978 Sturgeon Bay WI build, 24,300 tons cargo capacity (convert that to dump trucks), 634′ x 68′ and powered by 7200 hp.  It was flagged US until the 2018 season.  Note the “whitewater” from the portside emanating from the thruster tunnel.

People are enjoying the summer sun, oblivious some of them to the ship.

Kayakers and SUPers carry on.

Now what’s happening amidst all these folks enjoying the beautiful Cuyahoga is that Algoma  Buffalo will exit the river as far as that lift bridge and then be assisted moving astern into the old Cuyahoga.

Also, keep in mind that tug Cleveland was launched in 2017, and Iowa in 1915.  Yes . . . the two tugs assisting the laker are 102 years apart in age!  The captain of Cleveland might be the great-grandson of the original captain of Iowa.  Also, both tugs were built right on this river.  Deckhands appear calm here while directing the swarm away from danger.

And . . . I said swarm!

Here’s the point where forward motion stops, and Iowa assumes the lead, tugging the ship into the Old River.

Also, if you’re thinking to take a drive to Cleveland, keep in mind that I took all these photos from land, not from a boat.  People along the waterway there can have a beer or lunch or tea while enjoying a front row seat to all this  . . . drama. Set your GPS to the Greater Cleveland aquarium, a good aquarium with a huge parking lot right by the riuver.

I’m being redundant now, but this is the Cuyahoga a half century from the time it caught fire and people who didn’t work on it shunned it.

 

Again, the ship is backing up the Old River, towed

amidst all the fun-seekers on the water

around all the twists and bends by this antique but state-enough-of-the-art 1915 tugboat.  Just up around that bend is the Great Lakes Shipyard.

Cuyahoga!

Cuyahoga!  This is the only photo I took not from terra firma.

 

 

Cleveland needs a song about the rebirth of the river.  Maybe there is one I just don’t know about.

All photos, WVD, who’d go back to Cleveland in a heartbeat.  If you’ve not been, you owe to yourself to go there on a sunny summer day, and there aren’t many of those left for this year.

For other photos of Cleveland, try this one from February. For posts in Cleveland of Buffalo as a US flagged vessel, click here and here.

 

 

Random Tugs 286

All photos here were taken less than an hour after sunrise.  It’s commonly known that the golden hour is the best time for photos.

 

Mary Turecamo also headed out for morning work, not that this is anything but a 24/7 essential schedule.

HMS St Andrews arrives with sunrise on its back. Has the HMS been dropped from the name,

just as port of registry has been changed?

Eastern Dawn slings Port Chester into the dock.

Ellen heads out,

meeting a Vane tug on her way to a job.

Cape Henry comes off the anchorage, westbound on the KVK.

All photos, WVD.

 

Ferry Fuel

Indulge me a little misdirection first..  So you suppose the Hughes 130 is loaded with ferry fuel?

I thought the tug here is Little C, but this one is too small.  Anyone identify?

Eastern Dawn is a regular in the sixth boro, and

[oh, go back to the top photo and you’ll see Eastern Dawn with a fuel barge] and the other morning I discovered an answer to a long-standing question I had.  Do those fuel barges with names like “No. 5” and “No. 6”  ever move?

The answer is . . . I caught Eastern Dawn move in with a barge and then transfer fuel from it to

to the stationery barges next to the ferry terminal on the Staten Island side.

Hook it up and pump the fuel into the barge until it gets pumped again . . . into the the ferry tank.

All photos and speculation, WVD.  Below is another recent photo of Eastern Dawn with its barge–Port Chester–light.

 

 

Random Tugs 240

Navigator looks great in the yellow trim.  For some quantifiable info, she dates from 1981 and reports 1200 hp.

Ellen always strikes me as a brawler, more so than identical YTBs.  Maybe it’s the ships’ hull paint she’s rubbed off with the bow rendering. For numbers and facts, she dates from 1967, built in Marinette WI, and currently has z-drives putting out 4000 hp. Click here for photos I took in Marinette this past summer.

Dory looks great, having added an upper wheelhouse.  Click here and scroll for photos of Dory over the years, pre-upper wheelhouse.  Who operates her now?

Amy Moran and Atlantic Salvor meet under the bridge.  As an indication of winds, notice the bridge “curtains” movement.   Numbers:  AM 1973 and 3000 hp.  AS 1976 and 6480.  For previous Atlantic Salvor posts, click here.

If Buchanan 5 looks like she has new paint, she does.  It used to work around here as Taft Beach.  Numbers:  1983 and 2600 hp.

Normandy benefits from a simple and classical paint scheme.    2007 and about 1900 but with triple screw.  As I understand it, she used to work in Colombia.  Anyone have info on her propulsion plant?

Kimberly Poling got a makeover almost 10 years ago and she is just a beauty.   1994 and 3000 hp.

I’ve long heard Thomas D. Witte once worked the Erie Canal as Valoil, but I’ve never seen photos of her superstructure from that time.  Anyone help?   1961 and 1500 hp.

And finally, Matthew Tibbetts once won the most attractive tug at a North River Tugboat Race, and she truly looks good.   1969 and 2000.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 167

Given the history and range of projects of Elsbeth II, you might imagine how thrilled I was to see her for the first time yesterday.  And she has to be among a small set of working vessels based in North America with brightwork!  She truly fits under the category exotic.

 

I saw this tugboat six years ago in the Delaware River, but Sarah D looks spanking new  in NYS Marine Highway colors.

Happy flag day.  Do you know the significance of this date?

OSG Courageous, she’s one large tugboat and an infrequent

visitor in this port.  I can’t quite make out the barge name. Of course, she’s not as colossal as her big sister –OSG Vision–who spent some time here . . . four (!!) years ago.

Sassafras is a fixture in the sixth boro, but she rarely looks as good as she does when many shore dwellers in the other boros are just waking up.  Here she

lies alongside Petali Lady.

Mister Jim here is lightering (?) bulker Antigoni B, who seems to have since headed upriver.

 

And since this is called random tugs, let me throw in two photos from the Digital collections of the New york State archives . . . SS Brazil entering the sixth boro on May 31, 1951.  What the photo makes very clear to me is how much traffic in the harbor has changed in 65 years.   Can anyone identify the six tugboats from at least three different companies here?  I can’t.

Here the party passes a quite different looking Governors Island.

All photos except for the last two by Will Van Dorp.  These last two come from a treasure trove aka Digital Collections of the New York State Archives. 

Unrelated:  If you’re free Saturday, it’s the annual mermaid migration on Coney Island.

 

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.