Retro Sixth Boro 36

April 1, 2011 … and this was not a joke.  More on this distressed vessel at the end of this post.

McCormack Boys and

Turecamo Girls with Barney Turecamo.  All three are still working in the same liveries, I believe.

Long Island-built Escort was phased out as a certain coal-fired power plant shut down.  She’s taken on new life as Northstar Innovator, based on NJ’s

Maurice River, although I’ve yet to see her. 

Stad Amsterdam is not currently in Amsterdam;  she’s not far away though in Scheveningen.  If you want to pronounce this shibboleth as a Dutch speaker would, have a listen. 

Spring sunrises . . .  Coming into port is the 2017-scrapped Atlantic Cartier

escorted by Ellen McAllister and

passing Bow Clipper and Maria J.  That tug is now Nicholas Vinik. Bow Clipper is now in Santos Brasil. 

The venerable Chemical Pioneer was ushered in by Ellen McAllister and McAllister Responder. I say “venerable” because she was built using the stern of Sea Witch, after a massive conflagration in the port, told here by the Fire Fighter site.   .

Two small USMMA boats made their way through the fog.   I’m not sure the name of the vessel to the left, but the one to the right was Growler and she’s back (though hidden away) in the sixth boro.

Of course, I post a photo of Kristin Poling, which had only a few months of service left at this point. She started service in 1934 as Poughkeepsie Socony.

Marion M . . . I’ve been told she was sold to parties in the Chesapeake who planned to restore her and put her up for sale in 2018.  Does anyone have an update on that?

And finally, we return to Le Papillon . . .  the 48′ steel schooner was dragged off the beach but I lost track of her after that.  I believe she was cut up.

It all seems like stuff from long ago . .    all photos, WVD.

Small Craft 28

So in a recent post, you had a glimpse of this small craft, which I initially thought was a fishing boat.   I know how addictive fishing can be, since I used to ice fish and canoe fish.

But it turned out to be Lynn, a Ken‘s boat, used for line and boom handling. I’d not before noticed that some of these small boats have names.

Another boom and line handling company, ACV Enviro, also has names on their boat.  Meet Miss Urvi, an interesting name in several ways.

Here’s Miss Urvi showing my bow on a foggy day.

An intriguing small craft departed the Narrows yesterday.  Where is it headed I wonder.  It looked to be no more than 35′ and the name might be Sirius.

I’m not sure who operates Grace D, but she’s been in the harbor for the better part of a decade doing launch service.

 

Head on . . . who is this survey boat?  Notice the up fold-down transponder on the bow between the hulls.

It’s USACE.  I believe it’s a Silver Ship boat.

At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at when I saw six knees.  Sure, Gabby I knew and I saw a small boat to starboard,

but

there were two alongside, one on each side.  And on the far side, it’s Mister “B”...   a new one for me.

So it is.  All photos, WVD.

Grain de Sail 3

Barebones post today . . .  since these photos I took between 1030 and 1130.  By now, 1230, they’ve dropped the pilot at the end of Ambrose and set a course for . . .  warmer weather and

(but first sails need to be raised…

and adjusted.)

… warmer weather in Dominican Republic, where a load of cocoa awaits in that tropical heat, two weeks or so ahead.

Mid North River, they tacked and 

waved at the French Lady and

us . .  on the Media Boat

and they headed for the opening.

Bon voyage.  Many thanks to Bjoern at the New York Media Boat.

All photos, WVD.

More context . . .  see previous installments of Grain de Sail here. For info on their cargo, click here.

S. S. S. Lotus

 I took these photos back in early August 2019 in the village where I learned to swim . . . Sodus Point.   When I asked a few people about it, I heard that it was a wreck, it was done  . . .  etc. 

The small schooner clearly had been loved at one time.

Last week I learned the good news that the lift had loaded it onto a trailer to take it to a yard for  . . .

restoration!  So I finally googled it, which I’d not thought to do before, and lo and behold . . . it has pedigree!  It was designed by William H. Hand, and launched in Rocky River OH in 1918.  The S. S. S. means “Sea Scout Ship.”  Thirty years ago, it had been trucked to Rivendell Marine, in Monument Beach MA in 1991. 

All photos, WVD, and story to be continued.

Photo and discussion below can be found on FB, John Kucko Digital . . .  December 21, 2020.  By the way, John Kucko is a legend up in western and central NYS. Tugboat in the background is Donald Sea.

Since this post features a sailing post, let me share what I’ve been watching, based on a suggestion of a reader from South Africa.

First a trip from the Falklands to Capetown on an impressive boat this past summer.

Then I learned the name of the boat and the concept developer, Skip Novak.  Here‘s more Skip Novak.

Then I learned of his latest project . . . 2020 into 2021, appropriate for these days.

Thx, Colin.  This is good winter fare.

Grain de Sail 2

First you might want to watch these three videos of this vessel traveling from France to the US.  They merit subtitles like setting out,   riding the storm,  and fooling around.  All the talk is in French, but you don’t need to understand to catch the spirit.   OK, here’s a fourth clip with more great sailing.

When I posted part 1, I wasn’t sure I’d get to visit the boat. You also can visit the boat by “buying” a free ticket . . . a crowd control protocol.  As soon as some sail repairs are complete, the schooner heads south to the Caribbean to pick up coffee and cocoa beans, then to France, back to NYC . .  etc.  They call it a virtuous circle, not triangular trade.  The virtue part of the trade is delivery of humanitarian goods from NYC to parts of the Caribbean, e.g., school supplies . . . 

The cutaway below shows the hold, between the masts.  There’s space there for 28 pallets, 50 tons.  A photo of the hold I took follows eventually below. 

Grain de Sail is a prototype.  It’s referred to as a VOTAAN 72, seventy-two feet loa, and VOTAAN is the acronym for “V oilier O céanic de T ransport tr A ns A tlantic i N novating“, which translates as “innovative [cargo] transportation by trans-Atlantic sailing,”  which, IMHO alludes obliquely to the fact that the point is to carry cargo, in this instance, wine, up to 18,000 bottles of a number of varieties of it. Here’s an interview with Matthieu Riou, U.S. Wine & Spirits Director at Grain de Sail, vessel name and company name .  As to it being a working prototype, designers in France are already working on the follow up, a 50-meter sailing ship with five times the capacity.

Although Marseille is the port of registry, the home port is Saint-Malo in Brittany. Many more details on the vessels, its sails, and its captain can be found here. The captain, Loïc Briand, joined the project as a way of doing something different after years of working on North Sea wind projects.

The vessel can fly seven sails:  mainsail, foremast, staysail, ORC, solent, genoa and asymmetric spinnaker.  It also has a 115 hp Nanni engine, used only for maneuvering in port. 

Here’s the open-though-protected helm, with stowage space for harnesses and helmets, and forward of that

is the enclosed cockpit.  Children of Grain de Sail employees by in France have sent along their stuffed animals as proxies for themselves seeing the oceanic marvels.

And finally . . . this is the hold.  Attention has been paid to secure cargo stowage on motor vessels in designing this hold.  Pad eyes abound, and air bags are placed in voids to prevent cargo shift.  A custom hand truck (yellow and festooned with straps) stows very low profile.

Here’s a shot of the cargo being loaded into the hold, and

Showing scale, here Matthieu and Stefan Gallard hold their logo, and

topside, there’s more.  L to r, it’s daughter with bowsprite, Laurent Apollon, Capt. Loïc Briand, and yours truly . . .  WVD.  And to the right, the gwenn-ha-du, the flag of Brittany.

Again, see above for tickets to visit the boat in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  No wine is available for sale on the boat;  that was offloaded in Port Elizabeth last week and “resting” after the voyage.  You can get info on that purchasing here. 

All color photos, WVD.

Random Tugs 319

It still says Eastern Star Dawn, but now it’s Toula!

She’s going to look great all buff and green.

Barry Silverton finally

has a lion on its stack!  All those birds?  It’s water teeming with the bunker, the bunker that recently drew a humpback into the Upper Bay.

Pelham, launched in 1960, is always a pleasant sight.  She has a list of previous names almost as long as my seasonal wish list this year.

Here she took a wake on the bow.

James William used the waters off the salt pile

as a turning basin.

And finally, after a long hiatus down south, CMT Pike has returned.  When i caught her, she was being pursued

by this container ship.

All photos, WVD.

Unrelated but of interest, below . . .

yes, Grain de Sail is a 72′ schooner coming into the sixth boro with a 50-ton cargo hold, some of it refrigerated, bringing in French wine.  She’ll set up a market in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for about a week.  Contact info and an e-shop can be found here, although you’ll have to use a machine translate if you’re not up to functionality in French.  

Grain de Sail is involved in triangular  trade, French wine to here and the Caribbean, and then Caribbean chocolate and other products to France . . . .  Something similar in sail freight  domestically has been done by Ceres and more recently by Apollonia.  The most recent international sailing cargo into the sixth boro that I know of was Black Seal, a three-masted schooner.

Mystery Schooner

I can’t understand why, but I instantly recognized this schooner . . . which I saw a year and a half ago here. 

It was anchored in Gravesend Bay.

I still know nothing more about her I know a bit more about her . . . check the comments.  That looks like a pinked stern, which could make it a downrigged  65′ Tom Colvin design.  Rosemary Ruth was Colvin.  And I have an update on Rosemary Ruth, which I’ll post one of these days.

Ambergris, from SW Harbor ME.

All photos, WVD, who wonders if anyone knows the boat.

Thanks to Glenn Raymo 11

White, blue, and red comes in different contexts, and

this one along with the name on the trailboard does give pause.

Glenn Raymo took these photos in Poughkeepsie Sunday, and they were my introduction to an ambitious sailing project.   The best I can tell this project began in Petrozavodsk, a city on the western shore of Lake Onega, in northwest Russia, a few hundred miles east of access to the Baltic at St. Petersburg.  Lake Onega is connected to both the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean via the White Sea Canal. As a person who fancies himself somewhat well-versed in canals, I was ignorant of the White Sea Canal until now:  mostly hand-dug by prisoners of the USSR in the 1930s

Pilgrim is a lodya, a traditional sailing vessel of this area.  Along with the koch, the lodya is an ancient Rusian polar exploration vessel.

If you follow along on the “news” link, you see their step-by-step voyage from Russia.  Exactly two years ago, eg, they had just crossed the Bay of Biscay!   News articles go all the way back to 2006.

To my friends along the Erie Canal, once the waterway is open, keep your eyes peeled.

Many thanks to Glenn Raymo for this catch.  Previous posts with attribution to him can be seen here.

It reminds me of all the memorable vessels that have transited the Erie Canal:  Bounty*, Draken Harold Fairhair, Pinta, Sequoia**,  Hokule’a, Ra, When and If, Amarah Zee, the future Oliver Hazard Perry, Lois McClure . . . I have no doubt left some out.

*I have photos but I’ve not posted them on tugster.   **One of the planned but not realized posted is a review of Capt. Giles M. Kelly‘s book;  any volunteer to write a review?  You’ll get a free book.

And to the crew of Pilgrim,    попутный ветер, друзья мои      I hope I spelled that right.

Sea of Cortez in Time of COVID

I’ve been social distancing in Queens, but this didn’t prevent me from telecomexchanging the news with my sister.  She took these photos and told me about her experiences sailing in the Sea of Cortez.   You can click on the link to the article at the end of this post.

I hope to get to the Sea some day;  parts of it are designed a UNESCO World heritage site.

 

 

Isla del Carmen is a refuge for bighorn sheep whose future was threatened in mainland areas of Baja California.

The plethora of wildlife notwithstanding, the gist of the article was . . . the Sea for people in the time of COVID.  That is the link to the article.  I’d been arranging to get to Mexico a few months back, but it’s not going to happen for a while.

All photos, John and Lucy Knape.

For more of their photos, click here.

Retro Sixth Boro (and beyond) 27 b

I vividly recall June 2010.  Let’s take June 3.  The two Hornbeck tugs there are Erie Service and Eagle Service, now Genesis Valiant and Genesis Eagle.  Minerva Anna is at one of the easternmost IMTT docks; today she’s eastbound in the Indian Ocean. But in the middle of it all,  GLDD’s Liebherr 966 was getting the channel down to 52′, if I recall correctly. Was that 966 dredge the same as New York?   In the distance the Empire State Building stood alone;  from this perspective today, you’d see WTC1.

Later the same day, and I don’t recall what the occasion was, Conrad Milster brought his big ship’s whistle down to South Street Seaport Museum, and ConEd hooked it up to ConEd steam pressure.  Hear the result here.  To date, this video has received 88,000 plays!!  Here and here are some videos of the legendary Conrad.  A few years later, I went to a marine steam festival in the Netherlands;  I took a river ferry from Rotterdam to get there.  When I stepped off the ferry and walked up the gangway to the dock, there stood Conrad.  Of course he would be there.

June 17 brought the return of Reid Stowe‘s schooner Anne after 1152 days (more than three years) at sea without seeing land!  Here‘s the NYTimes story.

Notice the toll the sea took on the paint.

For more photos of Anne, inside and out, click here.

As serendipity would have it, the day Anne returned, Artemis departed, going on to successfully row across the Atlantic in just under 44 days!  Recently, Reid has displayed art inspired by his voyage, as seen here.

June 26 John Curdy invited me to see a good bit of the Delaware River fronting several miles north and south of Philadelphia.  Overseas Anacortes was not yet launched at that time. As of today’s post, she’s in the Gulf of Mexico off Corpus Christi.

Here is Penn’s Landing and Gazela, which I sailed on later in 2010, but that’s a story already told here.

All photos in June 2010, WVD.