Saint Lawrence Workboats

Catching up . . . it’s a never-ending task, but a useful one.  Let’s start with these two tugboats still under wraps at Isle aux Coudres Ocean shipyard. It’s not the best image, but with the wind, it was the best I could get. Anyone help with identification?

RF Grant is a 1934 tug up on a marine railway on Île d’Orléans, just downstream from Quebec City.

At the main Ocean Group yard, it’s Ocean’s Taiga and Tundra, and Clovis T.

Ocean Henry Bain is on the inland side.

Quebec is inseparable with their blue.

Cue the next day and farther upstream, it’s Aldo H.

Boatmen 6 and more at their dock.

Nearer the port, it’s Ocean Serge Genois and Ocean Bertrand Jeansonne.

Excuse the blurred shot, but it’s Ocean Pierre Julien and Ocean Jupiter.  Particulars on all the Ocean boats can be found here. 

As we climb higher up the Saint Lawrence, we get to the US DOT boats, Robinson Bay and the brand new

brand-spanking-new Seaway Trident.

For our last boat today, it’s Seaway Joan, a Lake Michigan 1952 boat, a great name and great little boat.

All photos taken in May 2023, WVD.

Something Different 70

Try this: a cruise from Buenos Aires to . . . Milwaukee!! These folks are currently doing it.

Below is my screen capture as they were leaving the sixth boro.   Here‘s my blog post of them along the west side of Manhattan.

Post by the robots as WVD is away.

Canal Coasters

We’ll return to the 1921 ILI canal motor ships part D in a later post, but for now, the 1935 Kermic was one of seven diesel motor ships designed to maximize the size of the Champlain/Chambly International Waterway, with size restriction dictated not by the Barge Canal locks,  but even smaller, the Chambly locks.  As such, these seven vessels all had the dimensions of 106′ x 22′.  She was considered a coaster, or un caboteur.  More caboteurs along with their particulars, including this as IV No. 14, can be found here.

Their principal cargo was rolls of newsprint transported between the pulp mills in Quebec and the presses in New York City. With a crew of four, many from the Lotbinière area on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence upstream of Quebec City, they had an average transit time of 2.5 days with 225 tons of cargo, usually composed of 300 rolls of newsprint at 1500 pounds each.  Much more info on these newsprint carriers can be found here, an article that was informed in part by a tugster post from 2010 here.  As of November 2021, this vessel was still on the hard in Lotbinière after an ill-fated attempt to turn her into a restaurant.

For more on the pulp and paper trade between Canada and the US, here’s a great little reference.  The fact that the photo on the cover below is Chicago Tribune and others in the book have names like New York News and Washington Times says it all.

While we’re on Canadian commercial vessels in the New York canals, the photo below didn’t make sense until I started thinking about Quebec:  M. Robidoux is clearly French, and with a search I found she was earlier named Katchiwano, built in Peterborough ON in 1932, a wooden tug with dimensions of 50′ x 13.  A Peterborough-build means she accessed the NY canals via the Trent-Severn Waterway. 

She was M. Robidoux from 1951 to 1963, which nicely dates this photo.  I’m not sure of the location, but this too could be on the Champlain Canal.  Her last registry was in Cap Chat QC on the Saint Lawrence.  Better lighting on this photo would be desirable.  The ship’s bell configuration is unique.

This might be a good place to throw in this mystery vessel, for which I have no clues.

All photos used with permission from the Canal Society of New York. 

Thanks to Bob Mattsson for lightening the photo of M. Robidoux.

 

Newest Hull(s) in the Sixth Boro 11

Meagan Ann is not new, but that blue coaming on the barge looks to be.

Witte 3301 came into the harbor via Ambrose the other day for the very first time.

pushed by Meagan Ann.  Recently launched in Erie PA,

the barge, which I estimate to be about 220′, was brought to the sixth boro by Zeus, returned from the Great Lakes after at least five years up on the fresh water. 

Zeus, the first boat this October I see with pink trim,

moved both 3301 and 3302 around via the Saint Lawrence, but then handed one of the barges off to Meagan Ann just outside the VZ Bridge.

 

Welcome back, Zeus,  although soon after dropping off the barges, she headed off to the Dann Marine base in Chesapeake City.

One stop of the new barges was captured by my Halifax counterpart, Mac Mackay here. 

All photos, WVD.

Labor Days Past

Yesterday, Labor Day, I took no photos, except one of a wood sign carving project in progress.

It turns out . . .  Labor Day 2020 I took no photos either;  these were sent to me though by Josh Watts, and embarrassingly, I’ve not posted them until now.  Sometimes I get into a groove and lose track of things. These are two new generation NYS Canals tugs and a floating gradall, maintaining canal depth.  It’s a great shot.

Here’s anorther from that date and that area of the west-of-Rochester portion of the canal, Adams Basin. The vantage point is a house barge from Erie Canal Adventures.

Labor Day 2019 I had the good fortune to be laboring, and taking photos, and doing that in Cleveland.  Self-unloading freighter Algoma Buffalo was winding its way down the Cuyahoga

with assistance from  two tugs, Cleveland and Iowa, launched 2017 and 1915 respectively!! You caught that 102-year difference in age, right!  Also, that waterway used simultaneously for commerce and recreation . . . that’s the Cuyahoga, you know, the one that caught fire a number of times a half century ago.  That is a story of concerted problem-solving, concerted means people with different ideas solving problems together.

Labor Day 2018 I was exploring Chicago and saw this massive Muddy Waters mural.

Just beyond this navigation aid, you turn to port and enter the federal lock that leads to the Chicago River.

Labor Day 2017 I was in Manitowoc.  Then and many other times I’ve seen and wondered about Halten, a 1966 Swedish Coast Guard vessel (maybe not since painted-over raised letters on the stern say Oslo)  that appears to be a yacht that might not move much.  Maybe it just moves when I’ve not been paying attention.

Avenger IV passed us on Lake Michigan, where lots of fishing was happening from small boats.

Labor Day 2016 I had just left Ogdensburg downbound, and was passing the Canadian port of Johnstown, where the 1943 freighter Mississagi

was discharging cargo,

and a half hour later, we were still looking back at Johnstown in the beauty of the morning colors.

I could go farther back but won’t now.  I’ve no idea why I’ve not taken any photos the past two Labor Days.  September 5, 2022,  I need to get back to work. Thanks to Josh for the first two photos;  all others, WVD.

Looking ahead, just a reminder that after the TugBoat RoundUp, I’ll be road foto tripping a lot, and that might be no posts some days.

Other Peoples Photos 91

Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON.  In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy.  Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.

Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses.  Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.

Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine, 

and two more I took in September 2019 in

the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals.  Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist.  Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.

Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold

can be tricky. 

Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island.  Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots. 

Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.

Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . .  sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . .  it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina. 

Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro. 

Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . .  the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.

Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class;  the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind.   If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave. 

Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver.  I have lots more photos that you’ve sent.  If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.

If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working.  This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life.  I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.

 

Other Peoples Photos 86

Click here for the previous 85 posts with this title.  Lead photos today come from former owner of this push boat in West Burlington, Iowa.

The vessel, then known as Izona, has since traveled the Interstates and two-lanes to Highlands, NJ, towed by the much-loved Peterbilt of John Zook, of Lewisburg, PA.

Maybe you saw them on the roads, or since then, at a marina in Highlands NJ?

“Mister __”  is a common name for tugboats.  Here, from a secret salt is Mister C.  

Hobo has appeared here before, but never with this outstanding fendering created here.  Hobo is a 1953 product of Caddell Dry Dock.  She’s now living the good life, in the hands of Donna and Charlie Costa.

Emery Zidell is a Centerline tugboat, currently in the sixth boro.  She’s the older twin of Barry Silverton, a more frequent visitor to the boro.  Photo comes from Capt. Anon E. Mous. Zidell is married to Dr. Robert J. Beall.

And finally, currently underway in the western center of Lake Erie, it’s Sarah Dann, pushing this huge crane on a barge from Manitowoc WI to Kittery ME, almost 3000 nm.

Get ready to see Sarah Dann and “Big Blue” in the Welland Canal and Saint Lawrence.  You might see them passing Strait of Canso too.

Below, Jeremy Whitman caught a fabulous photo of the unit passing the 10th Street lift bridge in Manitowoc WI.  Thanks much, Jeremy.

Here’s part of the story from John Buellesbach and MKE Marine Reports in “Around Wisconsin”   “Konecranes of Finland partnered with Illinois-based Broadwind to build several large cranes for the U.S. Navy at the Broadwind Heavy Fabrications yard in Manitowoc, former site of Manitowoc Shipbuilding. The first, a portal jib crane for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, was completed in early May. It weighs 2.7 million pounds, has a lifting capacity of 140 tons, and stands about 160 feet tall. This custom designed crane incorporates unique features that allow it to be operated on the multiple rail section sizes, straight or curved, located at the naval base.”

ETA in New Hampshire is around the 18th.  Track them on AIS.

Thanks to Jeremy, John, the Powells and the Costas, Great Lakes mariner, and other nameless contributors.

By the way, does anyone have photos to share here of CMA CGM Marco Polo and from the same day, Kurt J. Crosby?

 

 

Erieborg Logistics

Justin Zizes gets credit for the striking photo below.  He took it the other night from another vessel off Lower Manhattan.  That’s Jersey City forming a wall in front of the sunset sky. 

Erieborg is part of the Wagenborg family-owned fleet of 180+ small general cargo vessels.  They’re a common sight on the Great Lakes.  So on a whim, I checked where Erieborg had begun and where its voyage would take it.  Astonishingly, it’s headed from Albany to Hamilton Ontario.

The road distance between Albany (right) and Hamilton is no more than 350 miles.  By the Erie and Oswego Canals and Lake Ontario, it would be about the same.  Of course, the small cargo ship, exotic as it would look transiting the Erie Canal, is too large in every dimension.   The Erie Canal can handle vessels up to 300′ long, 43.5′ wide,  12′ draft, and 21′ air draft.  Any inklings on the dimensions of Erieborg above?

Erieborg is 452′ x 52.4′ beam, and draws 26.1 . . .  too long, wide, deep, and certainly high.  So what options does Erieborg have for transporting its cargo what would be 350 miles?  Pick a route and number for the distance and voyage time?

Here’s the route . . .  around Nova Scotia and far north between the Gaspe peninsula and Anticosti Island. 

I come up with 1955 nautical miles and a seven or eight day voyage at 10 kts and allowing for transit time in the Saint Lawrence Seaway, burning fuel at the rate of . . .  400 or so gallons an hour (my guess).

Thanks to Justin for use of his photo.  I wish I knew what the cargo was.

More Sheri Lynn S

I was doing maintenance in the  photo archives yesterday and took a second look at some photos from Damen and from Picton Terminals.  Since I know that Sheri Lynn S (SLS) arrived in Canada in Montreal in late fall, this has to be a photo of it being loaded onto the ship in Shanghai after traveling via the Yangtze from the shipyard in Changde, Hunan in China.  Given that, the tugs in the background could now be scattered all over the world.

This photo shows the boat being secured to the deck,again in Shanghai.

After the ocean voyage between the photo above, SLS arrives in a port at the end of her voyage, and that port has to be

Montreal, given the blue tugboat here, Ocean Georgie Bain.

And now for a few photos from her current habitat on the NE corner of Lake Ontario, SLS breaks ice, sometimes . . .

enabling the cement ship to dock.

In fact, this time of year, ice breaking is her main activity.

Many thanks to Damen and Picton Terminals for these photos.

Random Tugs Along the St. Lawrence 3

A few days ago I posted this twilight view of Service Boat No. 1.

So, I hope she ‘s more defined by these shots from a bit later in the port of Montreal, as she passes Toronto Express.

 

Ocean Macareux (translates as “Ocean Puffin”) follows the grain elevators on her way to –maybe–

attach some rendering. . . .

Farther along, a spud barge moved by GFFM‘s

Vent Polaire (tr. Polar Wind) seems standing by, assisted by this very

shallow draft prime mover.

Over by the Beauharnois Dam, Deschenaux (tr. Channels) stands by.

Click here for more info on the Beauharnois generating station.

Anyone know where and when Deschenaux was built?

Farther upstream yet, in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, it’s Circle Polaire (tr. Polar Circle)

And closing out this post, Ocean A. Gauthier here heads downstream to assist Rt. Hon. Paul J. Martin return to a floating condition. I believe she’s still undergoing repairs in the port of Johnstown ON.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.