North on Gallatin’s Ditches 8

The last leg for now goes from Newport to Warren RI, but given the favorable wind before the torrent, let’s watch those contemporaries who play in this N-Bay city with such a long colonial and post-colonial history.

I’m quite unschooled about these speedsters, like the one showing her red belly.  A 12-meter, I suppose?

Northbound past Beavertail Light?

 

Madeleine heads out to play.

This racer is sponsored by the Danish wind energy company, quite appropriately, as I would hardly expect an ExxonMobil sponsored wind boat, although petroleum energy companies have started investing heavily in renewables . . . so someday soon there might be an Exxon sail racer.   Here’s BP’s portfolio.

 

Aurora has been featured here almost two year ago.

Marilee (1926)  is a classic, as is Pam (1921), once a whiskey runner.

Just as the wind boats use moving air currents to speed, this red tail benefitted from it to hover over a snake, which he eventually dropped, caught, and hauled off behind the tree line . . .

This is not a great photo, but Wallace Foss (1897!!) can be yours for a mere $165,000.  Those winds eventually brought lots of rain, which we

saw as we did the last short step . . . Newport to Warren.

I’d love to have seen NOAA’s Gunter and Bigelow closer up . . .

Gracie M. Reinauer (2016) waited for more favorable offshore weather before heading to the sixth boro.

And finally, after over a 1000 miles on our itinerary, we return to home base, where Niagara Prince welcomes us back.  So does anyone have photos to share of Niagara Prince in the Champlain Canal, the western Erie, Chicago Sanitary Canal, or any other inland waterway where scale make her look immense?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  For a similar focus on sailing vessels associated with a specific water mass, click here for photos from the Great ! Chesapeake Schooner race.

And if you’ve not caught the connection of this journey to Albert Gallatin (a US founding father), click here.

Invisible Gold 4

Here are the previous posts I’ve done on the wind farm southeast of Block Island.  I took the photo below on June 27, as blades to spin the turbines arrived in Narragansett Bay.

Rod Smith took the rest of these photos in late July and early August.

It shows Brave Tern as it prepared to sail out to the farm, deploy its sea legs . .  aka spuds  . .

and put the caps atop the columns onto the bases.

 

For the specs on Brave Tern, you can check them out here,

or here,

or

here.

 

And check out the froth from her stern!

To keep up with construction off Block Island, check out the Deepwater Water site.  Or for even more updates, friend them on FB.

Many thanks to Rod Smith for all these photos except the first one.

I hope to get out that way in October.

Random Tugs 169

Time to recapitulate the “go west” journey and post the many photos of tugboats I’ve omitted . . . .

Passing Senesco, we saw Buckley McAllister approaching us;  I photographed the boat as someone there photographed us.  I’m not sure which Reinauer tug that is in the background.

In the East river the next morning, we passed Cornell at the Brooklyn Barge, a food and drink venue I need to make time to visit.

 

Over by the Circle Line pier, it’s–well–Miss Circle Line, a reinvention of a Matton tug launched in 1955 and previously called Betsy.  Thanks to Paul Strubeck for reading the name board lettering here before it’s applied . . .  That was a joke, but thanks, Paul.

James William moves stone Mississippi River style down the sixth boro into the gargantuan building site encompassing the other five boros.

Near 79th Street, this unidentified tug was supporting a pier project.

Along the Palisades north of the GW Bridge, Comet pushed Eva Leigh Cutler.

 

And Miss Yvette moved a scow not far from where

Carolina Coast waited for her sugar barge to be emptied into the maw of the Domino plant in Yonkers.

 

All photos by will Van Dorp, who hopes to see you at the screening of Graves of Arthur Kill at the the Staten Island ferry terminal on August 13.

Facet Tug Evolution

Bear with me here.  Let’s go back to 1999.  Nicole Leigh Reinauer was built in Alabama Shipyard to push a 135,000 brl barge.  Look at the lines of this 118′ x 40 tug working with 7200 hp.

Ruth M. Reinauer is Senesco hull # 202, 112′ x 35′ and 4000 hp. She is the first of the “facet tugs.”  As you can read in the link in the previous sentence, the design change was driven by easing the construction process of both tugs and double-skin barges.   If the shape of the reminder of tugboats in this post seem odd to you, read this interesting article by Casey Conley with a title that alludes to the (now retired) F-117 fighter.

Laurie Ann Reinauer followed, same dimensions and power and hull # 203.

Reinauer Twins came out in September 2011, same basic dimensions by greater horsepower . .  4720.

I’m not sure what happened with hull#205, but #206 is B. Franklin Reinauer, 110′ x 33′ and 4000 hp.

By the way, there’s a LOT going on in the background of this photo, including what appears to be dredge Atchafalaya in dry dock.

Curtis is hull# 207, same numbers.

 

 

Haggerty Girls is hull# 208, same numbers.

 

 

Dean Reinauer is hull# 210, 112.2′ x 35′ and 4720 hp.

 

 

And that brings us up to date with respect to Reinauer facet tugs . ..  it’s Dylan Cooper, operating less than a full year now, with the same numbers as Dean Reinauer.

 

 

Note that it was exactly five years ago that we were following the trials and tribulations of loading the previous Curtis and Dean Reinauer  onto the heavy lift ship for West African waters.   I’d love to see photos of those tugs five years on and working out of Nigeria.  Does anyone out there have access to such?

For extensive documentation of many of these facet tugs during the building process, click here for the bulging albums created by Rod Smith at Narragansett Bay Shipping.

All photos of the handsome set of workhorses by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Invisible Gold 2

“Black gold”  . . . oil makes power.   You can’t see or smell wind, but it can be used for power . . . and that’s the title of this post.  Yesterday’s photos hinted at the work happening now in the water to eventually harvest that power, and today . . . this records parts of the ribbon-cutting for

the first North American-built wind farm service vessel.

Completion for this 70’6″ x 24′ x 4′  vessel is projected for April, although crews will be training on similar vessels in the UK starting this coming winter.

Hull and superstructure are being worked on separately.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

To the left is Marcia Blount, CEO of Blount, and speaking here is Charles A. Donadio Jr., owner of Rhode Island Fast Ferry.

Over 150 people attended the event.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Click here by Kirk Moore for Workboat.

 

Invisible Gold 1

What is this?

How about a little more of the same shot?  Now can you guess?  Cashman is a familiar New England company .  . . but that tug, Todd Danos, is not exactly a name known in these parts.

Have you figured out the location?  Dace Reinauer and Senesco are the best clues here. Of course, this is the Narragansett Bay.

Weeks tugs Robert and

Elizabeth sometimes work in the sixth boro . . . as here in June 2012.

“Invisible gold” is the term used at the event below–subject of tomorrow’s post.  The speaker to the right is Jeffrey Grybowski, CEO of Deepwater Wind, the project to place wind turbines in +70′ of water southeast of Block Island.  It’s happening now, and all the photos in this post–except the one below–were taken in July and early August by Nate Lopez.

And providing supply and crew support to get “steel in the water” are Rosemary Miller and

Josephine K. Miller.

Again many thanks to Nate for these photos.  More on this project in tomorrow’s post.

 

 

Hoorn-Bound Half Moon 2

Hats off and dinner on the table to Rod Smith of Narragansett Bay Shipping who put in a long day yesterday getting photos of the loading process of Half Moon onto the deck on BigLift Traveller.  Also many thanks to the hospitable crew of Traveller for accommodating Rod.

I’m struck by how diminutive Half Moon looks here.

Water-level . . . pre lifting straps and

after.

And then with hours of careful effort . . .

like a netted fish after a long fight . . .

she settles onto the deck.

Next stop  . . .  Hoorn!

The two last photos of Rod’s  .  .  . the night scenes . . .  suggest time travel:  imagine what Juet would have written in his journal 406 years ago if a big yellow ship had rendezvoused with them on their return to Europe and lifted them onto the deck for a speedy eastbound trip.  Click here for the never-completed blog version of  Henry Hudson’s 1609 trip . . . which lacks an account of THAT Half Moon‘s return to Europe.

Related photos include . . . ones of sister vessel Happy Dynamic, and here here and here  . . . some sampling of Half Moon photos over the years.

Less related:  click here for another Netherlands-bound vessel with a deck load, and here and  here for photos of the arrival of that deck load from a month earlier.

Again, Rod . . .Hartelijk dank . . . or Dziękuję bardzo.

 

Relief Crew 16

Here was 15.  The first relief crew post appeared here over seven years ago.  The idea is to feature someone else’s photos and/or writing, just because so many of you see, photograph, and write such interesting stuff AND –of course–because collaboration is such powerful leaven.

All these photos today come from Birk Thomas.  The event was the departure last week of CV-60 USS Saratoga–Brooklyn built–for the scrapyard.    For some intriguing photos of the other end of her life, click here for this navsource site.

Signet Warhorse III is the motive force.

Iona McAllister, Rainbow, and Buckley McAllister assist with the hookup and departure from Narragansett Bay.

Not until last night did I learn that a final aircraft takeoff and landing was happening at this very moment up on her flight deck.

Warhorse . . . what a name!

Note the riding crew on the deck.

Rainbow straightens out the tow. . .

in the early minutes of the tow.

Again, many thanks to Birk Thomas for use of these photos, which not all of you have seen on Facebook.

Really Random Tugs 19

Name this tug headed for sea as the sunset bathes it in ruby light?

I guess this could turn into a precious materials post.  Hobo, this gold tug at the Costello shipyard in Greenport, appears to have been built 61 years ago by Caddell’s Drydock & Repair.  At this dock, it waits under the protection of this exotic creature of the winds if not waters.

This 55-year old  . . . despite the distant port name carried on its escutcheon, is where?  Check the skyline.

See the Chrysler Building off her port side?  Charlsea is currently in Weehawken.

The ever-wandering Maraki  caught up with Kathy M recently in Eleuthera.

And now . . . back to the ruby-red tug of the lead photo . . . . known as it leaves this port . . .

as Roger Williams, a name soon

to change.  Here she passes Castle Hill Light . . . as I said, bound for sea  . . .

Credits here go to Rod Smith for photos of Roger Williams, Maraki for Kathy M, and all others . . . Will Van Dorp, who is expecting to make a comment about the laurels above the Graves of Arthur Kill cover . . . upper left side of this page  . . . soon.

Thanks again, Rod and Maraki.

More Newest Hull 2

The next three fotos come compliments of Rod Smith, whose Narragansett Bay Shipping site does a thorough job of documenting many things including all newbuilds worked on at Senesco Marine, where the new Caddell’s drydock was constructed.   Here’s the launch day, performed by rolling airbags.  See the upper wheelhouse of newbuild Dean Reinauer to the left behind the shed.  Small tug afloat is Hawk, ex-YTL 153.

Although not quite wide enough to contain a football field, it is more than long enough.  It would certainly redefine the game.

Here’s a foto of the drydock taken from the upperwheelhouse of Dean.  Can anyone identify the tug-in-progress directly in the foreground?

Finally, another of my fotos showing the tow just about home entering the Buttermilk Channel.  The octagonal structure to the left is the vent tower for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

Again, many thanks to Rod for use of these fotos.  If you do Facebook, Rod has just posted fotos of arrival of United Yacht Transport’s Super Servant 4 in Newport, RI.  Now if I were free, I’d head up and watch the float-off process.

Here was my first post on this drydock.