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Ages ago it seems Patty the tug got a refurbishment, as chronicled here.
Recently the esteemed captain and owner of Patty Nolan received a model of his boat that had been made decades, more than a half century, earlier. Since Patty received its own livery, the model needed to be patched up and the new livery represented. Who better to do that than Bob Mattsson. Check out his YouTube channel here.
For now, enjoy this beautifully refurbished model.
I hope soon to see her in sixth boro waters and beyond.
Thx to Captain David Williams for sharing photos of this model nicely reburbished by Bob Mattsson.
June 2012 was pivotal for me. A photo sent along by a friend alerted me to Canal commerce–Canadian corn– entering the US at Oswego, a place I knew something of from my youth.
If that was a spark, then the breeze that fanned it was an invitation to do my trial article for Professional Mariner magazine, which led me to Kingston NY, the mouth of the Rondout, and a project involving use of a half century old tug Cornell to do TOAR signoffs. My most recent article in the magazine came out today and can be seen here.
On that assignment, I was privileged to have a mentor, Brian Gauvin, do the photography.
Other big events for June 2012 included the movement of shuttle Enterprise from JFK airport ,
ultimately to the Intrepid Museum to be
hoisted onto the flight deck as part of the display, now covered.
My daughter went off to Brasil (again) and the Amazon, leading me to go there myself a year later, fearing she’d never return because she loved it so much there.
I’d given her a camera before she went, and was rewarded with some quite interesting photos, like these small motor boats that looked almost like slippers …
with straight shafts coming straight out of air-cooled engines.
During my trip up to the Rondout, I stopped in Newburgh, where replicas of La Niña and Pinta, crafted using traditional techniques on the Una River in Bahia, Brasil, attracted crowds, one of many stops along the great loop route.
Other festivities on the Hudson that summer . . .
included the sails and music associated with the Clearwater Festival, and of course the small boats moving in some of the venues.
Patty Nolan and Augie were the small tugs, and of course the sailboats including Mystic Whaler, Woody Guthrie,
and of course the sloop Clearwater. The Clearwater organization will not be doing a music festival in June 2022. Mystic Whaler is now working in Oxnard CA at the Channel Islands Museum.
Summer time and the living is easy well, at least it feels that way some days . . . .
All photos, except the first one, WVD. That first photo was taken by Allan H. Seymour.
Let’s go back a decade. Then MSC Emma was on the west coast of Bayonne leaving town; now she’s on the west coast of Central America, leaving Lazaro Cardenas for Panama.
Above she was assisted by Gramma Lee T [now in Norfolk] and Margaret and setting up for the turn from Newark Bay into the KVK; here we had almost gotten ahead of the trio of vessels.
A strange trio was in the sky
over the sixth boro. The piggyback rider is still in town, albeit likely to never fly again. More here.
Meanwhile, over in the Arthur Kill, a boring machine was placing charges in holes below the bottom of the waterway and connecting them to the stringy orange signal cord to blast when the time was right for them all to detonate at the same millisecond. That day I touched some hefty but perfectly safe explosives, inert until the right signal is applied, which sounds like some folks I know.
More on “kraken” the bottom here.
Back then, I was spending a lot of early mornings near Howland Hook waiting for my work to begin, and I caught a Double Skin 37 moving bunkers
and maneuvered by Coral Coast. Was that mechanical dredge Captain A. J. Fournier in the distance above?
The Joker was then a more sedate Taurus, before joining the hilariously-named over at Hays.
Put Tasman Sea into the picture too. Is the Tasmanian still laid up in Louisiana?
And it was a great April 2012 day I caught the seldom-seen Patty Nolan
moving a houseboat into the sixth boro. Patty seems to be preparing for a comeback.
And the 1972 2325 teu Horizon Navigator, here with Samantha Miller alongside, was still working. Is the 1972 container ship still intact?
And let’s wind this up with Ellen and Maurania III returning to base after a job. Ellen is still in the sixth boro, and Maurania III is in the Delaware.
All photos, WVD, April 2012.
Entirely unrelated, check out these Smithsonian photo winners.
Recently I got a request for something on single screw tugs. Ask . . and receive, from the archives.
May 1, 2011 . . the 1901 Urger was on the dry dock wall in Lyons looking all spiffy. A month later, she’d be miles away and alive.
On March 19, 2010, the 1907 Pegasus had all the work done she was scheduled for, and the floating dry dock is sinking here. In 10 minutes, Pegasus would be afloat and a yard tug … draw her out.
On a cold day last winter, a shot of the 1912 Grouper, in dry dock, waiting for a savior. If you’re savvy and have deep reservoirs of skill and money, you can likely have her cheap.
In that same dry dock, the 1926 boxy superstructure DeWitt Clinton.
To digress, here’s how her much-lower clearance looked when first launched in Boothbay.
Back on July 30, 2017, I caught the 1929 Nebraska getting some life-extension work. Unlike the previous single screw boats, Nebraska has a Kort nozzle surrounding its prop, which clearly is away getting some work done on it also.
On February 10, 2010, the 1931 Patty Nolan was on the hard. She was put back in, but currently she’s back on the hard, with plans to float her again this summer.
A CanalCorp boat, I believe this is Dana, was in dry dock in Lyons this past winter. If so, she’s from 1935.
As you’ve noticed, single screw tugs have sweet elliptical sterns. All painted up and ready to splash, they are things of beauty. On December 16, 2006, I caught the 1941 Daniel DiNapoli, ex-Spuyten Duyvil, about to re-enter her element.
Also in dry dock but not ready to float, on March 10, 2010, the 1958 McAllister Brothers, ex-Dalzelleagle is getting some TLC.
Is it coincidence that so many of these single screw boats are . . . aged? Nope. Twin- and triple-screw boats can do many more things. Is it only because the regulations have changed? Have any single-screw tugs been built in recent years? Are single-screw boat handling skills disappearing in this age of twin- and triple-screw boats? No doubt.
All photos by WVD, who enjoyed this gallivant through the archives.
And speaking of archives, Mr Zuckerberg reminded me this morning that nine years ago exactly, the sixth boro was seeing the complicated lading of the tugs and barges being taken by heavylift ship to West Africa. There were so many challenges that I called the posts “groundhog day” like the movie about a guy having to use many many “re-do’s” before he could get it right.
Remember the logic in this series is . . . the first pic of the month and the last pic of the month . . .
Early September found me still along the Acushnet . . . Malena–as of this writing–is in Sierra Leone, having bounced around the Caribbean since departing New Bedford.
By September’s end, Wavertree was slathered in a beautiful red primer.
Early October . . . that’s North Star off the Orient Point, and Plum Gut, with Plum Island in the background.
Late October . . . a conversation led to an invitation to tour iMTT Bayonne and see Marion Moran at the tug fuel station from the waterside. I still need to post about that.
November . . . and Med Sea bound for the Sound and beyond.
Joyce D. Brown going back to the kills.
And late in the month, my only view of Patty Nolan, on the hard in Verplanck. Click here for some of many posts on the 1931 Patty.
Early December . . .it’s mild and I decided to experiment with some color separation on Margaret Moran. Click here for a post from seven-plus years ago with Margaret Moran . . .
And since December has not yet ended, I will post this in its incomplete state, with the promise of a “last December 2015” post yet to come.
This is my last post for 2015. Happy New Year. May it be peaceful and safe.
All fotos here from yesterday . ..
Liberty Service as you may never have seen her. Here (third foto in this link) she was four years ago.
Ditto Huron Service. Repainting on Huron seems farther along than that on Liberty. Here’s how Huron Service looked a year and a half ago. Get ready for Genesis Energy.
In the past year, this Pegasus has sprouted an upper wheelhouse; compare with here.
Welcome to the waters around Houston. Well . .. I do mean the 118,000-barrel barge married to Linda Moran. Uh . . . do tugs and barges ever get divorced?
Trucks on the water pushed by Shawn Miller.
I realized only later that–had my conveyance lingered here–I would have seen Catherine C. Miller push past with FIVE trailers/tractors on a barge. See her in the distance there beyond the bow of RTC 83.
Reinauer Twins waits alongside RTC 104 with a faux lighthouse in the background.
Lucy Reinauer–earlier Texaco Diesel Chief built in Oyster Bay NY–is the push behind RTC 83.
DBL 29 pushed (ok, will. . . open eyes. thanks for the correction.) moved alongside by Taurus. See some of my previous Taurus fotos here and here.
And thanks to wide-eyed bowsprite, a vessel I’ve not seen before pushing stone. It’s Patricia. She reminds me of a vessel I spotted along the road a few years back . . . Hoss.
So, this is the “plus” in the title, the group-sourcing request portion of this post: what company is operating Patricia?
And another question . . . from an eagle-eyed upriver captain. Notice the weather instruments on this channel marker just off Bannerman’s Island (I am planning to do another post on this unique location north of West Point.) And . . .
here are more weather instruments on this federally-maintained channel marker off the Rondout. Questions: who’s responsible for these and is there a website where the data collected can be monitored?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except for the last three, which come from bowsprite and Capt. Thalassa.
Speaking of bowsprite, today she’s running Radio Lilac and I’ll be there tending bar. Here’s something of the inspiration. Come on by if you have the time. Teleport in if you’re otherwise out of range.
Foto below was taken on July 3, 2012. Charles D. McAllister . . . featured here dozens of times, was assisting British Harmony (see name on lifeboat) out of IMTT Bayonne . . . for sea. Where? Doubleclick enlarges fotos.
Related: note the follow-though handwork demonstrated by the line thrower below. Where is he? He’s not throwing the line to anything belonging to British Harmony, but he is in the same watershed.
Ditto this tug and barge. Where it it? Notice the water color. Notice the name on the barge.
MANAUS on the tug is the best clue.
All fotos in this post except the first one were taken by my daughter, Myriam, who’s on the Amazon all summer as a grad student. I bought her a camera and said . . . “tugster needs you,” and she’s been following through since mid-May while I’ve focused mostly on my end of the sixth boro, not hers. More on this later in this post. That’s a sweet ride below.
She’s based in Macapa and took this and all the others from her workboat. No, she doesn’t drive it.
Cargo moves by vessels like this, and
this. Right now Ikan Suji is Shanghai bound with a hold filled with Amazonian raw materials, I’d bet.
My guess (and I’m often wrong) on this cargo is navigational aids in the making.
I wish she’d caught the rest of the ferry . . . but there are fewer possibilities for a bow than a stern. I’d never imagine this house/stern arrangement.
NYC’s sixth boro . . . as all areas . . . have their
Behold two Amazonian “rebocadores ” Excalibur and Merlin. Click here for Smit Rebras including some interesting newbuild fotos. Thanks to Harold Tartell for suggesting looking here.
But, not unexpectedly, vessels on the Amazon and its many fingers are as diverse as the population of that great country.
This could be the Mississippi,
From Macapa to Manaus upriver is 500 to 600 air miles. Stadt Gera, in Macapa today, was in the sixth boro and on this blog a year and a half ago.
And here’s why I put the foto of Charles D. McAllister and British Harmony first: British Harmony is about halfway up the Amazon to Manaus as I write this. One really can get anywhere watery from the sixth boro. Knowing that and having concrete reminders like this are not the same.
From fishermen, people with cameras along the KVK, and Macy’s barge waiting for the 2012 Independence Day fireworks . . . to kids in wooden boats like this . . . all seen by crew on British Harmony on the same trip . . . I find amazing.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of another watershed. Myriam certainly has the gallivant gene. Here’s some self-disclosure. 39 years ago (!!) I traveled to my first professional job about 500 miles up the Congo River on a huge tugboat named Major Vangu, pushing four deck barges. The tug had 8 or 10 “staterooms” and a bar/restaurant for paying first class passengers. Second class were on a barge with shade, and third class slept among the cargo (barrels of fuel, trucks, crates of beer, misc . . .) on the other barges. It took four days and nights to get from Kinshasa to Mbandaka, near where I spend the next two years. The reason for the choice of a tug was the airplane was non-functioning and roads to get there would have taken weeks. Making this realization today suggests the need for a long river trip next year. . . . hmmmm . . . .
This post is inspired by Jed’s extended resume of last April here, and a “lightbulb” comment by Maureen. Thanks to you both.
Related: Several times I tried unsuccessfully to find good profile shots of Major Vangu, which sank in 1979. Anyone have ideas on finding fotos of the old Onatra vessels like Major Vangu?
Related: In writing this post, I stumbled onto this blog by an artist in Belem, a major Amazonian port.
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