Uncrewed 3

I’ve got a backlog of photos you all have sent along.  I’ll start here with some photos from my sister, Cookie Baker, who has sent along this and this, along with others over the years. 

Any guesses as to the what and where?

Some of you already know, but the 

location here is Alameda CA.  Saildrone fits in the same niche as the XOcean vessels that were working in the NY Bight a few months back.  USVs have been used on the Great Lakes already also here.  And then there’s Sea Hawk, what the USN is experimenting with in the SURFDEVRON program.

Many thanks to my sister for sending these photos along to her sixth boro brother. 

 

Random Tugs 390

Call this a continuation of yesterday’s post, but this is a model bow set . . . . Given all the features that could be discussed, focus on these for oldest/newest, smallest/largest, and least/most horsepower.  Also, one of these does not fit with the others, although all are tugboats. 

Douglas J

Doris Moran

Philadelphia

Again, identify the oldest/newest, smallest/largest, and least/most horsepower.

James William  Here she appears to be towing a mooring into Erie Basin Brooklyn. 

Millie B and Louis C.  These two certainly do not fit in with this post, but  . . . I’m posting this photo anyhow.  Previously, Millie B has appeared here.  Louis C has appeared here. I hope you’re getting ready with your answers. 

Rowan M McAllister

Adeline Marie

All photos and any errors, WVD.   All info here thanks to Birk Thomas’ invaluable tugboatinformation.

Ready?  No cheating.

Just guesses.

Answers?

Oldest is Rowan M, and newest is Philadelphia. 1981 and 2017.

Smallest considering both length and beam is James William, and longest is Doris Moran although Douglas J is the beamiest. Lengths are 77′ and 118′.  

Least horses is James William, and most is Douglas J.  They range from 2800 hp to 4800 hp.

Besides Millie B, the outlier is James William because she has a push-knee bow–rather than a model bow.  Also, she’s the only triple screw here. 

Random Tugs 389

Call this the push knee set.  And let’s do it this way . . . given all the features that could be discussed, focus of these for oldest/newest, smallest/largest, and least/most horsepower.

CMT Pike.  An aside about CMT Pike is that she was not built with a retractable wheelhouse.  When launched, she had a fixed wheelhouse, the “stalk” of which can be seen directly behind where the raised wheelhouse is now.  I’ve not been able to find a photo of her in that original configuration. 

Shiloh Amon aka Jillian Irene

 

Lightning

Discovery Coast

Miss Madeline

And finally, a photo from January 2013 and showing one that has been sold out of the sixth boro . . . Herbert P. Brake. 

Have you written down your final decisions?

All photos, WVD.  All info here thanks to Birk Thomas’ invaluable tugboatinformation

Ready?  No cheating.

Just guesses.

Oldest is Miss Madeline, and newest is Shiloh aka Jillian Irene. 1976 and 2022.

Smallest considering both length and beam is Herbert P. Brake, and longest is Discovery Coast although both Discovery and Jillian tie at 34′ for beam. Lengths are 60′ and 96′.

Least horses is Brake, and most is Discovery.  They range from 375 hp to 3000 hp.

Turning Bow Chain

Kimberly headed out on a mission, as 

did Mary.

They converged alongside Bow Chain, 

where crew mustered. 

As daylight opened between Bow Chain and the dock, 

Kimberly moved to the opposite side

and with guidance

Bow Chain moved slightly forward and toward port and 

 

rotated counterclockwise

with Kimberly helping the bow around while

Mary pushed the stern. 

Pilot and crew directed from the bridge wing

and once sailed, Bow Chain began a voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. 

All photos, WVD. 

 

People on the Boro 34

A couple days ago in the 77 Days post (which I’ve since learned added up to 79 days) I saw a mariner I know on the boro on a Maersk container vessel.

Most of the time though I don’t know the folks I see working on the water.  The folks in yellow and orange coats below are likely longshoremen mustering before ruunning in and driving all the vehicles out that are to be discharged here . . .  in the sixth boro.  

Note the mariners below preparing the messenger line down to the tugboat. 

The deckhand retrieves it, makes it to the tugboat, signals, 

and the ONE crew move forward to standby at the forward mooring area. 

Meanwhile, the deckhand secures the line. 

All photos, WVD.

Hat tip to the people out on the boro in all kinds of weather. 

 

Industrial Emma

A small 14-year-old general cargo vessel named Industrial Emma

was inbound from Salvador Brasil.   Any guesses on how long that voyage would take?

She’s a 5800 hp ship coming in with an assist from Miriam Moran, a 3000 hp tug. 

Industrial Emma is the product of a Polish shipyard, Remontowa, whose 1960s history I find not surprising but interesting. 

Her container capacity is 535 teu.

Travel time from Salvador was 17 days and 3 hours.  The Intermarine vessel’s next port of call is Houston. 

All photos, WVD. 

77 Days Between

 . . . signing onto the 6200-teu Maersk Detroit and stepping off at the end of a hitch, this post is inspired by a sixth boro mariner on a milk run.  Many thanks to Mike Weiss** for most of the photos.  It took him 77 days to get from Port Elizabeth back to Port Elizabeth.  Day 1 was back in early November. 

Yesterday I caught a few photos in the KVK of the vessel on the last few miles of a voyage mostly halfway around the world and back.

Mike, an AB, texted me their ETA into the KVK and  

in cold overcast morning I wore my conspicuous vest and waited

to see people on the aft mooring deck.

Welcome home, Mike. This is a timeless way to go so sea:  depart from your home and return to it. 

The following are some photos Mike took along the way, as in the Strait of Gibraltar just before calling at the port of Algeciras, 

Port Said at the aft mooring deck thousands of sea miles ago, 

entering the Suez Canal and heading under the Al-Salam Bridge (I think), and 

about to exit the Suez following . . . Ever Given [yes, really!!], 

getting an assist at Port Qasim, 

port of Salalah, 

and then homeward across the Atlantic to 

port of Houston, 

and port of Charleston, with many other sights that only Mike can tell about along the way. 

Many thanks to Mike Weiss for sharing these photos and his experiences.  If you didn’t click on the ** link in the first paragraph, you’ll be happy to do it here for some of Mike’s sea resume. 

Maersk Detroit is part of the US-flagged Maersk fleet. 

Ever Given has a big sister now here. 

 

 

January 2023 Fishing

Eastern Welder and 

Dutch Girl have been coming into the sixth boro to rake clams for as long as I’ve been keeping a record, which goes back only to winter 2007.

It’s probably high time I get more info from the commercial fishermen themselves, but as speaking only as a photographer here, I associate winter and these boats in the boro just as I associate summer and recreational boats. 

Enjoy these photos, and as a believer in group sourcing, maybe I’ll be again blessed to have someone who knows this world of winter fishing

share some insights and information.  As with anything, there are stories to hear, just as in the harbor

there are clams to dig and surface.

Meanwhile, stay safe out there. 

Here’s the history perspective. 

Here’s the NJ state perspective. 

All photos, this week, WVD. 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 57

All these photos were taken in the second half of January 2013.  This 1973 livestock carrier Falconia was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard getting some work done.  I’d love to see a cargo layout for the vessel.  Also, just back from the foremast, those are large bales of either hay or straw for the livestock.   What would you guess her disposition in second half of January 2023?  Answer follows at the end of this post.

The tanker here is today in the Gulf of Guinea on a run between Gabon and Netherlands.  Kristy Ann Reinauer was scrapped in 2015. 

The green tug Mary Gellatly was transformed into the very busy CMT Mackenzie Rose. 

The behemoth Rebel has become Ken Vinik, awaiting a makeover in the Arthur Kill. 

The name of the hull–we’d spell it “Sovkomflot“–is one you will not see in the sixth boro these days, and it seems the icebreaking tanker is currently

anchored  where it has been for at least the past six months in Murmansk. 

The Penn Maritime Coho has become the Kirby Coho, currently in Savannah. 

Note the ice and snow on the boats above and below;  January a decade ago was frosty!  Barbara McAllister has become Patsy K, which I’ve never seen.  She’s in Panama City FL right now. 

It’s clamming time in the boro, and many of these clam/fish boats come out of this creek in NJ.  More Dutch Girl tomorrow. 

Grey Shark may be a dead ship or even a scrapped one by now, last recorded in the DR. 

And finally, Megan McAllister is alive and well, busy as Charles James.  

All photos from January 2013, WVD.  

And the answer to the question about the current disposition of Falconia:   she’s renamed Dragon and in Midia, Romania on the Black Sea, flying the Togolese flag, and still working, having just arrived in from Libya. For a tour of a much newer and sophisticated purpose-built livestock carrier, click here. More on this category of vessel here, and Dragon specifically on page 49.

For a disturbing report–if you choose to followup here–google Queen Hind livestock carrier, which capsized in Midia in 2019  and resulted in the “lost cargo,” i.e., death 14,000 sheep. 

 

 

 

Random Tugs 388

Even on overcast days, the sixth boro aka NY harbor offers sights.  It’s long been so;  here’s much abridged paragraphs 3-5 Chapter 1 of Moby Dick:

[People] stand … fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning … some seated … some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China… [some] pacing straight for the water…  Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land… They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand…  infallibly [move] to water…  Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy [youth] with a robust healthy soul… at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning…. we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans … the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.”

OK, so that might be over the top, but I find at least as much entertainment along the water as in all the other places in NYC.  Maybe that makes me a hermit, but that’s irrelevant.  Can you name these boats?  

At less than 10 miles an hour, trade comes in, commerce of all sort goes on. 

different hour different goods, 

different tasks, 

different energies

and errands 

by different 

companies . .  .

All photos, WVD.

And in order, Jonathan C Moran, Meaghan Marie, Ellen McAllister, Andrea, Schuylkill, Rowan R McAllister, Thomas D Witte, Susan Miller.