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?

From the Line Locker 12

Here was 11.

First, this foto from Colin Syndercombe in Cape Town, and I believe the foto comes from The Latest Maritime News.  It appears MV Chamarel, which burned earlier in August off Namibia, will become yet another wreck in the sands of the Skeleton Coast.

To Michele McMorrow, thanks for her foto of Walrus, snapped near Bahr’s Landing in Highlands, NJ.  At first I thought it was being delivered for use by tugster . . .  I was mistaken.

RORO Cape Washington is the latest MSC vessel in for maintenance at the dry dock in Bayonne.

Currently in the sixth boro, it’s almost-new NCC Shams, not an inspiring name unless you consider that “shams” is Arabic for “sunshine.”

My foto snapped in Port Huron, it’s Lakes Pilots Association’s Huron Maid.

Also along the Port Huron waterfront, it’s Grayfox, a Sea Cadet vessel.

And finally  . . . since this post started with a walrus and since tugster does NOT appear in person frequently on this blog, here’s a foto of tugster and Badger on the waterfront in Manitowoc.  And apropos of nothing . . .  what’s the connection between dachshund and badger?

First enjoy the foto below and read this announcement from Old Salt’s blog here.

Answer:  “dach” is German for “badger,” so the word “dachshund” means “badger dog.”  Now you know !!

Unless otherwise attributed, all fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Other People’s Fotos 20

Here was 19.

From  Towingline.com, a foto I’ve long sought:  NYC prison barge Resolution leaving the sixth boro (East River portion) on Giant 4 in 1997, assisted by ITC Towage tug Suhaili. She traveled to the UK, where she became HM Prison Weare.  It seems that less than a decade later, her use as a prison was discontinued, although I’m not sure the vessel has been scrapped.   Credit for the foto goes to Hans van der Ster and to Smit.    Currently the sixth boro is home to prison vessel Vernon C. Bain.

The next fotos–updates on T-ATF 172 Apache come compliments of Mark Helmkamp, Ocean Tug & Salvage Ship Class Manager for the Military Sealift Command.  The foto below shows the handoff of the decommissioned sub USS Philadelphia from Apache to Sioux at the former Rodman Naval Station.

Note the sub on the wire on the Pacific side of the ride.

The next two fotos show Apache towing the sub through the Miraflores Locks.   It’s rainy season at the Canal.  Many thanks to Dianne Woods-Olvera Cavness for these fotos.

x

And finally, from Cape Town and thanks to Colin Syndercombe, a followup on Mighty Servant . . .  here carrying an unidentified oil rig.

And if I’ve whetted your appetite for workboats hither and yon, check out what Jed located in the BVI here.

This compilation from Will Van Dorp, who’s back in the sixth boro after a family gallivant.  For fotos, see the top 100 fotos on the Flickr show along the left margin.

From the Line Locker 11

A line locker, in my experience, is the place on a boat where all manner of miscellaneous line and rope is kept.  It’s like the “junk drawer” in your house.  I haven’t used this title in over three years, but when I get behind and have a set of unrelated fotos, it seems a needed catergory.

So . . .  since yesterday’s post had a foto of  Indy 7, which Harold Tartell’s wonderfully detailed in a comment, I went back to fotos from two years ago that I’ve never posted.  Behold the stern of Indy 7′s mother ship, Brooklyn Navy Yard’s own CV-62, USS Independence, which as of two years ago still

languished in Bremerton, WA, next to another Brooklyn vessel, USS Constellation, the last carrier built anywhere other than Norfolk.    Indy 7 . . . behold your mother.

The next three fotos come from John Watson.  Here’s another shot of the Chinese-built Algerian corvette Soummam 937.  Here–scroll through interesting fotos of other “small navies” –are some fotos of Soummam at the shipyard in Shanghai.

Also from John, recently the Massachusetts Maritime Academy T/S Kennedy left the sixth boro after work at GMD Brooklyn.

Here’s John’s Friday morning foto of Horizon Producer, in service since 1974;  by Saturday, she was outbound for San Juan.

I took this foto Friday morning, mostly curious about the two tanks on the afterdeck.

A few weeks ago here I ran the “fish flag.”  In response, Capt. Mark Helmkamp, manager of Ocean Tug and Salvage Ship class for the Military Sealift Command wrote the following:  “I had APACHE paint the “Fish Flag” on her bridge wing in reference to the Navy ASR’s – particularly the CHANTICLEER Class that I rode as a young officer – as the T-ATFs picked up that Navy mission along with the T-ARSs when the ASRs (CHANTICLEERs and PIGEONs) were decom’d.  The Fish Flag was flown during Submarine Rescue Chamber ops – the McCann chamber – designed by Swede Momsen, [my note:  who grew up in Queens].  The ASRs used to exercise the SRC to a ‘false seat” a few times a year after laying a four-point moor using the “cloverleaf method” that preceded GPS. . .

 We also had the Fish Flag painted on the bows of the ASRs…this goes back to the SQUALUS rescue. . .

Currently, SALVOR [T-ARS-52] is eligible to paint the Fish Flag too as she has worked the SRC for training.”

The MSC poster below shows sibling vessels of Salvor.

When I visited Apache in Little Creek, I also saw Grapple ARS-53.

Grapple was involved in the recovery efforts for Egypt Air Flight 990 off Nantucket in 1999.   Click here for a complete set of missions performed by T-ARS Grasp, including the recovery of JFK Jr.’s Piper 32 and remains.

Thanks to all who contributed.

Unrelated:  Thanks to Walter Scott for sending along this obit.

T-ATF 172 USNS Apache 2

How about a quick walk-through of Apache?  Here’s part 1, if you missed it. And here and here are links to the shipyard where she was built.  The masts (main to fore) are just under 90′ and just over 60′.

Apache and sister vessels’ mission is towing and submarine support.  This is no design for towing alongside or nose-in-notch.

Here’s a slightly different view of the “fish” I posted last week.  Tally marks show instances of participation in submarine salvage and rescue exercises.

Also, an update/answer to a question in that post:  the vessel in the second foto is former USCGC Salvia, now a training hulk.  The rusty boxes foreward and abaft the stack  are fire boxes, making Salvia a “fire boat,” NOT as in one that fights fires, but rather, one where fire fighting training can happen.

Here’s a different view from yesterday’s of the bridge.  The unit foreground and right is the ECDIS, which complements the traditional paper chart/dividers approach to navigation.  Imagine on the bridge and elsewhere in the vessel equipment that didn’t exist back in July 1981, when she was delivered.

The wooden wheel surprised me, but wat surprised me even more was

an indication of how responsive it could be.  As I understand it, those are degrees of heading.  Altering course two degrees to starboard takes very little turn of the wheel.

Here’s a view of the foredeck from the “walk-around,” which I assume has another name.

The “cardiac gym” is located between

the stacks.  This is the portside stack.

The afterdeck is long and open, as on an offshore supply vessel, making Apache versatile.  It can tow, but it can also replenish at sea from a helicopter hovering over the white box and

carry containers bolted down in this adjustable grid.  Each stud here (most 24″ apart) can be replaced by an eye.

Apache has a 10-ton capacity crane and

two winches, one for wire and another for synthetic line. .

Power is supplied by twin GM EMD 20-645F7B engines providing a total of 7200 hp to the Kort-nozzled 9′ diameter  controllable pitch props.

Food–shown here in the deck mess–on the vessel is supplied by the Steward department:  steward cook, cook/baker, and steward utilityman.

All fotos here by will Van Dorp.

For more fotos of Apache, click here for fotos by Rod Smith from 2010.

As I understand it, Apache will soon be leaving for the Panama Canal with a sub in tow;  Apache hands the sub off to a sibling T-ATF on the Pacific side of the Canal.  I’d love to see fotos of her traversing the Miraflores locks. . .  I’d love to go back, but . . .

Postscript to yesterday’s post, which started with a foto of ex-T-ATF 166 Powhatan (now Turkish Coast Guard Navy  Inebolu A-590):  you know that a Turkish F-4 was shot down over the Mediterranean late in June.  Guess who retrieved the jet and victims from the seabed?  Robert Ballard’s EV Nautilus and . . .   TCG Inebolu.  

Bosphorus Naval News looks to be an interesting blog, which I’ve now added to my blogroll.   A trip to Istanbul may be in my future??

Again, many thanks to MSC Public Affairs Officer Susan Melow for setting up a visit and to Apache Second Officer Michael R. Rankin for guiding the tour.

I’d still love to see some fotos from Apache’s visits to Kingston, NY, in the late 80′s and in 2000, per Harold’s comment yesterday.

T-ATF 172 USNS Apache 1

Click on the image below and you’ll see how I posted it just over five years ago.  So what do the big blue tug Powhatan below, Ellen McAllister, USCG Katherine Walker, ATB Brandywine, ATB Dublin Sea. and the Staten Island Ferry Spirit of America (as well as ferries Molinari and Marchi) all have in common?

For starters, the Menominee River in Wisconsin.   And from that, given corporate acquisitions, an “in-law” relationship exists with Fincantieri vessels including Costa Concordia as well as the caissons that’ll try to re-float her.

But closer to home, the list above was built at the same Wisconsin shipyard as seven fleet ocean tugs, four of which are active in Military Sealift Command today.  Click here for the 2012 MSC vessels poster, one fifth of which is reproduced below.  MSC operates over 100 vessels today using 5500 civilian mariners.  Civil servant mariners!!

The DonJon Marine Powhatan above has since 2008 become Inebolu A-590 of the Turkish Navy.

The Powhatan-class T-ATFs hare huge, by New York tugboat stands:   226′ loa x 42′ x 15.’

And they do long, large tows.  Here about a year ago, Apache begins to tow a decommissioned USS Nassau to join the reserve fleet  in Texas.  Click here for more context on the foto, taken from USNS Grapple, another MSC vessel that may appear on this blog soon.

Thanks to Birk Thomas, I have a few more fotos of Apache in New London.  Note the towline . . . attached to a sub in this 2010 foto, and  . . .

light in 2011.   Here’s a question I do NOT know the answer to:  Apache visited NYC before 2001, but I don’t know when.  Does anyone recall this?  Have a foto of this?

In the next post, we look inside Apache.  Next question . . . does this marlinespike seamanship have a name?  Would this have been original to this 1981 vessel?  By the way, Apache’s 31st b’day (technically d’day . . . D for delivery)   is late July.

Only the first and last fotos are by Will Van Dorp. The second and third from last are thanks to Birk Thomas.  All the others come from Military Sealift Command.   Many thanks to Susan Melow, MSC Public Affairs Officer,  for setting up a visit and to Apache Second Officer Michael R. Rankin for guiding the tour.

Click here to see Apache towing USS Forrestal.  Here she is in St. Petersburg.  Finally, here she deals with Atlantic Ocean pirates.

Finally, once again, does anyone remember when Apache visited NYC?  Is there an archive online for vessels visiting during Fleet Weeks going back to 1982?