!@#$! I missed the boat!

0631.  I had planned to get photos Cape Edmont depart the sixth boro towed by Kurt J. Crosby . . . on Saturday morning.  When I saw on AIS that McAllister tugs were mustering at the opening of the Bayonne drydock, I thought they just would depart the drydock where it had spent the past months and then do some checks before leaving.

0638.  Sure . . . they’ll depart Saturday morning.  The tugs here are Bruce A., Gregg, Ellen, and Ava M. McAllister. Kurt J. is on the wall south of the drydock. 

0642.  By now Kurt J. had come off the wall.

0655.  Kurt J. was still tailing, but by

0717, Kurt J.  had moved to the bow of the ship, and I was wondering if I should change my plans for the day. 

By 0843, Sorensen Miller had followed the tow south into the Lower Bay, and by then, I was pretty sure I’d missed the boat.

Disappointing, but not the first time. Some gratuitous photos of the vessels then?  I never did get a good shot of the MSC MARAD ship.

And an previously unused photo of the big tug.  Does anyone have photos of this tugboat out of the water?  I’d love to see the propulsion configuration . . . the wheels.

Some days you catch the boat, or the fish, or ___, and then there are those other days.  Maybe my editor will assemble a staff?  

On that subject, I will be traveling inland starting from the 10th until October.  Road photos I’ll be able to do plenty when i have wifi, but that invaluable but anonymous staff will have to carry the water, do the lifting,  and/or take the photos . . . .

Retro Sixth Boro 34 b

This secret lake had great ice for these old boats like Ariel, Ice Queen, Whirlwind, Genevieve, and others.   I was asked not to tell then, and by now I’ve forgotten exactly where this Shangri-la was, but

the ice boating was ideal.  Has anyone heard of Hudson River Valley ice boating happening this year?  The temperature is perfect, but that doesn’t always mean the ice surface is.  I checked here and it doesn’t look favorable.

Evrotas was getting an assist from Amy C McAllister.  Evrotas is currently St. Eustatius-bound from Texas.  Amy C is in the Mariners Harbor yard, and I’ve not seen her in a while.

Amazing, which has to be one of the most amazing extraordinary names for a bulk carrier, was discharging salt.  Currently she’s anchored off Gelendzhik in the Black Sea.  The ice of February 2011, the heat from oil, and the need for salt of the roads interrelate.

Then, as now, the sixth boro was busy with (l to r) dredge New York, GL 501, MSC Yano, Horizon Discovery,  K-Sea’s Maryland, DBL 17. I may have left someone out there.  To choose two of these, the originally Esso Maryland is now Liz Vinik.  Horizon Discovery was scrapped in Brownsville in February 2015.

Ipanema heads out to sea in the rich morning glow.  She may have sailed into her sunset as Norsul Ranaee, unrelated to this photo.

Irida discharges salt.  She appears to have been scrapped.

MOL Partner is inbound on the Con Hook range. That’s a GLDD mechanical dredge at work and (maybe) some Bouchard tugboats in the distant left.  MOL Partner is passing the Aleutians between China and Tacoma.

We leave it here.  All photos from exactly a decade ago, to the month, WVD.

 

Fog 21

Tinkering with the digital file, I’ve made SSV Corwith Cramer clearer here than she was to the naked eye as she came through the foggy Narrows yesterday morning.

Maintaining this blog over many years and springtimes  has taught me how much fog is a spring phenomenon.  Here on a clearer day, Corwith Cramer (1987) raced into the Narrows ahead of a near-summer rainstorm.

USNS Pomeroy is always gray, but she’s even grayer in the fogs of spring.

Had the fog not been here, you’d see the cliffs of Manhattan out beyond this car float,

and to my naked, non-corrected, non-digital eyes, Joyce was much less clear than she is here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s grateful for assistance with photo manipulation tools.

Really Random Tugs 28

“Really random” posts tend to be far-flung, so let’s start out with this photo by Jed, who has contributed many photos recently.   Then there’s JED, who has contributed photos starting from 2008.   The boat dates from 1975.

From Jan Oosterboer via Fred Trooster, here’s the 1955 tug Argus along with

Orion (1961), and

Sirius (1966).  It appears that Sirius–like Orion and Brendan Turecamo–also has a wheelhouse that can be raised.

For the scale of the “tow” here, scroll down and

behold–Thialf, with a combined lifting capacity of over 14,000 tons!!  Click here to see the view down from Thialf’s deck AND be sure to read the comments that follow.   Here are a few other heavy-lifters including Saipem 7000.

Heading back to NYC but as  the South Street Seaport Museum area of the sixth boro of NYC  looked in 1985, from a secret salt, it’s the 1939 USCGC WYT-93, Raritan!  The two vessels around her are, of course 1885 schooner Pioneer and 1908 lightship Ambrose.  Click here for a list of specifics and missions on Raritan, but one of her operations was against M/V Sarah of Radio NewYork International.  M/V Sarah was eventually blown up for a movie stunt.

And rounding this post out . . . from Elizabeth, in Alameda, it’s  the 1943 YT-181 Mazapeta.

In the distance is T-AKR-1001 GTS Admiral W. M. Callaghan, an MSC RORO named for a significant USN officer.

Credit for each of these photos is as attributed.  Thanks to you all.

Other Watersheds 16

Here’s an index of the series.

Can you place the scene below . . . on the other side of the tracks?   Photos come thanks to Elizabeth Wood who’s on her own gallivant.

I’ve never been here, but now  . . .  it’s moved way up on my list.

It’s Grand Canyon State and some sister vessels,

Cape Orlando,

and USCGC Waesche.

For a different shade of gray than the ones above, here’s Matson’s Mahimahi.

And here’s Ahbra Franco assisting

Hanjin Buddha.  I can’t identify the tractor alongside the Hanjin ship.

I see a trip to the Bay area in my future.

Many thanks to Elizabeth for these photos.

Somewhat related:  To see what gray paint bowsprite has recently spilled, click here.

Sixth Boro Details 6

Click here to read the first five posts in this series.

I’ve noticed the vessel below docked along the south side of GMD Bayonne the last few days, and wondered about the name, Capt. David I Lyon, which sounds unusually American for a ship in the harbor.   Looking closer, I see the  black-gray-blue-yellow stack stripes that identify it as an MSC vessel, not to be confused with this type of MSC vessel.   I turns out Capt. David I Lyon is a very newly christened MSC vessel, and here’s the rest of the story.    Hat’s off.

Completely unrelated . . . there must be some fish swarming alongside the vessel, maybe feeding and leaving scraps for the gulls.

Check out Zim Texas, looking like a typical sixth boro sized c-ship . . . loaded with a few thousand identical containers.  But . . .

up there near the top of the stack . . .

I’ll never know what oversize cargo is wrapped there.  Here’s a post I did the first time I noticed that not all cargo on a c-ship is containers.  Here’s another.

And finally, yesterday I overheard the conversation of these two cormorants .  . saying something about Gabby and the brightly colored squares, and I thought they were talking about a 1960s rock band I don’t remember.    But then I looked out beyond the two chatty birds and noticed

Gabby.  That Gabby, but what was the cargo on this barge?

Can you see it better here . . . thanks to New York Media Boat, the best way to see what’s happening in the sixth boro.  Many thanks to Bjoern for sharing this photo.   Here, from the Staten Island Advance, is more detail.

Again . . . thanks to my friend Bjoern for sharing this photo.  And if you are out on the water today, keep your eyes open wide . . . and cameras handy.

All other photos by Will Van Dorp.

Government Boats 29

Here was 28.

Click here for a photo of this tug showing its deep belly.  How long has the canal owned her?  Answer follows.

Click here for info on Arkansas-built Gelberman, here photographed yesterday pulling a tree out of the way of navigation.

Driftmaster I believe dates from 1947, making her older than me.   Scroll through here for photos of Driftmaster helping with clean-up post Sandy.

Jersey City fire vessel Joseph Lovero is named for their dispatcher who died in that attack twelve and a half years ago.

343 arrived in the harbor nearly four years ago.  Click here for the welcome ceremony in the harbor when she arrived in April 2010.

T-AKR  316 Pomeroy, named for a Medal of Honor winner who died on a Korean mountain at age 22,  has been dry-docked in Bayonne for about a month now for maintenance.

Click here for more info on the Watson-class.

So we’re back to the beginning.  Governor Roosevelt came to the canal as a steam-powered icebreaker in 1927!  I’d love to see pics of canal traffic from back then.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Something Different 11

Cold winter waterscapes –like especially hot dry landscapes –delight with the optical ilusions they yield.  Behold Hyundai Glory . . . or maybe just an assemblage of coherent containers hovering together.

Have a look at MSC Catania.   On the left in the distance, notice the very long  arm of the Statue of Liberty, and midway between it and the ship . . . a very tall building in Queens, One Court Square, looking much taller than its 50 stories.

Rosemary Miller ? (center)  meets Torm Aslaug, which triggered today’s series.

Sand Master and sand mining barge nearly spans the Narrows.

Tanker Cape Tallin heads for the anchorage, passing the tops of the towers of Marine Parkway.

Here’s the foto that started the series.  notice two grayish shapes forward of the bow of Torm Aslug?  I could see them all the way from the top of a bridge on the Belt Parkway.

Here, as seen from Mount Mitchill, the highest headland on the east coast south of Maine . . .  you can see the same two vessels–MSC by the color of their stacks–and McAllister Responder.

This is the closest I could get . . . . T-AKE 13 USNS Medgar Evers at the Leonardo docks of  Naval Weapons Station Earle.

East of her . . . I don’t know, but my guess would be a T-AOE.

Any guess on the viewpoint of Manhattan with Hood Island departing back south for more tropical fruit?

It’s taken from the same ridge at Sandy Hook, looking down across the still closed Sandy Hook National Park area.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Post-Stormy Miscellany 2

Two weeks ago, Sandy raged, leaving a deadly and disastrous trail through the sixth boro and surrounding land masses.  Athena has also blanketed us, through many green leaves somehow remain on trees.  Companies are attempting to return to routine.  Ever notice how much the KVK channel zigzags, as seen here with APL Spinel tailing Meagan Ann and her scow.  The strait’s not at all straight.

Clearly what’s blasted from and scooped out of the AK is virgin rock.

Sandy scoured away much of the volunteer vegetation along the KVK.  A foto taken here a month ago would show lots of weeds and a quite living tree.

The absence of cover makes it easier for this hawk to spot the “shore squirrels.”

Storms eroding a beach sometimes uncover shipwreck (here and here) , treasure, skeletons . . . all manner of stuff. See the last foto here, taken about 20 years ago.  The surge along one section of the KVK unearthed dozens of these bricks.  Is Belgian Syndicate a local firm?

A fair number of government boats are still around, like this one . . . taking advantage of unseasonal warmth . . . and

Clean Waters, a Region 2 EPA vessel I’d heard about but never seen until yesterday.  Given Region 2’s size, I wonder how many other vessels–I saw Kenneth Biglane once once and that was already three years ago–they have and where they’re usually homeported.

Wright and Kennedy (only the stacks are visible forward of Wright’s house) are still in town.  Understandably, some folks I’ve talked to still live in conditions far from normal.

I’m guessing this train–unusual as it is– has to do with the completion of a job, not Sandy:  Sea Bear tows a train of eight or nine vessels, including  Iron Wolf.

Yet, recreational sail has returned. Sun Dragon is the nearer.

Line handlers aboard CSAV Rio Aysen . . .  (check their recent stops at that link) take in all this harbor activity.   Vessel is named for a river in southern Chile.

All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp, for whom the sixth boro is among other things an ever-changing puzzle.

Government Boats 22

Here was installment #21.

This foto was taken from Front Street in Stapleton, Staten Island.  The gray vessel is docked at the pier now used by Firefighter II.  What’s remarkable about this foto–I think–is that Hurricane Sandy has brought together here  (l to r) a re-purposed C5 and a repurposed C4, two old-fashioned but reborn American built ships.  Let’s take them chronologically.  The black hull is T/S Kennedy, a C4-S-66a originally built by Avondale Industries as Velma Lykes, has been activated to serve as housing for relief workers.  Thank you Mass Maritime.   The gray hull is SS Wright, a C5-S-78a originally built by Ingalls Shipbuilding as Mormacsun, was quite some time ago reconfigured as aviation (helicopter) logistics support ship T-AVB-1.

Here’s as close as I could get, and

here’s a view from the south.

RIBs are a common sight here, and

Is this the Moose boat that sank off Breezy Point back in September 2012?

And finally . . . I know Patrick Sky is not a government boat, but she was posing here yesterday with a snmall UACE vessel.

While looking at this list of MARAD design vessels, which include Wright and Kennedy, I notice E. A. Fisher, built in 1963 and donated to NYC in 1993.  Of course, I’m new on this scene, but has anyone heard of this vessel?  What became of it?