Something Different 15

What’s this?  I’ll get around to identification in a bit. Sistine chapel ceiling?  Sister of Sistine?   For now, everyone knows the genre of “nose art” on aircraft.

Trucks  . . . most likely the owner operator variety . . . sometimes display.

Then there’s official marking with numbers and painted emblems to clearly mark purpose as well as to

bedazzle, make nimtopsical, render too fuddled to head tail or trail . . .

display trophies.

Then there’s this . . . by sea and

by

land.

I prefer the Vallejo inspired above to the Disney knock offs below.

Here she is . . . probably

Steiner built.

Since we can’t really call this nose art, let’s call it bow, stern, or house art.  Send me you favorite examples  . . . from commercial vessels only?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

By the way, Mohawk WPG-78 above was reefed about a year after I took that photo.  Here and here are links to that vessel that now dazzles divers.  I’d love to hear from anyone who’s dived on it.

Sixth Boro Details 5

Here was 4.

And this . . .

is the cutterhead ladder of C. R. McCaskill.

Looking generally northward from Fort Wadsworth, from nearer to farther . .  fishing boat, tanker, ATB,  ferry, and Jersey City.

Catch the name of the approaching tanker running rinse through the anchor hawse . . . ?

Chem Bulldog.  The other above written in Greek says Corossol.

Frisia Rotterdam Gibraltar.  Know the etymology of “gibraltar”?  Check it here.

Caption?

After delivering another 50,000+ tons of South American salt to NYC, Kenan has already sailed southward to Puerto Bolivar to load ….

coal.   Click here to see Kenan‘s itinerary over the past nine months.

Last shot . . . Alegria I.

All photos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 123

It’s Margot, last included on this blog here.  Guess the location?

And a former fleet mate of Frances, it’s  Catherine Turecamo . ..  with Gage Paul Thornton way in the background.

Here’s a closer-up of Gage Paul with Robbins Light in the background.

New York Central No. 13 . . . changing at a glacial pace and probably regressing, not progressing.   My last photo of this boat might be here.

Here’s Robert leaving the sixth boro this morning with a tow that

includes dredge McCaskill, which I previously featured here high and dry  and here from the inside.

East Coast meets west coast this morning alongside Corossol.

The newer Dean headed eastbound on the KVK and

and finally . .  another configuration of Marjorie B. McAllister.

All photos taken this week by Will Van Dorp.

Oh . . . Margot‘s location in the first photo is Tottenville NY, with Outerbridge Crossing in the background.

For the Birds 8

There are birds . . .  .  like (?) this winter plumage loon and

this common merganser male.  And

there are birds . . . here.  The rest of these photos come from Brian DeForest.

What I’d still like to see this winter is one of these, though.

Many thanks to Brian DeForest for these photos.

 

Augie Grows Up

Here was Augie when I first saw her, June 2012.

A few months later, here’s Augie alongside Cornell.

Ditto . . . Augie that year at Waterford Tugboat Roundup.  Start counting the days until the 2014 event.

Here are photos I took of Augie about six weeks ago in Kingston.  Notice some evolution?

Augie‘s now grown an upper helm!

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who lost his notes on Augie‘s history:  what I recall is Florida-built from the 1940s.

Government Boats 30

First some background . . .from  Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Chapter 24 . ..  last two paragraphs:

“If I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

New York once used a Liberty ship as a high school . . . from the late 1940s until the early 1980s, if I understand correctly.   The photo below comes credit to Seth Tane.  Read the print on the bow.

Here’s another photo of that school.  Click on photo to see its provenance and more.

August 2011 . . . NYC Department of Education’s Harbor School takes possession of Privateer on long term lease from NYC Department of Transportation,  Staten Island Ferry.  It’s an ex- 46′  BUSL . . .”boat utility stern loading,” and

here’s Privateer today, after a “learn-on-the-job” transformation in which Harbor School students participated.  Click here for a six-minute video shot mostly on the vessel used in vessel training AND oyster bed restoration.

Photos below show the Schottel drive unit being installed in Privateer after reconditioning.

Another one of Harbor School’s boats is Indy 7.  Indy is so-named because she was one of twelve utility boats aboard CV-62 Independence, which I visited in Bremerton, Washington a few years back.  CV-62 was a Forrestal-class carrier laid down in Brooklyn, and I’m thrilled that the tradition lives on, a government boat having a second life  training local youth.

Thanks to Capt. Aaron Singh, waterfront director at NY Harbor School for this info and these photos.  Photo below showing the Boston Whaler named Pescador comes credit of  Captain Chris Gasiorek.  Thanks, Chris.

If you’re reading this and you’re a graduate of Harbor School OR the SS John W. Brown School, I’d love to get a comment from you, especially about the path the school put you on.

Here and here are posts in which I’ve referred to Harbor School.

Unrelated but interesting:  a floating school in Bangladesh, a school boat bus in Washington on the Salish Sea, and finally a floating school in Nigeria.

Whatzit 19

I know some folks refuse to spend time with Facebook.  I entered there in 2008 after figuring out it was the only way to communicate and exchange photos with some people.  Now I’ve joined 14 groups there . .  and checking in has become similar to dropping by the breakroom at a job.

Saturday night I saw this photo.  Actually it’s only a detail of a bigger photo.   Any ideas what it is?

Here’s the entire shot, an assemblage of mostly tugboats attached to a circular base where a crane is mounted.  Two landing craft travel from left to right and what looks like a few miles distant there’s a beach with mountains not far behind.

The photo was put up on Saturday afternoon.   Notice the initial comment by Kees (pronounced “case” ) van der Ende.  Of course, I needed to respond as I did.  What amazed me was the thread that followed in less than an hour!

Less than 24 hours later, the tugs as well as the project had been identified through a textbook case of “group sourcing.” I love it.  Click here for more on Aegean Pelagos.  Click here for some Zouros tugs.   Click here for Arctic Kalvik, although I wonder why such an icebreaker would be in the Med.

Once Kees had expressed interest in being the CEO, another 20+ posts followed on the topic of logos and such.

Click here for a photo of the completed bridge as well as points along the way to completion.

By the way . .  .  pay a moment or two tribute to Mardi Gras today, even if NYC and the sixth boro is as cold as  . . .  .   You decide how to finish it in some original way . . . not borrowed from J. D. Salinger.    Here was my first mardi gras post from five years ago!

Salt 11

Cape Henry at arrival . . . drawing between 12 and 13 meters with its holds

full of salt to render area roads safe and savory.

At departure for sea and points east yesterday afternoon . . .  she drew less than 6.

She was assisted out by Marjorie and

Ellen McAllister.

All photos except the third one by Brian DeForest, whom I thank.  I took #3.

 

Names 22

Here was the previous post in the series.

Rhino . . .  sibling of Wildebeest, a beastly tanker I photographed here some time back.  with names like these,

I imagine the sixth boro as the Serengeti.

STX Ace 6 . . .  hmmmm.

And yet another bulk carrier emptied out at the salty pile, it’s

Pacific Basin’s Cape Henry.

And off the starboard bow in the distance, it’s

poetically named Seasong.

and to close it out . . . all these vessels are in the sixth bork as of this writing  .  . .   Lian Xing Hu.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Government Boats 29

Here was 28.

Click here for a photo of this tug showing its deep belly.  How long has the canal owned her?  Answer follows.

Click here for info on Arkansas-built Gelberman, here photographed yesterday pulling a tree out of the way of navigation.

Driftmaster I believe dates from 1947, making her older than me.   Scroll through here for photos of Driftmaster helping with clean-up post Sandy.

Jersey City fire vessel Joseph Lovero is named for their dispatcher who died in that attack twelve and a half years ago.

343 arrived in the harbor nearly four years ago.  Click here for the welcome ceremony in the harbor when she arrived in April 2010.

T-AKR  316 Pomeroy, named for a Medal of Honor winner who died on a Korean mountain at age 22,  has been dry-docked in Bayonne for about a month now for maintenance.

Click here for more info on the Watson-class.

So we’re back to the beginning.  Governor Roosevelt came to the canal as a steam-powered icebreaker in 1927!  I’d love to see pics of canal traffic from back then.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.