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Many thanks to Lee Rust for working with the two photos immediately below, showing a boat frequently featured here.
Photo to the left was taken near the elevators in Manitowoc in a slip now filled in and frequently piled high with coal adjacent to Badger‘s slip. In the 1959 photo, the tug was owned by C. Reiss Coal Company. The tug had recently been repainted and repowered (1957). Badger gets regular maintenance, so a similar treatment of that vessel would not evoke the same emotions.
Technically, the two photos above were 58 years apart, so I added the two below which I took in Lyons NY earlier in 2019; hence, six decades apart.
Thanks to Lee and Jeff for providing these photos.
Unrelated: Check out freighterfreak’s photos from Duluth here.
Anyone have similar juxtapositions of a single vessel or vehicle across time, please send it in.
If you haven’t heard, a serious fire broke out on St. Clair last Saturday night in Toledo, OH, actually the eastern industrial suburb called Oregon, where a number of lakers are in winter layup at the CSX Torco dock. Torco expands to (TOledo ORe railroad COmpany). These photos were taken Monday or Tuesday, to the best of my knowledge, by Corey Hammond, a friend of a friend.
Some basic facts: St. Clair is a 760′ ore boat operating for American Steamship Company, or ASC, launched in Sturgeon Bay WI in 1975. She transported diverse cargo with a capacity of 44,000 tons. It appears the fire is now out, but investigation has possibly only just begun. No one was injured. Adjacent vessels –see Great Republic below–likely sustained little or no damage.
I never got photos of St. Clair underway, but here is a blogpost by a friend Michigan Exposures.
To me, besides being tragic, this is a cautionary tale, an illustration of the fire triangle. If you wonder about the value of fire drills, here’s a good reminder of what happens in a fire and what science undergirds fighting one, with analogy provided by Ernest Hemingway.
I’ll mostly let the photos speak for themselves.
One node of the fire triangle mentioned above is fuel. Given the other two nodes–heat and oxygen, materials not commonly thought of as fuel do burn and fast. Here’s a demo in residential setting, well worth a view . . . how fast a fire spreads in one minute.
Vessel farthermost ahead is ASC’s John J. Boland, smaller than St. Clair.
It looks gutted and heat deformed.
Boatnerd also has reportage on the St Clair fire.
There will be followup stories.
Many thanks again to Corey Hammond and Tim Hetrick for these photos.
Here are previous tugster posts called “ice and fire.”
Here are previous iterations of this title.
Well, in fresh water like the Upper Saint Lawrence, they look like this, from a photo by Jake Van Reenen.
In salt water, even small outboard work year round. There are boom boats,
patrol boats,
more boom boats,
clam-digging boats,
small island supply boats,
fishing boats,
police boats,
. . . and 29′ Defiant boats.
Top photo credit to Jake; all others by Will Van Dorp.
In the continuing project of posting a sampling of the variety of vessels calling in the sixth boro, here’s a variation on the RORO profile. Click here to see the many previous RORO posts. Several minutes before I took this photo, I saw it and couldn’t quite understand what I was seeing.
It’s about the location of the bridge, much farther toward the stern than typical. It might be a more comfortable ride, but view forward is decreased, I imagine. Maybe this is the immediate future of the design.
I wish I’d gotten a bow-on shot. She is not large–460′ loa, but she’s on the run Grey Shark used to do, at least this voyage.
Here she is juxtaposed with Meredith
It is a new profile, built in Japan in 2010.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has a nagging sense of seeing this RORO recently but unable to find any previous photos. Maybe it was one of those few times I was near the water but sans camera. It happens.
I don’t know who to attribute this photo to, but it is said to show a laker crossing Lake Superior with a deckled of automobiles, mid-1930s. I wonder when automobiles were last transported on the Great Lakes in this fashion . . . Anyone?
Turning or spinning . . . and there may be a technical term for “sailing” as vessel by rotating it away from the dock, into the current and making a 180 degree turn. It’s an evolution I enjoy photographing.
Seriana was launched in Japan in 2015, but it’s not as big as it seems, given the current scale of vessels I know: it’s 770′ by almost 138′ but from the deck to the water . . . over 50′ I’d wager. That’s a lot of tank.
Imagine climbing the companionway from Julia Miller. Next on the scene were (l to r) Kirby Moran and Jonathan C Moran.
Water began to sluice through the hawse.
After lots of traffic had cleared,
the rotation began. Seemingly she had enough headway on so that she didn’t drift astern and into the dock there Petali Lady lay on the far side.
This is my favorite in the series . . . a foreshortened tanker.
I like this a lot also: a plumb bow and just enough detail to ID the tugboat company.
Jonathan C heads back to the barn–or the next job–and
Kirby stands by as it anchors in Stapleton, were she remains as of this morning. Can anyone ID the red tug on the far side of the tanker? Delta maybe?
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Here are previous posts, and yes, it’s twelve o’clock somewhere . . . which means POSTING Time.
What would be your guess for the nationality of the mariner on the tug? How about the mariners on the ship?
I’ll let you ponder a clue that might be here.
It’s like spotting a unicorn to see a US-flagged tanker in the sixth boro.
She’s 2009 NASSCO built.
I can’t say much else about her, but it was good to see.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated: Here’s a fact I stumbled on yesterday: although there are ships and boats named for former presidents on the US, can you name one that’s namesake for two US presidents? Answer is here.
Never did I think a report from a federal judge of United States District Court, Northern District, New York dated January 31, 1955, would make such an interesting read. It emerges from two separate but related incidents that occurred in the port of Albany in late September 1953. One of the companies involved still works in the region with a different boat by the same name, Ellen S. Bouchard, the 1951 boat. I’m sure an image could be found of that boat, since it was scrapped under a different name as late as 1953.
What emerges from the report and fascinates me is an image of the past when a different type of vessel (see image below) plied the waterways and trade patterns were quite unlike today. Frank A. Lowery, the vessel below, is described in different places here as a steamer, a motor vessel, and a canal propeller. It’s a wooden barge built in Brooklyn in 1918 for a company called Ore Carrying Corp and –I assume–called OCCO 101. In 1929 it was made a self-propelled barge, presumably looking like the photo below taken in 1950 in Lyons, NY. Lowery at the time of the incident in Albany was loaded and had six barges in tow. Note in the photo below you see the bow of one barge.
Below you see the particulars on Lowery throughout its lives.
The other thing that intrigues me about the legal report embedded in the first sentence of this post is the trade route alluded to. Lowery, her barges, and no doubt many like them transported wheat from Buffalo to Albany and scrap from Albany to Buffalo, via the relatively newly opened Barge Canal. Folks working on the barge Canal would have no idea what to make of traffic on the canal in 2018 such as this, this, or this.
Yesterday’s post featured a black/white photo of the image below. Posting it, generated the helpful background info contained in the comment by William Lafferty. It also generated the image below.
Many thanks to Dave Lauster and Edson Ennis, who generated the initial questions and these images, and to Bob Stopper for the tireless relaying and much more. Somewhat related to today’s post is this set from Bob in 2014.
One of the goals I’ve had for this blog for some years now has been an effort to bring into the public domain images of years past exactly like these when –to repeat the points above– vessels and trade patterns were different. I look forward to continuing this effort. With your assistance, more “far-flung” posts are just around the next bend.
An organization with some overlapping goals is the Canal Society of New York State. Click here to see the list of presentations at the winter symposium planned for March 2 in Rochester NY. I plan to be there. They also have a FB presence where they frequently post photos similar to the ones in today’s and yesterday’s posts. Consider joining in one or more of these.
This seems like it could be a useful line of posts . . . research-prompting photos.
Thanks to Bob Stopper, this is a generations-old set taken in Lyons at lock E-27. The photos are sharp, the names are very clear, and we’re looking to confirm the identity
of the deckhand on F. W. G. Winn Jr. Hugh O’Donnell shows up in the 1953-54 Merchant Vessels of the United States. Also, in 1925, the tug was involved in a court case, some records are here, involving the loss of cargo from two barges . . .
I’m looking for any info on the tug that might confirm the identity of the deckhand.
And next . . . Paul Strubeck sent me this photo yesterday and mentioned that it’d been on tugster before. Hurricane Irma and said destruction happened a year and a half ago. I’d actually not noticed this story a year and a half ago.
but the photo I put up was here from four years ago. I mentioned then that she was built in 1930 in Philly and before carrying the name constant was called Van Dyke 4, Big Shot, and James McAllister.
Does anyone know what happened to her after the hurricane? Likely she was scrapped, and I did find a photo of an overturned hull . . . But anything else?
Many thanks to Bob and Paul for sharing these photos.
Beyond Capt. Brian . . .
Stena Penguin prepares to exit the KVK for the Upper Bay and up to the Saint Lawrence.
Anchored in the Upper Bay, it’s Stenaweco Elegance and
Venus R. now both away south . . ..
Eric McAllister here passes Harbour First, and later
escorts in RHL Agilitas.
Meanwhile crude oil tanker Alpine Confidence, somewhat down by the bow, turns in the tide just inside the Narrows.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who always finds change in the sixth boro, whether it be every day or every decennial.
By the way, see Tugster Tower in the distance . . . somewhere out there in the haze.
My rules for this series: all photos need to have come from the month in focus but exactly 10 years earlier. It’s a good way to notice change.
Take Capt. Log. I used to love seeing that boat, now long scrapped. I have photos of her as a heap of scrap pieces and have never posted them. I’m guessing the Chandra B crew are happy to have that new boat, but Capt. Log was such a unique sight.
Baltic Sea . . . I’d love to see a current photo of her from Nigeria. See more of her departed K-Sea fleet mates here. Sunny Express is now Minerva Lydia, and still working, I think.
Taurus has moved to the Delaware River and has some splotches of purple a la Hays.
Volunteer has been scrapped.
The orange June K is now the blue Sarah Ann . . . . I still miss that color….
Charles Oxman is no longer in service . . . I last saw her here in 2016.
APL Egypt used to be a regular here, and of course John B. Caddell . . .had only a few years left at this point before getting cut up. For a “what’s left . . .” of John B., click here and scroll.
I’m not saying everything is gone or has changed. Walker and Salvor still work here and –to the untrained eye–look exactly as they did a decade ago, even though these days from any distance, I can’t tell the distance between Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise. And those crewing on these two vessels, I can’t tell if anyone working then on each boat still does. For Walker, it’s very likely it’s an entirely new crew.
I hope you enjoyed this glance back.
All photos in February 2009 by Will Van Dorp.
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