Mixed Sixth Boro 2

Christy Anne is a small tug that I’ve not seen in 15 years!!  I posted it here, after seeing it in the Hackensack River, a place I see rarely.  Unrelated:  where are those buildings on the ridge in the distance?  Is there some Fata Morgana effect going on there?

With the placement of tire fendering fore and aft, I had the impression of an amphibious craft, the hull shaped around the tires almost like fenders on a flat-fender Jeep.  Here’s the late Fred “tug44“s post about the boat. 

When I saw this boat sailing in the other day, with its serious lines, I had to learn its story.  It’s Sparrow, an Open 50 racing sloop, preparing for the Global Solo Challenge. More on the boat here. 

 

Nicholas Miller, 33′ x 11′ crew boat, is picking up a pilot on the fly as

MSC Elodie, 980′ loa, comes into the harbor.  Nicholas matched the ship’s six-knot speed, sidled up, and stuck the rubber to the ship’s hull;  once the pilot was safely aboard, 

powered her way to overcome the physical forces and get away from the ship.

Ocean Venture is a purse seiner that comes through the boro periodically.. Some concern exists about the menhaden fishery.

She was possibly headed for her base on the Penobscot.

The seiner skiff helps deploy the purse  net.

What was curious, I thought, was that UConn’s 90′ loa Connecticut came in right behind Ocean Venture. 

 

As seems true a lot these days, I suspect there’s much more to the movements of these vessels

than I will ever know.  

All photos, WVD, who’s just being his customary curious.

Summer Sail 4

Here are previous iterations of this title.   Of course, many options exist for getting onto sixth boro waters.  One delightful way I’m most familiar with is aboard schooner Pioneer;  get tickets here.  Enjoy these photos, mostly taken from the cabin top starboard side and outboard the foremast earlier this week.

Soon after leaving the pier, we passed a 1920s schooner Pilot repurposed as an eatery/drinkery on the Brooklyn side, Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  More on Pilot and its owners here.  Click for more on the rest of the fleet and their restaurants.   Pilot came into the sixth boro as Highlander Sea, towed by Jaguar.

Within minutes of leaving the pier, four sails were set and we made our way south;  the engine was shut off as soon as it was no longer needed.

Looking astern toward Red Hook container terminal, I noticed a tugboat following us.

You would not expect an 1885 schooner to have anything other than traditional sails.

Without engine against a flood tide, we rounded Governors Island and got as far south as we could before entering the shallows off Bayonne, and we tacked and started out return to Manhattan.   With the engine silent, it was a magical sail.

 

Although other schooners like Clipper City take passengers to sail the harbor, Pioneer is by far, by very far, the oldest . . .

As we made our way back to the pier, night was falling, and we dropped sail and motored back under the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

All photos, WVD, who invites you to come sailing while the summer is here.

An invitation:  Any group of friends want to all sign up for an evening sail, say in early August while the days are still longer than later?  Either Pioneer grads or tugster folks or Pegasus alums or any other bond?

 

Something Different 4 Follow-Up

You likely heard about the Hong Kong floating restaurant that sank recently while being towed “somewhere.”  No one was hurt, and it sank in a deep part of the ocean, so it will remain at the bottom, maybe as a venue for the mer-creatures.  Second lives for vessels as restaurants, etc., are tough.

Here was the original Something Different 4.  Click on the image below and you’ll get an 8:37 video of the ill-fated Jumbo as it was extricated by tugboats from its erstwhile piece of then harbor in Hong Kong.  These two images are video grabs, hence a bit blurry. 

If I follow this correctly, this version of a floating restaurant with seating for 2300 diners was built in the late 1970s by Chung Wah Shipbuilding.  The 260′ establishment,  part of Jumbo Kingdom, had closed due to Covid.

Floating bars and restaurants are nothing new.  Here was a post with an image of a similar floating restaurant in mainland China.  Manhattan has Pier 66, among several others. It was going to have one called Water Table, until that boat–Revolution–was catastrophically damaged.  

 I’ve eaten at a place similar in Rotterdam, simply called De Chinese Boot;  aside from slightly different spelling, you just read Dutch language there.

I still have WiFi because we’re still at the dock. 

 

Pilot Boat No. 1 at the Narrows

Sandy Hook Pilots vessels are the first glimpse of the sixth boro traffic for incoming vessels, but many folks on the sixth boro periphery might rarely see any trace of them or their vessels.  The other windy day, however, they appeared to be training near the VZ Bridge, whose shadow you see as a dark band across the water in the photo below.

Click here for the fleet, made up of station boats (mother ships) and launches, 16 m boats shown below. 

 

I believe that’s Phantom.

For more history of the Sandy Hook Pilots, albeit from an outdated NYTimes article, click here.

All photos, WVD.

Seldom Seen 1

I’ve thought about using this title quite often, and I surely have a lot of candidates, my personal ones, to include here.

Know the tug(s) from the photo below?  Really the most seldom seen is the nearer one, the one with escape ropes mounted on either side of the wheelhouse egresses.

Pacific Dawn I last saw over six years ago here.  She tends to follow dredging projects, which might possibly have brought her in the other day. 

I’ve seen Delta a lot on AIS, but I believe I should consider her a “never seen” by me.  So voila!

Here she passes the seldom seen Ypapanti and the some to be no longer seen Pilot No. 1 New York.  I could be wrong about the last part of that statement.  

Delta also tends to follow dredging projects, it seems to me.

 

Have your own “seldom seen”?  Let me know.  All photos here in the past week, WVD.

Strait of Canso Traffic 2

Four years ago, I saw Alder in Duluth, where she had worked since her launch in Lake Michigan in 2004.  Believe it or not, I appear NOT to have taken photos of her, as unlikely as that seems.   In 2005, Alder replaced the 1944 Sundew, which is still in Duluth, now as a private vessel.  I was in Duluth after an interesting ride up from Milwaukee, but I appear not to have been in a mood to take photos of USCG vessels.

Alder is no longer in Duluth;  earlier this month she traveled out of the Great Lakes.  Jack Ronalds got these photos from Strait of Canso.  Here she arrives from the north and heads for the lock, which is Seawaymax size.  The pilot boat Strait Falcon makes the pilot exchange. 

 

USCG in foreign territory . . .  Click here for the other Juniper-class cutters, of which Alder is the last.

Here‘s a story about one of the pilots in the Strait area.

Getting back to Alder, might this be a tad hubristic?

From here, Alder headed to Baltimore by way of Boston.  I’d held off posting this because I though she might pass through the sixth boro, but . . .  I’ve read that after rehabbing, she heads to new duty in Hawaii.  I wonder who’s replacing her in Duluth.

Many thanks to Jack for use of these photos, and for seeing an eye on the Strait. 

High and Dry: Caddells 4

The “4” here refers to the dry dock, not the fourth post in this series.  The last post on Caddell  was Something Different 57.  And in the “high and dry” series, this would be number 11.  I’m just trying to anchor this post in the previous body of work. Also, I believe this dry dock was originally built as an auxilliary floating dry dock (ARD) by the USN to lift submarines out of their watery habitat, but I can’t corroborate that.

In Dry Dock 4 a half dozen years ago was the pilot boat New York.  I put this first so that the vessels in the rest of the photos can be compared against a standard, the dimensions of the same dry dock.

See above for scale.  On this date, winter 2014, Dry Dock 4 was shared by W. O. Decker and schooner Pioneer, currently both in Albany getting refurbished and improved. 

This boat’s a mystery to me;  the livery on upper pilothouse says it’s a Reinauer boat, but I took this photo over 10 years ago and have lost track of its identity.  You may know?

McAllisters Brothers was originally called Dalzelleagle.  I believe it’s currently in the sixth boro but mothballed.

The Fireboat John J. Harvey had some work done in Dry Dock 4 .  She has a long and storied career.

Doris Moran is a 4610 hp tugboat that does some sixth boro work, although she’s currently in Louisiana.

East Coast has not appeared on this blog very often.  She used to tow the sugar barge, and she may well still do so.

Let’s get to the end of this post with Clipper City, having some bottom work done on a cold winter’s day eight years ago already. 

All photos, WVD, who’d love to know more about the history of Dry Dock 4.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro (and Beyond) 32

Here we go again . . .  the start of another month means we jump back to that month 10 years earlier.  Crystal Cutler was quite new, here pushing Patricia E. Poling. Manhattan had a different skyline at that time.

I was heartbroken when I learned that USACE’s 1963 Hudson got reefed just over a year ago.    With her lines, she’s now supposed to house marine life, 10 fathoms or more down, and not quite 3 miles off Fire Island. I doubt those fish and invertebrates appreciate those lines.

The 1980 OSG Independence has been a victim of 2020;  the 131′ x 37′  5600 hp tug was scrapped earlier this year.

A gallivant to Narragansett Bay revealed this vessel in the used vehicle trade, then running between Providence and Cape Verde, I believe.  Danalith, a 1976 build, is said to be called Mouhssine, flying the flag of Tanzania.

Also in Narragansett Bay, over by the Jamestown bridge, was a Belford NJ boat, Coastline Kidd.  I’ve not found any info about this boat. 

Craig Eric Reinauer is now Albert, now squiring Margaret all over the Great Lakes.

Gramma Lee T Moran, whose namesake is the same as a Great Lakes ore boat, currently works in Baltimore harbor.

2010’s Yeoman Brook is today’s Caroline Oldendorff.  These name changes confuse me.   Caroline Oldendorff is currently in Amsterdam, having sailed in from Jintang, China.

This is not the best photo, but this was T/V Kings Pointer from 1992 until 2012.  Here’s a link for more info on her life, but basically, from launch in 1983 until 1992, she was T-AGOS-2 aka USNS Contender.  Currently she’s T/V General Rudder, named for General James E. Rudder.   The USMMA has a new vessel designated as T/V Kings Pointer. 

And finally, late December found me in the charming port of Charleston, where I caught pilot boat Fort Moultrie, waiting for a ship.  Is Fort Moultrie still at work?

All photos, 10 years ago, WVD, who sometimes thinks it must be much longer ago than that.

New York Media Boat 2

The NY Media Boat has a pick up point in Manhattan, but I chose to board the boat at Liberty Landing in Jersey City, where this view of lower Manhattan awaits. From here, our goal was almost 20 nm away, even though we’d not take the shortest route.  Some tasks call for efficient and direct routes, and other tasks crave scenic, gunk-hole exploration routes.

This was the goal, the station boat, in this case Pilot No. 1 New York. Of course,  “on station” may not be at anchor, rather it might be steaming slow circles or figure eights in the vicinity of the entrance to Ambrose Channel, with an America class boat ready to deliver pilots between ships and the station boat.   This is entirely stating the obvious, but standing on shore, you may not be able to see the station boat; however, from the station boat, you can clearly see a large city spread out before you.  Obviously, you can’t see the tidal zone of the beach  . .  and more . . .  because of the curvature of the earth.  At one point, an Ambrose lightship was in this vicinity.

Our actual goal was the “A” buoy, aka the “sea buoy,” which marks the “sea” end of Ambrose Channel.   Note the green patina “whistle” in the lower half of the buoy;  it makes a sighing tone as water motion pressures air through it. Click here to hear a variety of buoy noises.   Here‘s another view of the type.  By the way, in the image below, that’s the station boat in the distance, the white speck to the right of the buoy.

But all that is not the story.  See the bird “swimming” to the right of the A buoy?  Well, it was trapped, tangled in discarded fishing line. 

This turned into the adventure.  Click on the image . . . and you’ll see the rescue and hear the sounds, including the buoy whistle and VHF crackle.  That’s Bjoern at the helm and then carrying the bird after I cut the main line.  I’m the guy with the white hat and knife. 

The gull’s body and right leg had been entangled in the line.   What this photo doesn’t show is the blood on Bjoern’s foot and my hand.  Gulls have a reputation for biting the hands that disentangle it . . .  as reward for saving them from certain death by starvation.   Oh well, you’ve seen blood before, and salt water heals everything.

Here’s closeup of some of that line.

Click on the clip below for the context of the video.   By the way, the footage comes from the in-cabin CCTV camera.

Many thanks to Bjoern at the Media Boat for the views from “sea” and the adventure. 

Photos, unless otherwise credited, WVD.

PS:  If you’re looking for food ideas for tomorrow, that gull was plump as a small turkey, given all the bunker out there.  And if you are spending T’day on a vessel and feel like it, send me a photo of your table, give me some info, and I’ll do a post about that.  I know this book  is out of date, so classics live on and maybe it needs to be updated.

I’m thankful we have so much to be thankful for every day.

Pilot Boat No. 1 August 2020 Update

Today will be a two-post day.  Here’s the first one, and it follows on this May update.  These photos come thanks to Kevin Oldenburg.  The next post will come in an hour.

She was headed up to Feeney’s Shipyard in the Rondout for a continuation of the conversion from oil spill response vessel to pilot boat mother ship.  Atone point, she was identical to New Jersey Responder or Deep Blue Responder.

Unlike her move back in May, only a few miles, this time she traveled under her own power.  And travel she did . . . . 13 knots worth.

Hat tip to Kevin.  Previous photos attributed to Kevin can be found here.