Gravesend Spring

Sailors come out of hibernation to catch some breezes.

Container ships head south to shuffle containers elsewhere.

Aggregate work goes on as it does all year round.

Shearwater continues to plumb the bottom terrain.

 

They all meet up somewhere…

 

 

but a better lens than mine catches it.

All photos, WVD, who loves springtime, when all the fish eggs are about to burst.

Autumn Sail 8

Here was 7.

There are figureheads, and then there are figures on the head rig.

Or dancers on the jibboom?

Whatever part of a sail evolution this was, it looked

like fun on Shearwater.

Pioneer too seemed to relish playing in the Upper Bay the other evening,

tacking off Ellis Island.

I saw another too after dark, a non-sixth-boro schooner, but I couldn’t make the ID.  All fotos here by Will Van Dorp, who imagines  thrilling autumn schooner sails in his near future.

Government Boats 12

When tugs race on Sunday, government boats will officiate.  Here are a few players.

When Liberty IV splashed into her element in 1989 at the Washburn & Doughty yard in East Boothbay, ME, she began a career that she still occupies:  to ferry Park Service employees and supplies from the “mainland” to several stops in the sixth boro archipelago, i.e.,  Liberty Island and Ellis Island.  Besides bearing a heritage relationship with such diverse vessels as Pati T. Moran, Shearwater, and Black Knight, she also carries a unique escutcheon on her stern.

Does anyone have fotos of Liberty I or II or III?  Would Liberty I be sail or steam?

John D. McKean, foto taken one sunset a few weeks back, started service in 1954, first splashing into the waters in Camden at John H. Mathis, the same yard that built Mary Whalen!

A Perth Amboy Fire boat zipped eastward in the KVK last month.  That’s K-Sea Baltic Sea in the background.

USACE Moritz, in  hurry toward Newark Bay last week. Moritz comes from Kvichak Industries, soon

disappeared round the bend at Bergen Point.

Other recent fotos of government boats include this ones entrusted to  Union County (New Jersey)  Police,

and New Jersey State Police.

Finally, certainly NOT a government boat, but a German ship that has vessels that experiment with alternative propulsion.  Foto was taken by bowsprite from her cliff last week.  Did anyone catch the name?

Finally, as of Wednesday morning writing, Flinterduin will approach the Narrows near dusk tonight and start offloading tomorrow at dawn.  And I have to be at work . . . from dusk today until dawn Friday . . .  maybe I can sneak away to do tugster’s bidding.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

River Day 1 Redux

River Day 2 happened today, but I stayed on shore, among other things revisiting day 1.  My attempt here is to impose chronological and spatial order.  For starters . . . off Global Terminal in the Upper Bay, could there be a more diverse set of onlookers?  If the original Henry had seen indigenous equivalents of these, he’d have gotten his artillery out.

Lined up just south of the Statue before 9 am, helmsman of Shearwater resorts to an ancient coping device.

Around that time, Gateway Towing’s Navigator exited the Buttermilk Channel with an unidentified cargo on barge Sea Shuttle, which

looked like this as it passed.  Anyone hazard a guess?

Around 9:30 near Pier 82ish, this avian-wannabe brown truck cuts through the procession, triggering a siren/horn/hailer reaction in Lady B;  NYC Ducks simply continues and Lady B relents, all the official noise notwithstanding.  I suppose Ducks is commercial traffic and as such immune.

Near Inwood a half dozen or so swimmers, each one escorted by a kayaker, make their way out of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and southward toward Battery Park City.  Swimmers and River Day processionistas remain largely indifferent to each other.  Can it be that New Yorkers have such passion for swimming that they spontaneously make their way in numbers around the island?

This is lo-res, but after watching Onrust grow for over a year, I enjoyed recognizing its jolly crew, but who’s the guy in the red jacket and enormous feather in his cap.  Doesn’t the whole crew get ginormous feathers in their caps?

If you read Juet’s log for June 1609, you learn that storms carried away Half Moon‘s  foremast.  What would that look like?  In my other blog, I try to channel Hudson’s thoughts, using what’s recorded in Juet’s journal to speculate on rambings in Henry’s head . . . historical fiction, of course.

Yonkers gives each vessel a cannon salute.  Some return the salute.  I believe Onrust doesn’t, or maybe I was just not hearing things.

Here a lone canoeist watches the procession from near Alpine, off the Palisades.  Does anyone know the design of local Lenape canoes of Hudson’s era?

Large exploreNY400 banners hang from the vertical supports on either side of channel under the Tappan Zee Bridge.  Half Moon shows the scale.

I regret I couldn’t follow Day 2 . . .  but I hope to catch up for Day 5.

For a short video of the procession passing Battery Park City Day 1 around 9:15, see old salt blog here.

All fotos taken Day 1 by Will Van Dorp.