You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Metropolitan Marine Transportation’ category.
Discovery Coast has been around for over a decade now. One of my first times to see her was here.
Lightning has only recently been joined by Thunder, here. Might tugs named for other weather phenomena like hail and fog be coming?
Helen was only renamed that earlier this year; before that, she was Charles Burton.
Thomas D. Witte appeared here only once as Kendall P. Brake, and that was a decade and a half ago with Powhatan, class-establisher for Apache.
Defender last appeared on this blog a year and a half ago here . . . She was
formerly Davis Sea, my favorite photo of which was here, struggling with solid water upriver.
Pearl Coast is a regular at the cement dock on the KVK, here with Cement Transporter 1802, one of a fleet of barges dedicated to exactly that.
And while I was at this location, I caught a convergence of tugboats, Pegasus eastbound and Stephen Reinauer westbound. Stephen has been in the sixth boro for nearly 30 years now.
All photos, WVD.
Lightning is here and has been for at least four years, and Thunder is on its way.
From 2014 and therefore two years newer than Lightning, Adeline Marie, previously Denise A. Bouchard, was heading over to the Industry Day on Wednesday. I caught a few photos of her as Rubia in between her original and her latest livery.
The 2006 Kristin Poling first came to the sixth boro as the 5000 hp 111′ x 36′ Chesapeake. Here was my first good view of her as a Poling/Cutler tugboat.
Atlantic Enterprise has been keeping busy with runs with dredge spoils from the North River passenger terminal out to the dump site aka HARS. For a day’s worth of reading, click here for a July 2022 report on HARS.
The 1981 Susan Miller pushes a small deck barge through congested waters here. She’s been working in the boro for as long as I’ve been doing this blog.
The 1968 Marie J. Turecamo has worked in the Moran livery for over 20 years.
Scale is clear from this side-by-side photo of the 2007 Saint Emilion (105′ x 38′ and 4800 hp) and the 1982 McCormack Boys ( 74′ x 26′ and 1200 hp), both hauled out over at Bayonne Dry Dock.
The 2007 Normandy (79′ x 27′ and 1900 hp) has been in the boro since 2015.
The 1981 Navigator (64′ x 24′ and 1200 hp) has to be one among the busiest boats in the harbor and the region.
The 1975 Mary Emma (100′ x 31′ and 3900 hp) has worked under this livery since 2021. I caught her transformation here about a year ago.
All photos and any errors, WVD, who thanks you for continuing to read this blog.
In part 1, Treasure Coast slowly made her way to mid KVK, and I thought it was to get fuel, but it was soon apparent that she was there for an assist, to help ATB Galveston and Petrochem Producer to get off the dock.
The scale of Galveston is apparent from the workboat; the tug is 144′ x 46′.
She’s slightly larger than Lynne M. Rose, and works with a total of 12,000 hp.
My vantage point has not changed here, so the movement here derives from the ATB powering astern.
Notice just to the left to the mooring line spools . . .
Normandy is the second assist tug.
Once the ATB is pointed east, the assist tugs back off.
Treasure Coast follows the ATB toward the Upper Bay.
As of posting, ATB Galveston/Petrochem Producer are off Palm Beach on their way to western Louisiana.
All photos, WVD, who has just confirmed a return to the bayous of western LA myself next week.
Unrelated: If you’ve always dreamed of owning a tugboat yacht, here‘s one that popped into my feed just before post time. Below are two photos I took of the same tugboat, Shenandoah, in Waterford on September 13, 2009.
Tug44 was a friend of the Buffalo-based owners at that time, Baltimore registry notwithstanding.
Wow! It’s time to flip the calendar to March 2022 already; that means flashing back to March 2012. A photo of Bow Chain on the KVK seems a good place to start, for reasons apparent at the end of this post.
Since these “retro” posts highlight what’s no more to be seen, this is a good one, Brendan, a 6140 hp tug that now is Cindy Rose.
Sea-land Racer dominates the foreground, but look at the unmistakable Viking farther back.
Yes, I mean this Eklof-KSea-Kirby 4300 hp Viking, dismantled a few years ago already.
This 3900 hp Brendan still works daily in the boro.
Also passing the Sea-land Racer is this 1900 hp Pegasus, when she looked as she had coming from the shipyard without an upper wheelhouse. Pegasus is still a busy machine in the port.
2012 was the year I decided to see the Panama Canal before the new sections opened. In the middle ground here between the Miraflores locks and the ridge, you can see the mounds of dirt on the middle distant ground. Those mounds represent dirt displaced digging the new channels.
In the farther lane, Pacific-bound it’s Nord Snow Queen and nearer . . . Atlantic Polaris. And again in the photo below, see the dirt removed to create the new channel. As of this writing, Atlantic is at the dock in Houston and Nord between the ancient, now-Russian port of Novorossiysk and wherever she will be able to enter port.
See more dirt on the nearer ridge? And the traffic, like Chiquita Schweiz and now called Schweiz Reefer, it continues night and day
Tugboats–see many of them here–have a greater role in the new Panama Canal channels, replacing the locomotives evident in some of the photos above and below, but they were already plentiful pre-expansion. Here Veraguas 1 heads Pacificward…
assisting Bow Summer in accompaniment with
locomotives aka mules, once supplied by GE but now sourced elsewhere. Ever Dynamic, like the Odfjell parcel tankers whose names begin with “bow” [no doubt named for the renowned bowsprite],
are as likely to be seen in any major port as in the sixth boro. Ever Dynamic had been in the sixth boro just a month earlier than here, making me almost feel like it was welcoming me to Panama, which I found a very hospitable place. Bow Summer as of this writing waits outside a South African port. Ever Dynamic was dismantled in Alang almost exactly two years ago.
All photos, WVD, in March 2010.
Sea-land Racer and Viking have both been dismantled in the past five years, Racer in Alang and Viking in Texas.
Two separate parties sent me this article from the LA Times. With a title including the phrase “humble tugboat,” I was interested but not prepared for the fantastic photos. Thx John and George. Enjoy. Meanwhile, here are some more of my recent photos.
James D. Moran assisting on a towline above and Robert Weeks leaving the fuel dock below,
Andrea walled off from her barge above and Sarah Ann light below,
Gregg McAllister returning to base and Pegasus heading to work,
A light William Brewster and an equally light Daisy Mae,
Mackenzie Rose and Philadelphia, and
to close out this installment . . . Kimberly Turecamo assisting a ULCV.
All photos, WVD, who never associated the adjective “humble” with tugboats or their operators, and that’s not a bad thing.
If you’re new to this blog (or even if you are not), I’m always looking for photos from other people and places, especially, tugboats seen in South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australia.
Snow is the norm in January in the sixth boro, and we’ve just had unusual weather. On January 2, I was splitting NY wood wearing a t-shirt in the balmy almost 60 degrees.
As you may have guessed, I slipped my noon deadline today because I wanted some evidence of the normal snow accumulation that happened overnight.
Enjoy the results.
Decks are cleared, but snow blown into the outside of the bulwarks is just decorative.
Docklines and footing DO need to be cleared so that
operations proceed with safety.
If you’re not accustomed to this weather, you may not appreciate how unpleasant this pretty stuff can be,
especially if, as I hadn’t, you’ve not waterproofed your boots. Wearing the right clothes and footwear, helps you stay warm and safe.
Bollard pull remains the same, a little snow notwithstanding.
All photos today, WVD.
Deck the hulls . . .
the bell sound signal device and railings too.
And I’ll leave that song right there.
Kimberly Turecamo has a wreath around the bell also, but
consistent with the Kimberly crew, there’s more.
Merry Christmas all . . .
All photos, WVD.
Here was last year’s M is for Merry.
Yesterday’s post ended with Timothy L.
Sarah Ann, and
Treasure Coast at different amounts obscured by the fog.
Treasure Coast spun around before my location to set Cement Transporter 7700
into the Lafarge North America Bayonne
dock with assist by Pegasus. I wondered about the vintage of Cement Transporter 7700; she was launched from Todd Shipyard in Houston in December 1981 as Ideal II, then Midnight 1, and now its current moniker. Todd Shipyard has a distinctly Manhattan origin in the form of DeLameter Iron Works.
Meanwhile, from the western end of the KVK came
a Manzanillo-bound Lars Maersk assisted by James D. Moran.
At that same moment, Pegasus, after having completed the Treasure Coast assist, heads west of the Bayonne Bridge.
From that same fog bank west of the Bayonne Bridge emerge Daisy Mae pushing a light scow and
Cape Henry, returning to its barge at the west end of IMTT.
All photos, WVD, who is happy days will soon be getting longer.
Gray day, gray water, gray sky, gray bridge, grayish black barge, gray upper wheelhouse . . . . I just had to saturate that patch of bluish cloud.
I’d seen Susan Rose on AIS with Normandy as escort, and I figured that meant she was pushing a barge, a loaded barge.
You can see where the old identification has been painted out. RCM must be Rose Cay Marine . . . ?
The yellow patch “under” the ladder really pops.
And she’s headed upriver.
All photos, WVD, who has a busy week ahead.
By the way, my first photos of this boat appeared here in 2019.
Happy 31st, aka Halloween, World Savings Day, Day of Seven Billion, National Candy Apple Day, Annual visit a cemetery or graveyard day . . . and more. If you need suggestions for a graveyard, consider this one. And just yesterday, I learned of this one and this one. Who knew?!!? Want to revisit a tugster ghost post?
For this post, there’s a quiz. The first part is … name the oldest and newest boat here. The second part … identify the only two boats here NOT built in Louisiana. Of course, building is one thing, and designing is another.
All photos taken this October. Susan Miller,
Miriam Moran and Pegasus,
Andrea,
Gregg McAllister,
Robert IV,
Buchanan 12,
Navigator,
Robert Burton,
Shawn Miller,
Pearl Coast,
Miss Ila,
Mary Turecamo,
and the always seasonal Kimberly Turecamo.
There you have it . . . And I’ll give the answers tomorrow.
And my question is . . . who is Miss Ila‘s namesake and what do you call that shade of red?
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments