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As the title indicates, this features #26 in a string of specialized posts. And what is specialized in what, you may think.
A lift boat, aka an elevator! I’ve had lift boats here, and here. I’m led to believe they’ve been around at least since Jehu. Really, Jehu is a vessel I’ve not found an image of, but built around the time I was born. Equally early examples might include Sal Duhe, and any of those on this shipyard list.
Stable above the crashing waves, that is Brazos, a 2014 lift boat with maximum berthing for 47 (!!) currently elevated near Smith Point, and there to provide data for wind farm construction.
But that space . . . this design, what else might this be used for? Nemo, both the Verne character and his modern wannabes, had their submarines, and the Maldives have The Muraka. If you need and have time for a lengthy digression, see this analysis of Nemo, reread 20 Leagues under the Sea, and reimagine the story in . . . say . . . 2120 in a world modified by sea level rise.
But let’s get back to this sometimes spuma-stern beach . . . which I visited exactly a decade ago.
What other flags could fly here, what decorative rings of paint?
It is indeed a vessel. Note the plimsoll marks, the draft numbers, and the nozzle wheels, which to see clearer you’d have to get a boat. And this lift boat also has a life boat, or at least a number of life rafts. So what other usages are possible?
Well, John Noble had his scrap boat, which you need to go see if you’ve never been to the Noble Maritime Collection on Staten Island. Seen in the sixth boro, here are some conversions. There’s MLB 36391. For really big budget projects, there’s Arctic P and Lone Ranger… now Sea Ranger. Oh the possibilities for other second lives!
All photos and fantasizing . . . WVD, who leaves the ball in your court.
For the source of these two photos, click on the second photo,
the frontal view of Lumberman. For a thorough history of the vessel, click here.
Arthur Hamilton sent me this article from yesterday’s Juneau Empire about this September 1941 Jakobson of Oyster Bay tugboat built as Dauntless No. 15. What’s clear is that plans are developed now to take the “sanitized” vessel 55 miles out to the 1300′ deep waters of Gulf of Alaska to be reefed. Following the history back, here and here are other Juneau Empire articles about the nuisance vessel from January and February 2020.
Does anyone know the years Dauntless Towing Line operated? I’m concluding that it was from the link in the previous sentence it was between the 1890s and the 1950s.
Lumberman (hull 287) is just two years older than Ludington (hull 297) and Nash (hull 298), 1943 Jackobson products. Hull 293, Fred A. Cassidy was built for Jersey City Stockyards, an operation I’d love to know more about. Here‘s some info on Jersey City stockyards before the 1940s.
Other Jakobson builds still around the sixth boro include Cornell (329), Frances (376), Margot (377), Liz Vinik (406), Lucy Reinauer (451), Mike Azzolino (462) and more.
Hull 307, Western Tugger, September 1944, is still working in Newfoundland.
Many thanks to Arthur.
Unfortunately, this appears to be a story like that of Tilly.
Click here for a series of posts and photos of Wards Island from a point almost exactly four years ago, in mid November when I spent a long day photographing the old crane ship on what was to be her last year working. Today she lies at the bottom of Hempstead Reef, a few nautical miles of the west end of Jones Beach Island, in 50 to 70 feet of water. A map follows below. I’d love to hear from anyone who has fished or dived on the reef during the past year, since she has graced the bottom with her hospitable presence.
Although I’ve posted some of these photos, the day I spent on her pulling Erie Canal navaids out of Oneida Lake was a magical day . . mid November, but warm and without wind. Enjoy this set.
Photos were taken from morning to night on November 16 and then the last one is November 17, 2015. All are re-edited.
She ran, if not quite like a deer.
Heading eastbound into the Lake had the look of space flight.
For a crane ship fashioned from a double-ended ferry, she plucked buoys from the water quite efficiently,
replacing them with ice buoys, of the right color of course.
But for November,
it was an enviable day for photos.
Some of the navaids in the Lake rest on concrete-capped shoals, islands.
At the end of the day, all buoys were transferred to a barge so that Wards Island had cleared decks for the next day of work.
Click on the DEC map below to get to an interactive map.
Click on the photo below to see more of the Flickr photo stream from which it was taken.
All photos not otherwise attributed taken in November 2015 by Will Van Dorp, who is eager to see photos of her taken in her watery home.
And as a wise friend, frequent commenter here has said in relation to another vessel, “[New boats] have come along to supplant and surpass their predecessors. We should count ourselves fortunate to have known so many of the elegant and durable old-timers while they were still around, and feel privileged to help transmit their images and stories into the future.” Thanks, Lee
Or . . . what day of the week is it? There is a logic here.
While we’re looking at AIS, notice this surprise . . . 10 or so nm south of Fire Island, Grasp is (or was) . . . grasping.
This is not Grasp but her sister Grapple, both product of Peterson Builders of Sturgeon Bay WI, a shipyard now defunct but not far from one currently called Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, source of many vessels known in the sixth born. Over beyond Grapple is Apache.
My second question, for which I have no answer, is what project is Grasp doing off Fire Island?
Answer tomorrow to the first question.
Photo and captures by Will Van Dorp.
Following on the photos from April 29 and May 19, here is finale for Tender 6 and Reliable of Utica. As of this posting, they are 2.5 nautical miles off Shinnecock and 80′ down, precisely placed and not sunk. My guess is that soon this section of this chart will be updated.
Here is the last daylight for
Tender 6.
Here’s the final journey
for Reliable
of Utica.
Thanks for use of these photos to a generous gentleman. More photos can be seen here.
aka GHP&W 7. Kings Point (KP) is to the United States Merchant Marine Academy as Fort Schuyler is to SUNY Maritime College or Traverse City is to Great Lakes Maritime Academy. Today’s post is intended to introduce some of the KP boats; if you’re interested in the buildings that have expanded beyond the former waterfront estate of Walter Chrysler, click here for a fabulously detailed USACE report on the USMMA’s historic district. Walter Chrysler is himself quite the interesting character. Click here for the USMMA Foundation’s newsletter.
The boat above–Tortuga or ex-Georgina–was in the basin until last Wednesday. Today’s post and tomorrow’s feature photos taken Wednesday and Thursday.
The blue-hulled Liberator and the tug Elizabeth Anne are two of USMMA’s vessels.
Growler (ex-USCGC Catenary WYTL 65606) has been at the USMMA in KP for about 20 years. Click here for previous Growler posts.
The USCG boats docked at KP include a 29′ RB-S II in front of an RB-S. Tortuga is to the motor vessel to the left.
The white building slightly left of center below is the former Chrysler estate.
0651. about to depart.
Click here for a previous post on Tortuga. Click here for a post I did in 2007 about the previous T/V Kings Pointer; tomorrow I’ll post photos of the current vessel by that name.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
For clarification of geography, King’s Point is the first Nassau County town when you drive east from northernmost Queens, i.e., it’s Long Island, no longer NYC.
Any guesses? It’s a view I’d never seen until a last-minute arrival on the ferry set me up to be the very last car to debark. The afternoon light wafting into the cargo space was a treat.
Here she is in profile departing New London.
built 1983, major renovation in 2003
In the right light, she’s a beauty. Notice the low profile of the North Fork of Long Island along the horizon to the right below.
Just to the left of the stack, that’s Cape Henlopen, ex-LST 510.
Finally, another shot of the empty cargo deck.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Back in September 2007, I was paying attention to the green Gladding-Hearn 1966 Dragon, when a schooner with tanbark sails entered my field of view, and what
a schooner she was. I never got any nearer than to take the photo below. Twice, however, I got requests for copies of that photo. Fulfilling the more recent request led to an invitation to see the boat, which had undergone a long restoration process, and sans masts was back in the water.
So here she is, two weeks ago in Friendship Maine. Drool . . . .
Click here for some specs. Her name is Gallant and she’s actually only slightly older than Dragon and built less than 15 miles from GH, as the gull flies.
I’m eager to see her masts stepped and sails bellied.
Many thanks to Don Zappone for the tour of this sweet schooner.
Click here for tugster posts related for the town on the North Fork, which get lots of attention in about a month. My most recent posts were here and here. My advice is to gallivant at least twice, and once before the flotilla arrives.
Take this harbor tour to get oriented.
Elco launch Glory
Captain Dave is a great tour guide as
he takes you quietly around the old shipyard at Greenport Basin. I heard rumors that Commander may be heading back west this summer. Anyone know?
Greenport feels almost like a downeast New England town. I’m told this vessel is part of modern oyster farming project. Eat something raw.
See truly beautiful boats, some newly restored.
Catch some fish.
Read about a veteran,
built on City Island in the Bronx in 1937.
Walk to a beach and take a selfie with Resolute. It was invisible but present, 10 or so miles to the northwest.
Discover research projects to ponder. More on that black spheroid soon.
Whatzit??!
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
LNYBL? Gulf of Mexico? North Sea? Persian Gulf? No . . . it’s Lower NY Bay, and these days it’s populated with unusual equipment.
That’s a spudded jackup barge holding Weeks 751, and off to the right, it’s an exotic
called Michael Lawrence. And I’m betting the working is happening in the same place DSV Joseph Bisso was operating about a half year ago.
Two other tugs tending the work barge Bisso D/B Boaz are Pacific Dawn 1974 (ex-Pelican Magic) –above and below–and
Smith Invader (2006).
And what’s going on is the LNYB Rockaway Lateral Project, a three-mile connection between Brooklyn and the existing offshore pipeline. A closer-up map can be found here. Anyone know how long ago the existing Transco pipeline went in?
More details of the deal here.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s off the Canal for at least another day and a half.
tugster: a waterblog 
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