Daring and Bayou Dawn

The view of three of the boros–Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the 6th–from Fort Wadsworth is spectacular, but it does not typically show the season, although winter tends to have clearer air, as was the case yesterday.  See digression pushed to the end of this post.

I went to the Fort to get photos of Daring, a Robbins tug I’d seen on AIS but never in actual steel.

Daring has been working on various dredging projects along the Jersey shore. 

It turns out Daring is a lugger tug design, perfect for dredge work.

Heading south with Daring was Bayou Dawn, here moving another crane barge through the shadow the VZ Bridge casts so clearly on winter days.

Here finally was a clear indication of seasonal temperatures.

Can you read the coated raised lettering?

All photos, any errors, WVD.

Here’s my digression:  Winter light is clearer [less hazy] than summer light because cold air can “hold” less water vapor than warmer air . . . is it as simple as that?  What does “holding” mean in this case?  I never understood physics the way I did other sciences.

 

Sixth Boro Traffic 4

Traffic, when you’re trapped in it, is not fun.  Watching commercial marine traffic, for me, never gets old, as you might know.  The more things get, the more interesting the harbor seems.    A handful of sophisticated and expensive machinery and its skilled operators jam pack this image.  I see three Centerline boats, JRT, and Safmarine Nomazwe.

Roughly the same place and hour and some later, Thunder, just off the port side of Caroline M, shares this image with at least three other tugboats that almost blend into the cold humid morning.

Foreshortening makes Laura K and Doris Moran seem a lot closer together than they are. 

Here it’s Marilyn George, Coursen, Alex McAllister, and Wye River, I believe.

Besides the three tugs along the left side, that’s Alex, Kristy Ann with RTC 80, Barney, and Kristin Poling pushing Eva Leigh Cutler.  Between Barney and Kristin are at least two Kirby boats.

This was several minutes after the previous photo with some of the same boats.

Daisy Mae here pushes a CMT barge with a Vane unit in the distance, in front of an impossibly packed set of cliffs.

This is not so much packed as it is filled with very different examples of marine commercial traffic.

And in closing, clustered in front of USNS Red Cloud, clockwise starting from Cajun, it’s J. Arnold Witte, USACE Haward, and Marjorie B. McAllister.

All photos, any errors or omissions, WVD, who hits the road again tomorrow.  Peace on Earth!

 

Exotic Friday

You know that day after T’giving?  Maybe you call it by another name, whose derivation you might not know.  For me it’s sometimes a good day to keep my eyes open, as was the case back in 2012.

Permute that number to 2021, and it was also a good day to be out, despite the gray leaden sky.  First I saw Candice L. in the sixth boro.  She’s appeared in this blog before, but never in the sixth boro. 

 

Note the red rings on her black stack?  Clearly she’s fleetmate of Cajun, Liz Alma, Camie, and Delta.  Now I’ve seen the whole fleet.

A bit later Katan caught my attention. 

Note the colors and logo seen here previously on Angelina Autumn.  Also, note the “davits” on either side of the wheelhouse holding knotted line for quick exit from wheelhouse to weather deck, not a common feature of sixth boro regulars. 

 

Although she carries nameboards for Michelle, AIS shows her as Katan, a name whose origin puzzles me.

She dropped off some barges and went right back out to sea. As of this morning, she’s back in Norfolk.

The vessel that got me out looking to begin with was this one, Martin Explorer, which my associative brain processed incorrectly as Martian Explorer, which would have been an interesting sighting indeed. 

She’s clearly a Candies design of a certain vintage, reminding me of Emma M. Roehrig/Greenland Sea, a former regular in the sixth boro but now possibly done for.  See that same boat here before that as Tecumseh and S/R Providence, out of the notch and showing her lines clearly.

Unfortunately, she went to the anchorage and these are the best photos I’ve gotten of her for now.  Martin Explorer is the first Martin Midstream Partnership vessel I’ve seen. As of this writing Sunday morning, she’s still anchored in the Upper Bay.  For more of the Martin Midstream fleet, I may have to travel south.

All photos, WVD, who’s glad he went out on exotic Friday, a once a year event.

By the way, yesterday I made up some 2022 calendars, of which 24 will be for sale.  I used a subjective process this time.  More details later but if you’re interested, email me your interest and your address.  Send no money at this time, please, but prices will likely be up a tad because, of course, politics. 

 

 

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.

ICW Tugs May 2017* A

I’ve traveled the ICW from Charleston SC to NYC, some parts several times.  This is a “revisit”  focusing solely on tugboats. I’ll start in Charleston with Elizabeth Turecamo in the fog.

Recycling comments on the boats below from Georgetown SC, by George Schneider:  “The little one shows the name Laura , which has one of two possible origins: A 45-foot tug by the Equitable Equipment Company of Louisiana, or a 45-foot Army dredge tender of Army Design 320, mirroring the Equitable design. I’m guessing she’s ON 1060493, originally the Army ST 2051, then the Army Corps Fort  Brooke , and now owned by Sampit Towing of Charleston SC.”

And by William Lafferty: “I’m thinking the larger tug is Susan Richards, built in 1909 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation at Quincy, Massachusetts, as the Gen. R. H. Jackson for the Army Quartermaster Corps and stationed at Jacksonville, Florida, later named Fort Sumter and Three Bros. It’s owned by Richards Marine Towing at McClennanville, South Carolina, and has been a fixture at Charleston for decades, originally run by White Stack Towing there.”

Thx George and William.

Crossing the border north to North Carolina, my next stop is Southport, where Sea Oak was working on a dredge project.

And after that, it’s Wilmington and Cape Henry.

The next batch is from Morehead City NC.  Atlantic Dawn was working on a dredging project there.

Na Hoku was there also, formerly a K-Sea boat. She currently works out of Jacksonville.

Liz Alma was too.  

Morehead City is the deep water export center for potash, mined farther north in Aurora.  Grace Moran then waited at the dock.  Is she still around?

Beaufort Belle, then PSC Phosphate, is now Norfolk tug.  Has she been repainted?

Peter G. Turecamo appears still to be working in Morehead City.

Clearly marked here in Norfolk are Miss Willa, Nancy McAllister, and McAllister Sisters.  Second from the left might be Steven Eileen McAllister.

Jack T. Moran was just a year old back ion 2017.

Thunder is one of a trio of Robbins Maritime small tugs with meteorological names:  Thunder, Lightning, and Storm.

Camie  is also a Robbins Maritime boat.

Anne Jarrett is another Norfolk Tug vessel.  It resembles a Vane tug, and at least two former Vane boats are now with Norfolk Tugs:  ex-Patapsco and Sassafras.

All photos, WVD.  The * denotes that most but not all photos were taken in May 2017.  It’s high time I take another trip along the ICW to see what has changed.  And we still have more from Norfolk to the sixth boro.