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For what might be considered an exotic among exotics, let’s go back to Pete Ludlow’s photos, meet Windserve Odyssey.
As an all-purpose offshore wind farm support vessel, it is just one vessel type that will be more common in the years to come. The blog alluded to this particular vessel and a possible transit through the sixth boro back last September. Pete’s photo here confirms that it did transit back on the first day of 2022.
Hat tip and thanks, Pete, for catching this.
Tugster is still gallivanting far away from the sixth boro, will be for the better part of a week yet, leaving the robots in charge. We test the perimeter, push the parameters, but in our own robotic ways, support the mission.
I’d planned something else for today, but then I saw the tree! See it on the bow of Pilot No 2 New Jersey? And that reminded me it was Three Kings day, Epiphany.
The colors are always best when wind chills are biting. Pilot No 2 and the smaller boat, America, went out as it were in a procession.
America stayed out over the horizon, but New Jersey returned, tree intact.
This reminded me also of photos I’d taken from New York Media Boat and had intended to use for my Christmas post. From its station out at the sea end of Ambrose Channel, the VZ Bridge is clearly seen.
Coming from sea, this is first glimpse of the port, two states and all six boros.
Safe year to all.
All photos, WVD. Thanks to New York Media Boat.
Six years ago, I posted this for Three Kings. And the tree makes this a great complementary bookend for this season.
Serendipity is as scintillating as any fireworks. And I hope today’s post is an illustration . . . . Can you make sense of the photo below?
A car carrier came into the sixth boro less than a week ago, and I happened to be in a place that afforded this perspective. Just luck. It reminded me of the question about the tree falling in the woods when now one’s around. If I’d not been at my location when Liberty Promise steamed by, would it really have happened? What a name, too, Liberty Promise, and a Jones Act RORO with a registry given as NY NY!* This is unicorn-rare, folks.
*Someone got a waiver to make this a Jones Act RORO, built 2010.
I keep most kinds of politics (eg, partisan) off this blog, but celebrating as profound a political holiday as Independence Day . . . the foundation day, is paramount. The oldest magazine in the world, The Scots Magazine, had this reaction in August 1776 to the Philadelphia signing: “these gentlemen ‘assume to themselves an unalienable right of talking nonsense’.” That’s some wit!
Take some time in the next few days to think about a country of over 331 million celebrating liberty’s promise, and how that promise gets fulfilled. My vantage point, my perspective for taking this photo was entirely unique; no one was within a 100′ of me when I took it; similarly, remember that your perspective on July 4 in the USA is personal, unique, and that means 331 million folks have a different perspective on everything, including liberty’s promise.
By the way, as of this posting, Liberty Promise has just entered Jacksonville FL.
All photos, WVD, whose previous independence day posts can be found here. I plan to spend the day/weekend working, chasing a “spectacular warship” down the Hudson.
Happy 245th!
This is my Janus post . . . which I’ll start with a photo I took in January 2007 of an intriguing set of sculptures, since licensed to Trinity Church in Manhattan.
Since I’ve tons to do today, comment will be minimal. The photo below I took near the KVK salt pile on January 14, 2016. Eagle Ford, to the right, has since been scrapped in Pakistan.
The history of Alnair, photo taken in Havana harbor on February 4, 2016, is still untraced. It looks like an ex-USN tug. Click here for more Cuban photos.
This photo of JRT Moran and Orange Sun I took on March 12.
This photo of Hudson was taken in Maassluis, very near where my father grew up, on April 4. Many more Maassluis photos can be found here.
Sandmaster I photographed here on May 6. since then, she’s moved to Roatan, I’m told, and I’d love to go there and see how she’s doing. Maybe I can learn some Garifuna while I’m there.
June 1, I took this, with Robert E. McAllister and an invisible Ellen escorting Maersk Idaho out the door.
July 14, I saw GL tug Nebraska yank bulkier Isolda with 56,000 tons of corn through a narrow opening and out the Maumee.
August 23 I caught Atlantic Sail outbound past a nearly completed Wavertree. And come to think of it, this is a perfect Janus photo.
September 9 at the old port in Montreal I caught Svitzer Montreal tied up and waiting for the next job.
October 18, I caught Atlanticborg and Algoma Enterprise down bound between Cape Vincent and Clayton NY.
November 4, while waiting for another tow, I caught Sarah Ann switching out scrap scows in the Gowanus.
And I’ll end this retrospective Janus post with a mystery shot, which I hope to tell you more about in 2017. All I’ll say is that I took it yesterday and can identify only some of what is depicted. Anyone add something about this photo?
I feel blessed with another year of life, energy, gallivants, and challenges. Thank you for reading and writing me. Special thanks to you all who sent USPS cards ! I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2017. Here’s what Spock would say and where he got it.
Here was my “last hours” post from 2015. And here from the year before with some vessels sailing away forever. And here showing what I painted in the last hours of 2013. And one more with origins “oud jaardag” stuff from the finale of 2011.
The foto below is Nellie Crockett, a 1925-6 Tangier Island “buy boat” that may never have cleaved sixth boro waters, but–used with permission here from the FB page Chesapeake Bay Buy Boat–certainly conveys the notion of a workboat decorated for the end-o-year holidays.
The rest of these fotos come courtesy of Justin Zizes, taken earlier this week in the Hudson off the west side of mid-town. Circle Line does lights this way. Here’s how you could get on board.
Nearby, World Yacht does it this way. And although you can’t get on for the end-o-year holiday, there are many other events.
Notice anything interesting about this arrangement? Look to the left side of the foto.
It’s Sea Bear aka Sea Gus as the red-nosed draft animal.
Here’s that same small tug without the Rudolphian accoutrements.
Many thanks to Justin Zizes and to Chesapeake Bay Buy Boats for permission to use these fotos.
In the next week or so, if you take a foto of a workboat–or mariner– with colored lights a la Christmas, please send it to tugster. I could possibly even come up with a gift for what we deem as the best foto. By the way, I’m still mildly obsessed with finding a foto of the 1997 transport of the Rockefeller Center tree down the Hudson via tug Spuyten Duyvil and barge.
And what is the story of Sea Bear aka Sea Gus? It looks to be cut of the same plans as 8th Sea.
Bonne annee from Savannah, but look who’s working: crews of Maersk Jenaz and tugboat Bulldog.
Except this bridge officer, maybe.
Transfighter heads out in the setting sun to meet 2010 at sea.
Diane Moran travels upriver for an assist.
Another shot of Diane Moran with Cape Charles farther back and Peacemaker to the right.
And a final shot for now . . . Cape Henlopen upriver as well.
More soon. Happy New Year whether you’re at work or play. Ooops! In honor of Conrad‘s steam whistles tonight, which I’ll miss, check out Susie
King Taylor‘s whistles as well as
the calliope on Georgia Queen.
Party at least a little tonight (in the blinking of an eye if that’s all the time you can afford). Happy 2010.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Here was the first post in this series. Some months back I wondered what this vessel was; only by the time it had sailed a thousand miles southward did I realize it was a dredger, B. E. Lindholm. If only I had gone around the barge here at the east end of Caddell’s . . . . But I was in a hurry that morning. Kenny Wilder took these fantastic dredge fotos for which I am grateful. All my hopper dredger fotos are too far away to demystify the bottom vacuuming business. More Lindholm fotos can be found here.
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock has a hopper dredger in the harbor right now, but my shots are
always too far off. This trailing suction hopper dredger is called Padre Island.
Here’s a GLDD clamshell submerged and probing the topography of the bottom of the bay,
emerging,
and re-submerged.
Here’s a hydraulic excavator. The equipment is mammoth.
Deeper, deeper, the task seems herculean and somewhat futile at the same time, except it’s not.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
To see how the huge dredger Leiv Eiriksson is put together, click here.
Dredging . . . besides being essential work of the harbor, it reminds me of how my consciousness works: each morning, whatever the hour, when I wake up, my perception is affected by whatever topography of my memory is then exposed. It may be peaks or valleys or even human-created highs and lows. Stuff resolved or not but accepted last week or last year needs to be dealt with again and again. Not that I’m a slow learner, just new perspective brings new doubts, refreshed hopes. Unsettling, pun intended. I suppose this makes a post about dredging an apt end-of/beginning-of year post.
Related to dredging is dealing with the nagging stuff that comes up in many of our consciousnesses as relates to getting along with people. A type of post I’m thinking to add is an advice column. Being on Georgia backroads now with only a quite blank laptop, I have no sixth boro fotos to illustrate, but here’s a an example, which–@!%&*#@–sounds so much like Shakespeare that I’ll just modify this synopsis of Midsummer Night’s Dream. . . except this writing happens to be midwinter.
Sample advice seeker whom I’ll call “December dredgerist” —-
Dear Tugster, My crewmate Mori (married to a lubber Elfin Princess . . . aka EP) feels profoundly attracted to Tori (a lubber), and Tori feels deeply attracted to Luis. EP loves Mori but also–being elfin–has strong attractions and liaisons with a plethora of fairies, sprites, nymphs, mermaids, and sirens, and other magical creatures of the forests, islands, tidepools, hills… all of which is fine with Mori, who understands elfins and their openness about Mori and Tori. There is neither pressure to change anything nor complications that exist, but (I’m writing for Mori) Mori wants to know if you could dig into your experience to help Mori either attract Tori or deal with her lack of attractedness to him without turning into an ass. Many thanks… December dredgerist.
My response: Dear Decemberist: Tell Mori that change is the only constant, and since I have no control over the elves, sprites, and other magical creatures that make stuff happen in your/my lives, just . . . do what you’re doing–be sweet or salty or neutral according to your custom and … ride out the hurricanes, calms, ebbs, surges. May your anchor hold tight in spring tides as in lows. Dress warmly, and always wear a life jacket.
Lame, maybe? Any advice for either the advice giver or the advice seeker? Much appreciated, and Auspicious 2010! Enjoy the midwinter’s full moon. I’m starting to make my way down the Savannah watershed.
PS: If your advice to me is to call off this column and terminate the personals-dredging, I’ll consider it.
Unrelated: check out the mini-tug on Gypsy pirate wench! Fair winds to her as she joins Amistad!
Being on inland roads for now and rendered somewhat blank-in-the-head, I’m happy to finally use these relief crew fotos. Call this a ship-tease or port-tease post. Look them over closely and guess the location. Answer and stories at the end of the post. A sub and a trawler headed for sea . . . sounds vaguely like the start of a joke?
and Zeus enters port . . . now that sounds like a mythological tale, fractured or otherwise. So where?
SeaBart aka Uglyships sent me these. He writes: “The fishing boat & the submarine pic is made by my wife in January 2006 in Den Helder, the official navy port of the Netherlands. The fishing vessel is obvious: every port in the Netherlands has it’s own fishing fleet, going out on Sunday evening/Monday morning coming back Friday or Saturday.”
And Zeus: “has 2 main engines driving one propellor, bollard pull is 101 ton, and from what I heard although she has only one prop she is a very manoeuvrable ship. Finnish flag but she had a Dutch master until he retired a few years ago. On the picture she is just entering Den Helder. She is on the spotmarket and is mostly used for rig moves, when she isn’t chartered usually she is stand-by in Den Helder. I have no idea when the pic is taken because, as I said, she is coming & going.
Den Helder is besides navy-port also the most important offshore-port in the Netherlands. The big oil-companies have bundled their supply-vessels in a pool: the Southern North Sea pool (SNS-Pool), about 12-15 vessels all operating from Den Helder, which gives a tremendous amount of traffic to and from the port, almost too much. On a daily base you see 4 or 5 suppliers coming & going and a lot of shifting going on in the port it self. If you have a berth, then it’s not for sure that you can keep it…….very annoying!”
Thanks, Bart. Gelukkig nieuwjaar! And I say that and a hearty thank you to all who read, in whatever language, patois, or register you say that.
While we’re on the topic of year’s-end, thanks to my referrers, the top 10 of whom for 2009 I list below for special thanks. A glass of whatever exuberance-bubbles I certainly owe you; please collect.
10 Google Reader
9 WordPress
4 urban-archology.blogspot.com
3 70point8percent.blogspot.com
2 San Diego Union-Tribune, who picked up my US Air Salvage post
And staying on stats a moment, my top 10 posts for the year are:
9 Ghosts
2 Weeks and Flight 1549 Re-Emerges
1 Equinox
Now I’m not saying these are my favorites or most-representative posts . . . just statistics.
For an example of one of my favorites, how about this: magic in the mists by the Kill.
Looking northwest from Stone Mountain toward Kennesaw Mountain (roughly from greater Atlanta toward northern Alabama) around the start of the new year and
teaching my grandson the basics of using a compass, I’m
wondering–like everybody–what the year will bring, which direction (s) it’ll turn. As the original inhabitants depicted in this statue of a Cherokee fisherman in Chattanooga on the southern bank of the Tennessee, we all need basic sustenance for starters.
Where we head keeps us guessing. The Tennessee heads south from greater Knoxville and then west and north to empty into the Ohio before its waters feed the Gulf of Mexico. The Coosa, here in headwaters near Atlanta, heads into Mobile Bay as the Alabama.
Not far away, the Chattahoochee heads for the Florida panhandle,
carrying these driftboat trout fisherman along for a new year’s day ride.
Tomorrow I head for the Carolina coast and then to the sixth boro and then . . . who really knows. Driftboat anyone?
All photos by or of WVD.
Of course, many bright happy spots and fine people surround me this dark solstice. Yet, I have to consciously remind myself of this brightness sometimes, given how bleak this time of year can seem, and especially this December. So . . . an especially cheery thought is that, given the best scientific knowledge on merfolk migration, the next parade mermaids and consorting sirens is only six months away now. So how’s about some aides-memoires from summer 08 . . . music for the season . . . like the East Village Sea Monster Marching Band, or
Santa of the sands, his chariot guided thru the seas back to the boro by a purple-eyed pooch and rearview red-tailed African gray, and
some of his helpers.
With such thoughts floating through my head, I think I’ll survive the darkness, the monochromatic city, where sometimes
spirits just don’t sparkle or fizz and
even some favorites look black & white.
Buoyed by the impending mer-migration back north, I feel better. Happy “getting past winter solstice,” be jolly, thanks for reading the blog, and huzzah that the next mer-parade in the boro is only a mere 4300+ hours away!
All fotos always unless otherwise attributed by Will Van Dorp.
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