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Catching up . . . it’s a never-ending task, but a useful one. Let’s start with these two tugboats still under wraps at Isle aux Coudres Ocean shipyard. It’s not the best image, but with the wind, it was the best I could get. Anyone help with identification?
RF Grant is a 1934 tug up on a marine railway on Île d’Orléans, just downstream from Quebec City.
At the main Ocean Group yard, it’s Ocean’s Taiga and Tundra, and Clovis T.
Ocean Henry Bain is on the inland side.
Quebec is inseparable with their blue.
Cue the next day and farther upstream, it’s Aldo H.
Boatmen 6 and more at their dock.
Nearer the port, it’s Ocean Serge Genois and Ocean Bertrand Jeansonne.
Excuse the blurred shot, but it’s Ocean Pierre Julien and Ocean Jupiter. Particulars on all the Ocean boats can be found here.
As we climb higher up the Saint Lawrence, we get to the US DOT boats, Robinson Bay and the brand new
brand-spanking-new Seaway Trident.
For our last boat today, it’s Seaway Joan, a Lake Michigan 1952 boat, a great name and great little boat.
All photos taken in May 2023, WVD.
This post encompasses two legs, but WiFi has not been cooperative.
Minimal comment: this is the eight-mile Confederation Bridge. Toll to cross by car: $CD 50.
Bridge Lady is pilot boat to retrieve the pilot who departed with us at Charlottetown.
After a rough passage north along the Gaspé coastline, we enter the lower estuary, where a cold welcome awaited.
Near Les Éboulements aka “the landslides,” this tug Felicia still adorns the shore.
From the ferry dock near there, Svanoy shuttled over to Isle aux Coudres.
As we approached the end of that first leg at QC, Ocean Guide came by to exchange pilots.
Kitikmeot W, Nordic Orion, and Spruceglen were in port.
as were the two powerhouses, Ocean Taiga and Ocean Tundra.
Departing I had my first opportunity to see Vincent Massey. Four years ago she was undergoing transformation here.
Torm Timothy headed for sea.
A pilot exchange happened just downstream from Montreal,
where Uhl Fast was in port.
All photos, any errors, WVD.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON. In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy. Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.
Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses. Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.
Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine,
and two more I took in September 2019 in
the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals. Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist. Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.
Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold
can be tricky.
Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island. Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots.
Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.
Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . . sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . . it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina.
Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro.
Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . . the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.
Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class; the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind. If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver. I have lots more photos that you’ve sent. If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.
If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working. This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life. I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.
Where was Doornekamp’s Sheri Lynn S heading?
Downstream on the St. Lawrence to assist USS St. Louis, LCS-19, as she was making a port stop in Ogdensburg NY.
Also assisting was Océan Serge Genois.
If this USN press release is current and accurate, other LCSs expected to exit the Great Lakes this year include USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (LCS-21), USS Kansas City (LCS-22), USS Oakland (LCS-24) and USS Mobile (LCS -6).
Now as seen from the US side of the River, standard procedure boom was deployed around the LCS by a workboat provided by Seaway Marine Group. More of this scene is captured in this article/photo from the Watertown Daily Times NNY360.
Once the LCS was boomed, the Seaway Marine boat patroled the exclusion zone.
Fifteen or so miles downstream from Ogdensburg, the Océan tug guides the LCS into the Iroquois locks.
All these photos from the Canadian side are compliments of Pat English, who posted a video on FB Seaway News Voie Maritime Info of the Ocean tug rocking back and forth to keep the LCS centered in the lock chamber. All photos from the US side are compliments of Jake Van Reenen.
Again, many thanks to Pat and Jake for use of these photos.
Previous tugster posts with LCS vessels can be found here. Previous posts at Iroquois lock are here.
A few days ago I posted this twilight view of Service Boat No. 1.
So, I hope she ‘s more defined by these shots from a bit later in the port of Montreal, as she passes Toronto Express.
Ocean Macareux (translates as “Ocean Puffin”) follows the grain elevators on her way to –maybe–
attach some rendering. . . .
Farther along, a spud barge moved by GFFM‘s
Vent Polaire (tr. Polar Wind) seems standing by, assisted by this very
shallow draft prime mover.
Over by the Beauharnois Dam, Deschenaux (tr. Channels) stands by.
Click here for more info on the Beauharnois generating station.
Anyone know where and when Deschenaux was built?
Farther upstream yet, in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, it’s Circle Polaire (tr. Polar Circle)
And closing out this post, Ocean A. Gauthier here heads downstream to assist Rt. Hon. Paul J. Martin return to a floating condition. I believe she’s still undergoing repairs in the port of Johnstown ON.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Here was “7” and 1 through 6.
This post will run photos from twilight to twilight…
Above and below, prosaically Service Boat No. 1 is doing pilot exchange duty. She’s not large or particularly powerful or new, but in twilight before dawn she looked and sounded formidable.
Ocean Basques, here approaching the Laviolette Bridge, is a solid 200 miles upstream of the islands with the same namesake.
Ocean Basques was built in Collingwood ON, as was Ocean Sept-Isles.
Quite unique and speedy, Ocean Catatug 1 raced downstream.
As afternoon falls, Ocean Bertrand Jeansonne follows Ocean Henry Bain out of the homeport basin.
That’s the marine traffic control tower on the other side in Levis QC.
Returning to another twilight shot, here’s Ocean Henry Bain pushing a deep barge down bound.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Mostly photos, and all taken between Quebec City and Montreal. Ocean Charlie is a great name.
Ocean Henry Bain moves a barge, possibly from a passenger terminal.
x
Ocean Intrepide hangs at East Montreal.
But here in the South Shore Canal . . . the outlier . . .
Mary E. Hannah is way from out of the area.
And finally . . . in Valleyfield, it’s Cercle Polaire of GFFM.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who posts when possible these days.
Enjoy three views of Ocean Echo II with different contexts: the Iroquois Dam,
a scenic late summer meadow, and
the Iroquois lock itself. Click here for pics dating from the dam and lock construction.
A lot of Ocean Group tugs are included here, but Ocean Cormoran is not . . .
Although blue-hulled, VM/S St. Lambert was built for the SLSMC.
Ocean Macareux is a product of GFFM LeClerc, which I visited a few months back, and was on the wall in the old port of Montreal.
And last but not least, Denis M is a 1942 product of Russel Brothers. Here she is on the wall just below Habitat 67.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
The 11% grade, per road signs, leads to a strawberry vendor if you make the left and a ferry dock if you follow all the way down to the Saint Lawrence. See the two ferries in the distance? Click here for a view from roughly the same location in March two years ago.
Ferry Joseph Savard approaches for the ride to L’isle aux Coudres, 60 miles closer to the Atlantic than Quebec City, nominally island of hazelnuts, crowding this side of the stream, where the deep water channel for all traffic . The flats around the island show the result of a 13′ tidal range. The page on this ferry has not been translated, but it was built in 1985, has two Bombardier engines, possibly this one, propelling a single screw and generating 3894 hp. Capacities are 367 passengers and 55 vehicles. And it’s free.
One, of many, appeal of this ferry is that on the island side it lands immediately next to Ocean Group shipyard.
Vessels outside and on the hard included Fjord Saguenay, a Rio Tinto boat! Rio Tinto has a large aluminum plant at the head of Saguenay fjord, my destination.
Also in the yard are Ocean Arctique and Ocean Sept-Isles. The latter is a Collingwood product; click here and scroll to see what has become of the Collingwood shipyard.
And just north of the blue hulls, it’s Ocean Brochu. Note the Voith-Schneider drive and skeg under the hull.
Two vessels I’ve published in ProfessionalMariner about were built here, Ocean Traverse Nord and Ocean Taiga. The latter vessel has recently moved to the Arctic on Baffin Island duty.
We’ll return to L’isle aux Coudres, but for now, let’s cross back over to the mainland to catch this traffic and more. It’s the other ferry Radisson, named for the fur trader and explorer. Savard is named for an early, maybe first, French settler of the island.
Here you see a container ship in the channel located on the narrow strait between the mainland and the island. Just ahead of the ship, you see the 11% grade hill from the beginning of this post. And the village atop the hill is a hamlet in Les Eboulements.
Here’s a side view of the church prominent in the village; notice the river above the car to the left?
And let’s end with another snapshot of the church, presbytere des Eboulements. Here’s the best “eboulements” translation . . . .
Let’s leave it here. Tomorrow we return to the island.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I’ve mentioned before about my people the Dutch celebrating “old years day” on December 31. As the child of immigrants, I’m blessed by this one of many ways they see the world differently, a perspective I’m happy to share. So here is a retrospective of the year, the result of a process of scanning through photos in the blog library, not overthinking it.
January. Gunhilde Maersk with James, Kirby, and JRT plus Miriam Moran. the year of the 1200-footers aka ULCVs becoming commonplace in the sixth boro.
February. Ocean Henry Bain serves as a safety boat during the ice canoe race I documented in my Carnavalons posts.
March. Cerro Grande here escorted a Caribbean-bound LNG ship, one of all the Panama Tugs posts
April. When I saw this section of drained canal bed between O-6 to O-7 in Oswego, I thought the work’d never get done before the season began, but I was wrong. Of all my 2018 NYS Canals posts, this and this posted with the greatest urgency.
May. Reliable pushed seaward by Lucy H. As of today, Reliable lies under the sea gathering fishes and entertaining Davy Jones near Shinnecock.
June. Jay Bee V headed out on a high-profile mission. Has she returned to the sixth boro yet?
July. I missed Rosemary‘s christening because that’s what happens when you don’t look at your calendar. First come first serve for a few tugster lighthouse calendars. Send me an email with your mailing address. As I said, I ran a few extra when I made up my Christmas gifts.
August. Kimberly Selvick with AEP barges was one of the treats I saw in Calumet. This day south of Chicago planted a seed of curiosity about the Lake Michigan/Mississippi River link I hope to be able to explore in 2019. Many thanks to Christine Douglas.
September. J. W. Cooper delivers a pilot in Port Colborne at the Lake Erie end of the Welland Canal. Because I hadn’t a satisfying enough fix from the canal earlier, I returned there in October.
October. One Stork, a pink ULCV, came into town. It wasn’t her first visit/delivery, but it was the first that I caught. She’s currently in the sixth boro.
November. Morton S. Bouchard IV rounds Shooters Island light, Bouchard celebrated a big anniversary this year.
December. Ruth M. Reinauer heads west into the Kills in December, the start of heating oil season.
And that’s it for the year, time for me to securely lock up Tugster Tower and prepare myself to meet 2019. The older I get, the more profound is my awareness that although I make many plans for a new year, I might not see the end of it. It’s just how it is. Every day is a blessing. Last year had my own personal ultima thule; I pray that 2019 brings its new ones.
Thanks to everyone who read, commented, and assisted me in 2018. Happy and constructive new year day by day to you all.
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