Retro Sixth Boro 24 B

Some things like winter fishing in the harbor appear not to change in a decade, but

Houma will never again move Mary A. Whalen.  Houma, built at Jakobson in 1970, was scrapped in 2017.  PortSide NewYork currently has a berth for the tanker and many other activities in Atlantic Basin, Red Hook.

B. E. Lindholm, built in St.Paul MN in 1985,  is alive and well, currently dredging off Fire Island.

This Kristin Poling was still working 10 years ago, definitely a survivor from before WW2 and also definitely then in her home stretch.  Byearly 2012 she was scrapped.

In March 2010 I also had a chance to gallivant off to Baltimore, home of NS Savannah.  If my calculations are correct, she was in service for 10 years total, and now in mothballs for 48!! Truth be told, she was a prototype, a demo ship with limited cargo capacity but also passengers.  Her beautiful lines were designed by George S. Sharp.  Recently she was at the end of a towline,  a sight I’m sorry I missed.  A wealth of info and video as well as smart comments can be found on this demo vessel here in a publication called Atomic Insights.  Let me quote a small section to tease you into reading the article:  “By technical measures, the ship was a success. She performed well at sea, her safety record was impressive, her fuel economy was unsurpassed and her gleaming white paint was never smudged by exhaust smoke.”

Cajun stood by Chios Voyager near the Inner Harbor Domino Sugars plant.   Cajun still works along the east coast US.  Chios Voyager, built 1984, has been scrapped.

And a somber last photo . . . I caught El Faro in Baltimore 10 years ago.  Little did I expect then what we all know now.

All photos, WVD, in March 2010.

 

Checking Back 2015 b

Picking up this retrospective post with the beginning of May 2015, it’s a nearly 40-year-old and tired Barents Sea, waiting then as now for what’ll likely be a “fish habitat” future.

The end of May saw Quantico Creek move Mary Whalen to its public space over in Atlantic Basin.  Was there a docking pilot calling it out from the drone?

Here’s first glimpse of an early June trip I’ve never reported on via this blog.  More on this vessel will appear soon–currently working in the Dominican Republic.  The red vessel in the distance is F. C. G. Smith, a Canadian Coast Guard survey boat.

Eastern Dawn pushes Port Chester toward the Kills.

July opens with the ghost of Lafayette arriving back in the harbor aboard L’Hermione. Click here for the set of posts I did about this person. 

I’m omitting a lot from my account here;

The end of July brought me back to the south bank of the KVK watching Joyce D. Brown go by.   July was a truly trying month . .  is all I’ll say for now.

In early August Wavertree awaited the next step into its rehab, and I

made a gallivanting stop in New Bedford, a place I’d not visited in too long.

 

All photos by will Van Dorp.

Bluegrass Red Hook

Click on the image below and enjoy the music.  Come out and hear this traditional American music by the Paradise Mountain Boys–and stories about the port of New York history this coming Thursday night in Red Hook.  Details here.

I hope you listened to the song above.  Here’s the kicker:  the band is from Norway.  Here’s their take on “Man of constant sorrow,” one of my favorites.

For the Red Hook connection, here’s Lars Nilsen, co-chairman of the Norwegian Immigrant Association, “One hundred plus years ago, Red Hook ( including what is now Carroll Gardens ) was the center of a hard-working maritime-related Norwegian speaking community of about 10,000 people.”  And here’s a thought from John Weaver, son-in-law of Alf Dryland, deceased Captain of PortSide NewYork’s flagship  Mary A. Whalen “Norwegians in America playing Blue Grass music! If Alf Dyrland were still with us, he would be smiling. Every new adventure is the continuation of his dream come true. He would be proud of the heritage celebrated and future welcomed aboard his Mary Whalen. Thank you PortSide NewYork.”

Click here for Rick “old salt” blog’s take on this event.

Here are a few of the many posts I’ve done on PortSide NewYork.

Unrelated, here’s another unlikely interpretation of American bluegrass performed at South by Southwest.

 

Small Tankships 2

I should rename this post “Time Warp.”  I started it in May 2008 and this morning–in response to some Facebook exchanges–resurrected it.  Maybe I will begin a series called “Time Warp,” though, and any photos no more than 20 years old–to pick an arbitrary boundary and to keep the series from becoming ancient time warp which could be its own thing– . . . any photos you wish to contribute no more than two decades old would be welcome.   Maybe I gave up on this post six years back because I had too many unanswered questions.

Anyhow, to plunge back in . . . Robert Silva and Harold Tartell provided foto of Manhasset from way back, when it sported a flying horse on its stack . . . .  I assumed this vessel was long ago scrapped.  I’m also assuming the location of this shot can be pegged by the two LNG tanks in the background.

 

Here’s another shot of the vessel (1958) (or 1952) in transition, I presume, sent along by Robert Silva.

Here’s a photo I took in 2008:  a different small tankship Mostank (1950) maneuvers close to a tanker.  I don’t know if Galahad is still in service, and

Here in Arthur Kill to resupply, I suppose,  Mostank . . . M O S being Marine Oil Service.  Mostank shows up as registered until at least a year ago.  Emma Miller now serves the sixth boro.

Here’s where the time warp impinges on this post.  Great Gull was around still six or seven or eight years ago.  Time flies.  The Gull has flown south.

Back then, John B. Caddell was still working.  Is she still intact?

Nathan E. Stewart was still in town and here moving Mary A. Whalen to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The unique Odin still worked here, and

Weddell Sea was still known as Scott C.

 

All photos here by will Van Dorp unless otherwise attributed.

 

 

Around the Sixth Boro 3

Here was ASB 2.  There might be eight million stories in the naked city, but in its primary boro aka the sixth boro at least half again that number of other stories could be told  . .  by the collective whoever knows them.

Captain Zeke moves with the diverse stone trade past folks waiting below our very own waving girl and

all those folks waving and taking fotos from the ferry and every other water conveyance.

The 1950 Nantucket‘s back in town . .  for the winter.

Yup . . . no one could have predicted these . . .

back when Shearwater was launched in 1929.

A cruise ship shuffles passengers as Peter F. Gellatly bunkers.

Kristy Ann Reinauer stands by a construction barge.

Mary A. Whalen . . . is a survivor from another time.

A barge named Progress has returned to South Street Seaport Museum, here between Wavertree and Peking.

Emerald Coast is eastbound on the East River.

Two views of Adirondack, one with WTC1 –or is it 1 WTC or something else–and

another with the Arabian Sea unit.

And Sea Wolf heads north . . . .

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Stormy Aftermath 7 Months 7 Days

Sandy pushed this 1941 vessel ashore on Staten Island late last October.  The registered owner was from another continent and possibly no longer alive due to unrelated circumstances.  The city took charge and the sheriff’s auction happened today.

Viewing and inspection happened from this vantage point.  Sheriffs offered binoculars, though none with x-ray capability.

Before the auction began, a tanker at least four times greater in length passed northbound in the Arthur Kill.

Auctioneer Dennis Alestra welcomed the crowd to the auction, indicating where the bidding would take place.

Members of the sheriff’s department outnumbered all other attendees combined. Carolina Salguero, director of PortSide NewYork, has a similar tanker, Mary A. Whalen, now possibly the last of this class of coastal tanker in the United States and certainly the only tanker serving as a center for cultural and educational events.

One bidder and one bid . . . and the tanker is SOLD for $25,000  to Donjon Marine.  Total elapsed time of the bidding:  about one minute.  Here shipshooter Jonathan Atkin witnesses the signing of papers.

I’ve always enjoyed seeing her.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension 8

I hope you’re enjoying this time warp as much as I am.

Foto #1.  Princess Bay northbound through the Old Bay Draw.

Foto #2.  When I first met this vessel, she was known as Kristin Poling.  Click here and here for fotos including some of her last month before scrapping.

Fotos #3 and 4.  Reliable II northbound and  . . .

showing the sculptural beauty of her house.

Foto #5.  Here’s another YO turned tanker turned reef, A. H. Dumont.  I’d love to hear about the condition of these reefed vessels from anyone who’s dived the Jersey offshore.

Foto #6.  John J. Tabeling doing what tug/barge units do today . . . . bunkering.  Tabeling was scrapped in 2005;  Statendam was scrapped in 2004.

Foto #7. Another shot of Tabeling, here exiting the east end of the KVK.  Foto is taken looking toward Richmond Terrace, current location of the salt pile.

Foto #8.  Question . . . is this Mary A. Whalen?  Here and here are fotos of the ambassador vessel of PortSide NewYork.  Many more can be found by adding the vessel name in the search window upper left.

All fotos taken by Seth Tane around 30 years ago.

Polar RIB

. . . although a more accurate title might be a RIB for all latitudes.  Guess what this is?  It has nothing to do with the Sedna comments I made yesterday.  These fotos were taken at 78 degrees north . . . Point Barrow is 71!!!  Yes, it is the time of year when our culture turns toward the far north, although a strongly fantastical version rather than this . ..  the real polar areas.

Guess the 78th parallel location from this?

Actually this post has its origin in the sixth boro.  That’s Mary Whalen in Red Hook over in the distance.  And closeup . . . it’s a 50′ RIB made by Rupert Marine.    Rupert Marine saw a “few seconds later”  foto I posted here (sixth foto)  and got in touch, sending along these fotos.

Click here for more fotos from Portlongyear.no       and the place is

Spitsbergen, where this Rupert 34 attempts to redefine line boat and mini-tug.  And yes . . . Costa Pacifica is a sister vessel of the infamous one.

All fotos come thanks to Thomas Rönnberg, founder of Rupert Marine.   Thomas, Många tack!

Two recent appearances of pinnipeds on this blog were one from the Northwest Passage and the one from Fire Island, NY.

Tug Work

As I post this, Hurricane Isaac approaches New Orleans, and the work  of every mariner on the river is to ride out the storm. Even if it appears that almost nothing is moving on the river, movement is there and intense.  Click here (now) for live views on the street and on the river in the Crescent City.  To see what Isaac looked like over in Florida from Jed’s perspective, click here.

In the sixth boro, a race is a few days away, but vessels like Susan Miller--pushing the barge with the “rolled on and about to be rolled off” trailer–are at work.

Ditto an unidentified DonJon tug, Pati E. Moran, inbound CMM CMA CGM Eiffel, and schooner Pride of Baltimore II go about their business.

Having “rolled-off” said trailer truck, Susan distances herself from Mary Whalen (just the bow at the starboard stern of the cruise ship) and Queen Mary 2.

Viking moves a barge through the KVK,

as does Arabian Sea and 

Weeks’ Elizabeth, 

Dorothy J,

St. Andrews,

Gramma Lee T Moran, and

the list could go on.  Here, Doris Moran and Dace Reinauer . . .  that’s tug work too.   This last foto below comes compliments of Marian & William Hyman.  Thanks.

All other fotos taken by will Van Dorp, who will be at the race Sunday.  Thanks for reading.

Gallivant Ahead Again

Looks like I got lured outa town once again.    Meanwhile . . . Discovery Coast goes on hauling out dredge spoils, and

Pioneer sails toward Red Hook.  Note Mary Whalen in the distance.

And if you’re around on Thursday, make your way to Red Hook to buy stuff–art, tools, etc–to help raise funds for Mary Whalen.  Details here on Rick Old Salt’s blog.

Both fotos by Will Van Dorp, who will try to post fotos from along the course . . . .