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Here are previous iterations of this title. Sometimes it’s energizing to return to places you’ve not visited in a while. We followed North River for a bit and then turned into
the Brooklyn Navy yard, a quite busy place. Sugar Express was there along with Carolina Coast. The barge shuttles less-refined sugar from Florida to Yonkers, where the sugar is further refined at a riverside facility.
Atlantic Salvor was in one of the graving docks.
Once under way again, we followed Genesis Eagle heading for the Sound.
North River was docked at DEP Ward’s Island Central (actually WPCP) by the time we passed by.
NYC Department of Correction Vernon C. Bain Maritime Facility was still where I last saw it, the only traffic being who goes in and out.
Ditto this wreck, which deserves a name or a series of ex-names, where the only traffic is the ingress and egress of tidal current water.
All photos this week, WVD.
The sixth boro has lots of government boats . . . aka taxpayers’ boats, like the 29 Defiant…
This RB-M appears to be training a large crew.
This BUSL is headed out for some ATON work.
Besides the many federal boats, NYC has its own fleet including three GUP carriers of this latest class. This is a front light Rockaway.
One of two large fireboats, 343 here is at her base beside Little Island, aka Diller Island.
USACE in the boro has some small survey boats.
Sturgeon Bay holds station at the star.
And to close out . . . here’s that same 29 Defiant executing a tight turn in the ferry wake.
All photos, WVD, who’s still on the road.
Since we’ve had some extreme weather, how about a different type of extreme . . . with NYC DEP sludge tanker Red Hook approaching the unique Riverbank State Park, one of three state parks within Manhattan, the one with a wastewater treatment plant beneath it. I’ve just read that it’s now renamed the Denny Farrell State Park. Who knew . . . ?
Many thanks to Greg Hanchrow for these photos from a few winters back.
Daniel Meeter, frequent commenter on the blog and so much more, happened to overnight in Huron OH and caught these photos of Kristin Noelle shuffling some dredge equipment around.
I happened upon Huron OH here a few winters back . . .
Jonathan Steinman caught this photo of Atlantic Salvor returning to the sixth boro some time back; Jonathan used to send an occasional photo from the east side of Manhattan, but now he’s gotten really busy on the opposite side of the island. Of course, that’s the GW Bridge in the distance.
Need launch service for supplies or crew change on the upper Mississippi River? This launch can be trailered to the nearest boat ramp and then rendezvous with the client. This photo and the one below comes thanks to Trucker Tim.
Sharon Jon has spent its entire life–older than me by a decade–in the Duluth area; her days may now be done however.
My sister of the Maraki crew got these photos of Bradshaw McKee last week as it backed out of Grand Haven MI.
I’m surprised by this, since I thought that barge was now married to Prentiss Brown, but those two tugs have quite different superstructures, and this is unmistakably Bradshaw McKee. The barge, St. Marys Conquest, began life in Manitowoc WI as a tanker in 1937.
Many thanks to Greg, Daniel, Trucker Tim, Jonathan, and Lucy for these photos.
Off New London USCGC Coho and a 45′ response boat take part in training off Race Rock Light and then later off
Little Gull Island Light, with the 87′ towing the 45′ boats.
A regular in the sixth boro is USCGC Beluga.
The 29′ patrol boats monitor lots of activities in the harbor; here they board a small fishing boat.
Of the many USCG aids-to-navigation (AToN) boats, this is 49′ BUSL.
Small USACE survey boats seem constantly at work in the harbor.
NYC DEP has a monitoring boat, Sandpiper. Another one of their boats is called Osprey.
Another DEP vessel, this one is called Oyster Catcher.
NYPD has its own navy; here is one of their bigger boats, the 55′ Det. Luis Lopez.
Here’s another NYPD patrol boat, drawled dwarfed by a ULCV bow wave. [I like that new word “drawled,” sort of like swamped but not quite maybe.]
One of the four carriers (yes, they carry, and for which the demand never stops) of the DEP fleet is Rockaway.
Any guesses on this speedy black vessel?
It’s a marine unit of the same folks you might be talking to if you’re speedy on roads inland.
All photos, recently, WVD.
Taxes pay for all these vessels, for the common good.
NYPD has a fleet. Anyone know how many boats make up the NYPD “floating plant”?
NYC has two ferry fleets, the orange one and this newer one, NYCF. Anyone know when the first new-generation Staten Island ferry will arrive in the sixth boro? Does NYCF really have 30 boats or is it 20? I’ve read both numbers.
Passing a westbound Cape Canaveral ,
this NY State Police launch passes one of another NYC fleet, a DEP tanker.
There’s also a federal fleet in the area. This 49′ BUSL is about to disappear on the far side of a ULCV . . .
and then over the horizon.
The USCG has even smaller AToN tenders,
like this one on the inland side of NY.
Recently calling in Stapleton, it’s Sycamore (WLB-209), and off her port side is 47′ MLB Sandy Hook.
All photos, WVD.
It still says Eastern Star Dawn, but now it’s Toula!
She’s going to look great all buff and green.
Barry Silverton finally
has a lion on its stack! All those birds? It’s water teeming with the bunker, the bunker that recently drew a humpback into the Upper Bay.
Pelham, launched in 1960, is always a pleasant sight. She has a list of previous names almost as long as my seasonal wish list this year.
Here she took a wake on the bow.
James William used the waters off the salt pile
as a turning basin.
And finally, after a long hiatus down south, CMT Pike has returned. When i caught her, she was being pursued
by this container ship.
All photos, WVD.
Unrelated but of interest, below . . .
yes, Grain de Sail is a 72′ schooner coming into the sixth boro with a 50-ton cargo hold, some of it refrigerated, bringing in French wine. She’ll set up a market in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for about a week. Contact info and an e-shop can be found here, although you’ll have to use a machine translate if you’re not up to functionality in French.
Grain de Sail is involved in triangular trade, French wine to here and the Caribbean, and then Caribbean chocolate and other products to France . . . . Something similar in sail freight domestically has been done by Ceres and more recently by Apollonia. The most recent international sailing cargo into the sixth boro that I know of was Black Seal, a three-masted schooner.
Hell Gate has to be one of the most storied waterways in the sixth boro. How could I have mostly ignored it so long?!!
The other day I caught Vinik No. 6 and Liz Vinik westbound through that section of the East River. In the background, that’s the Bronx.
An indicator of current is the fact that NYPD boat here is barely making headway. Current in a tidal strait like the so-called East River is constantly and dramatically changing. That’s Manhattan in the background.
Nicholas Vinik also passed through the other day, returning from a job. That NYC DEP GUP headquarters in the background. The Hell Gate RR Bridge seems in need of some paint. Referencing this part of Hell Gate, captbbrucato describes it from a captain’s perspective here.
A recent development is the transit of NYC Ferry service through the Gate to the Bronx on the Soundview run.
Wye River heads eastbound to retrieve a barge, meeting
Cape Canaveral and DBL 101 on the way.
Along the shoreline here, that’s Astoria Queens to the left, and Manhattan along the entire distant background. Most iconic is the spire of the Empire State Building.
State Trooper . . . I’m assuming that’s a government boat.
That’s it for now. I hope to return to Hell Gate soon. All photos, WVD.
It’s the end of another month, and maybe because everything’s been so bleak of late, let’s just admire and enjoy the complexity of the sixth boro.
Diverse people work here on diverse missions.
Places like NY Harbor School and M.A. S. T. as well as SUNY Maritime College and King’s Point MMA are here.
On foggy days a narrow navigation channel gives the illusion of being as expansive as the ocean.
Keeping it as ideal a place as possible is the mission of many people and much infrastructure, seen and unseen.
Professionals pass through the sixth boro without ever technically entering the space, both a boon and a bane to all involved,
and their safe passage is ensured by the named and the nameless.
Work and recreation can happen in the same space because of
professionalism. If you have a lot of time, you can binge watch these videos by a pro who works the sixth boro and beyond. Now, when I hear his voice on VHF, it’s familiar. There are books as well.
The universal language of gesture is powerdful.
The sixth boro has at least as much specialized equipment as the other five boros combined; another way to put it, the specialized equipment of the sixth boro enable the other boros to perform.
And if the land boros have spirit, don’t imagine the sixth boro lacks anything.
Photos and sentiments, WVD.
If you’re new on this blog, for the past 27 months I’ve been posting photos from exactly 10 years before. These then are photos I took in June 2010. What’s been interesting about this for me is that this shows how much harbor activities have changed in 10 years.
Tarpon, the 1974 tug that once worked for Morania and below carries the Penn Maritime livery, is now a Kirby boat. Tarpon, which may be “laid up” or inactive, pushes Potomac toward the Gate.
North River waits over by GMD shipyard with Sea Hawk, and now also a Kirby vessel. Sea Hawk is a slightly younger twin, at least in externals and some internals, of Lincoln Sea.
Irish Sea, third in a row, was K-Sea but now is also a Kirby boat.
Huron Service went from Candies to Hornbeck to now Genesis Energy, and works as Genesis Victory.
Ocean King is the oldest in this post . . . built in 1950. She’s in Boston, but I don’t know how active she is.
Petersburg dates from 1954, and currently serves as a live aboard. Here’s she’s Block Island bound, passing what is now Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Kristin Poling was built in 1934 and worked the Great Lakes and the Eastern Seaboard via the Erie Canal.
To digress, William Lafferty took this photo on 15 May 1966 at Thorold, Ontario, in the Welland Canal, same boat 44 years later.
And finally, she who travels jobs up and down the East Coast, the 1970 Miss Gill. She’s currently working in the Charleston area.
All photos, WVD, who never thought a decade ago while taking these photos that I’d revisit them while in the midst of a pandemic. June 2010 was a great month for photos, so I’ll do a retro a and b.
ABC-1 is unique, a survivor. Launched in Sturgeon Bay in November 1941, she was originally built for the US Army as a vessel to collect mine boxes. Here she returns from a supply run in Port Elizabeth or Newark, as she’s done for as long as I’ve been paying attention. Here, by the way, is the first in this series, one that didn’t even use this title.
I don’t know how long she’s worked in the sixth boro or if the hull and power have been modified since 1941. Maybe someone can speak to this.
NYC DEP has a number of vessels, likely all of them larger than Sea Robin.
This is my first time to notice this boat.
All photos in recent cold days by Will Van Dorp.
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