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Before the internet and interactive maps of all sorts, I covered my walls with maps and studied atlases. I’ve moved along with some technological modifications. Recently when a friend reported a planned trip to Guinea Conakry, I was looking at various ships in the offing there, and saw this notation below for STI Onyx. Intriguing. That was about two weeks ago, and when I checked last night, they were still on board. Of course with news like this, one should not be surprised.
Decisive was in port briefly on January 2, but I was unable to get photos before she departed. As I understand it, she is retrieving old cable, rather than laying down new at this point. I was unaware of an area in the New York Bight referred to as “cable grounds.” TSS I believe refers to “traffic separation scheme,” not unlike a jersey barrier or a median strip on a highway.
I checked on Decisive a half day later and saw her “destination” marked differently, now, if expanded, to one nautical mile closest point of approach required,” ie, keep your distance.
AIS is an effective tool for a photographer to see if anything interesting might be moving in the area.
Did anyone manage to get shots of Decisive last week?
Here’s an interesting cutaway drawing of a cable layer and info on the SubCom fleet. The cables they lay, they ARE how the internet travels between continents.
And those armed guards, I don’t think they have anything to do with Internet security.
And to add to the chaotic nature of this post . . . ever see a dazzle painted tugboat? Check this one out . . . about a five minute clip here.
The Canadas and I were attentive, but it was really just another ULCV. This was was named for Columbus’ detractor. Ironically, Maersk Columbus will be arriving in the sixth boro today.
It struck me as remarkable that in spite of the number of containers visible–and of course many more are invisible–Vespucci rode fairly high in the water. My read on the forward draft markings show just over 25′ draft. Maybe you read it the same?
In this article from four years ago, Vespucci would be listed among the top 10 largest classes on container vessels in the world, by teu.
See the red “fenders” on the stern quarter? I first noticed them here a few years ago . . . turns out they are anti-pirate gear. There’s a link to the inventors in that post, and here’s a link to the manufacturer.
If you’re new to this blog, container ship capacity is rated in a unit called t. e. u. (twenty-foot equivalents). Most containers are either 20′ or 40′ long, standard dimensions for efficiency’s sake. Containers are used to ship just about anything, but let’s for this conversation’s sake say a container is full of shoe boxes, which themselves can be moved in a shopping cart. A standard shopping cart is rated at 4.4 cubic feet of volume. A standard container is 1172 cubic feet, given the dimensions above. My math then comes up with 267 shopping carts per container. That adds up to over 3.6 million shopping carts of stuff on Vespucci, rated at 13,830 teu. End-to-end with no space between the carts . . . that line of carts would stretch farther than NYC to Albuquerque along the roads!!
This 2010 vessel carries 20 containers across, and compare that to
CMA CGM Marlin (photo taken in September 2009) with 13 containers across. Here are some recent posts featuring CMA CGM boats.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who suggests you keep an eye on ONE Stork, currently in Bayonne.
By the way, I was traveling S/V America Vespucci when she was last here in 2017. Anyone get pics?
Here are previous installments.
The photos below are NOT mine but they’ve captivated me since I first saw them on FB. Credit and context can be found by clicking on the photo itself.
What I learned–and you could too be following the thread embedded in the photo– is that it was posted about two years ago by ahotrodin57 from Wisconsin who claims to be a metal fabricator who found it after it had been used as a ferry to an island off Wisconsin. I’m wondering if that would be a Lake Superior island …
Hats off to hotrodin57 for a novel combination. I’d love to know about the project status today.
Click here for another take on “boat ramrod.” Or here. Or even this . . . .
Anyone have others to share?
I’m skipping over many miles of my road; although I took photos, they would fit into a blog about watersheds and Poison Sea-to-Palatine history–which I haven’t created–more than here.
Here was the first installment . . . almost a decade ago, September 2009. Of course, the Rondout has figured in many blog posts listed here.
Solaris is the followup to the solar powered vessel called Solar Sal, which tugster featured here. Recently Solaris took a six-hour night trip returning from an event down south. Much more info on Solaris here. Learn more on these links about the creators Dave Gerr and David Borton. Go to Kingston and get a ride and you’ll hear only cavitation from the Torqeedo outboard.
Here’s where Solaris was built. Come and learn to build here too.
A few years ago, I was at the school and saw this 1964 catboat Tid-Bit getting a rehab.
This John Magnus was rowed all the way up from Pier 40 Village Community Boathouse in the sixth boro. Some years ago, I rowed alongside it on a trip up the Gowanus Canal.
Since making its way up to the Rondout from downriver, the floating hospital has been a “dream” boat: maybe art space, restaurant, maybe scrap, maybe hotel . . . I believe this is the last vessel operated by an NYC institution for 150 years. Technically, it was christened as the Lila Acheson Wallace Flaoting Hospital barge in 1973. If you click only one link in this post, let it be this one for a montage of many photos of her in a Manhattan context through those years of service.
ST-2201 Gowanus Bay was Waterford Tug Roundup tug-o-the-year in 2013. More on the boat here.
Sojourn is currently tied up along the creek.
Rip Van Winkle . . . in all my times up here, I’ve never taken the tour.
And to end this post for today, I’ve never noticed this concrete barge here before. This one appears to be newer and larger than the ones just above lock E9 here. I know nothing about its history.
More tomorrow. Happy Canada Day to all the friends north of the border who treated me so well last week.
Recognize the bridge and lighthouses? A clue . . . it’s on the freshwater coast of the US.
Here’s a continuation of the bridge above. More importantly, you see the escort vessel in the background, none other than the venerable Neeskay, originally a 1953 Higgins T-boat and now the primary research vessel for UW Milwaukee, where these photos were taken.
The yellow vessel in the foreground above is an unmanned surface vessel produced by L3 Technologies. Here’s more on the range of applications.
I’ve not noticed any yet, but I do keep my eyes peeled for USVs in bathymetric survey work in the sixth boro. Has anyone seen any?
Many thanks to Greg Stamatelakys, captain of Neeskay, for these photos.
Today marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, operation Overlord, and the storming of the Normandy Beaches. Way more then I could ever write has been written about today’s events, and I defect to others on that one. But, today I will share two D-Day Veterans anyone can visit.
First up is the LT-5, “Major Elisha K. Henson”, and later known as the “John F. Nash”. The LT-5 is an Army “Large Tug”, built by Jakobson Shipbuilding in 1943. The LT-5 was used on D-Day towing various barges, in part of the operation of building an artificial harbor off of Normandy. After the war the tug was used by the Army Corps of Engineers in the Buffalo area, until begin retired in 1989. Today the LT-5 is part of the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in…
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It’s a horn. You could call it a ship’s whistle or audible signaling device. It’s clearly not a bell, but that would work also. From three years ago, here’s another one of these devices.
From this photo below, you have no sense of size, though, do you?
Nor do you get that from here, unless . . . .
you identify the structure “behind” the horn as a ladder, scaled to a member of a crew. Now imagine this horn atop the roof of your pickup truck.
Below and to the left . . . you make out the name?
Still see the horn up there? Can you imagine being on that ladder when the horn sounds? Can you imagine a seagull that has perched there just before a signal? Click here if you want to hear it, but first, turn the volume waaaaay up to 11.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who wonders whether both horns blow the same pitch and whether it’s true that some QM equipment has been integrated into the QM2’s whistle.
Here are some sound codes.
And here are lots of Great Lakes sounds.
What a treat to catch Dina Polaris on an daylight inbound run, and just before the April monsoons happen
She’s been working in the New York Bight for some time, and
I was hoping to see her. Any guesses on maximum crew size? So her mission?
I’ll let you speculate until the end of this post.
By the way, my usage of exotic here comes from my birder’s guide, which defines an exotic bird as one well outside its usual range. Imagine seeing a penguin in the sixth boro, or encountering a Chinese junk in our harbor; when that does happen, it’s noteworthy. Previous exotic posts can be found here.
These two crew rode atop the bridge all the way in . . . see the bright red jacket even on the top photo.
Bergen . . . in 1985 I visited there and it’s calling me back.
Above . . . no, it’s not a mini-container vessel. I’m guessing she was core sampling for offshore wind. See the full specs here.
Here’s more on the company, this vessel, and their other vessels. Here’s an article about her from the Times, the Marthas Vineyard Times, that is. She is Turkish-built, 2017, from the Europe side of the Bosphorus. She has berths for 97 crew!!
All photos taken by Will Van Dorp, who was happy to sit on my John Travolta bench again .
Here are previous installments.
Let’s start with a shot from Oswego. To me, it captures the magic of the Canal in that city and the stately buildings that surround it. The photo is by Jennifer Mays, who calls it “Old man Winter is on his way #headedsouth #oswegocanal. It shows research vessel DelMor (ex-Kaho) upbound in the Oswego Canal between lacks E-8 and E-7. DelMor is in the “canalized” portion of the Oswego River; the wild portion of the river–divided by the ruins of central dock–distinguishes itself by its obvious current. The yellow building farthest left is the 1913 Pontiac Hotel. For more sights along the Oswego Canal, click here. Pontiac, the Odawa leader of his confederacy post-French & Indian War, signed a peace treaty in Oswego in July 1766.
The next two photos come from Patrick Gallagher. The shots taken from the East River show the Brooklyn Bridge and Clipper City beyond that. The colors are the magic of sunset as recorded by a smartphone camera.
Clipper City is a 158′ replica of a Great Lakes schooner built in Manitowoc in 1854. The image below comes from the must-have book The Freighters of Manitowoc by Tom Wenstadt.
And last but certainly not least, Paul Strubeck got a close-up photo of a newcomer in the sixth boro, a floating electronic billboard created by Ballyhoo Media. A floating billboard . . . would that be a bill boat?
Matt OHara caught the billboat departing Morris Canal, leaving the NJCRR terminal to starboard. If you do FB, you can see a sped-up version of it being built here. Since that shipyard is upriver, it must have escaped detection by river watchers upstream. Glenn?
When I saw the billboat Sunday, the image/advert changed every few seconds. The vessel size is estimated at 72′ . . . with 65′ screens. What’s next . . . a billboat that carries sports events, political debates, feature films, documentaries about the harbor? What else?
Many thanks to Jennifer, Patrick, Matt, and Paul for use of these photos.
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for a sunny day and for a certain pink-hulled ship called ONE Stork to either arrive or depart in bright daylight. She arrived in the sixth boro and departed again, twice . . . in the dark hours.
Here was the first in this series. Guess the date these photos were taken?
Consider all that coal smoke.
As it turns out Dockyard III doesn’t always blow so much smoke. Click on this link if you wish, but what I find remarkable there is that Dockyard III and its sisters were built in WW2 for Murmansk and hence have the chimney-encasing wheelhouse (for heat) and an ice-strengthened bpw.
Adelaar dates from 1925.
Paddle steamer De Majesteit dates from 1926. I saw her on the river in Rotterdam in 2014, and included her in a comparison of old passenger vessels here.
Dockyard IX, part of that same order that never made it to Murmansk, was completed in 1942. Dockyard IX has been on this blog once before here.
Many steam tugs crowd the river below, but nearest the camera, that’s Heibok 4, a floating steam crane dating from 1916.
SS Furie, dates from 1916. I wrote about her extensively here in 2016.
George Stephenson had me fooled; it was built starting in 2007, ie., she might be called steampunk. I saw her in May 2014.
Hercules is the real deal steam, launched in 1915. I was aboard her in 2016, as seen here.
And the answer is late May 2018 at the Dordrecht Steam Festival. The photos come via Jan van der Doe from the photographer Leo Schuitemaker.
Looking at these photos, I’m again struck by the number of historic vessels preserved and in operating condition in the Netherlands. Some are scrapped there of course. Has anyone ever heard of the Dutch reefing boats to create North Sea fish habitat? These, and I have many others from Jan and Leo I’d love to post, have benefitted from loving restoration. Let me know if you want more steam tugs.
Amicitia, which I wrote about in 2011, is back to life after 60 years (!!!) underwater as a result of being bombed, not reefed, back then.
Do the Dutch have different financial tools that produces this fruit? Is it because of their different attitude toward maintaining machines and buildings? Are there just different priorities throughout Dutch culture?
A google search leads to this article referring to “artificial reefs around the world,” but the headline is quite misleading.
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