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Beyond Celebrity Apex, look! It’s a container ship
from 1988
escorted into port by 2016 Trident.
The 2016 Trident, 99′ x 44′ and 5730 hp, has an unusual configuration below the hull: she’s a Robert Allan Ltd-designed advanced rotortug (ART), meaning three engines and three Schottel z-drives, creating triangular propulsion to enhance maneuverability. See more on that here.
National Glory is a 575-teu box ship. That’s NOT 15000.
In comes another, Galani, 1732 teu. Assist is provided by a 1995 Broward, 5100 hp, 96′ x 40, a relatively conventional z-drive boat.
The other assist is from the 1998 St. Johns, 88′ x 50′ 4000 hp and nothing conventional below the waterline. She is referred to as a “ship-docking module,” aka SDM design. See a schematic and read all about it here.
All photos by C. Baker, my sister, to whom I am grateful.
As of March 1, 2022, CMA CGM Adonis was still in the shipyard, not yet delivered. By March 31, the vessel was in Qingdao and loaded, casting off lines. And April 29, 2022, she had a Sandy Hook pilot on board and was proceeding up the Ambrose Channel, making her first ever cargo call anywhere.
And here, as a SeaStreak fast ferry overtakes it off to port, a Moran tug is about to land a docking pilot on board for her first call.
It turns out that James D did the honors, not JRT, which took the stern.
Click here to learn some of the invisible but significant technology built into Adonis to make it safer and cleaner.
All photos, WVD, who wishes to say “welcome to the sixth boro, CMA CGM Adonis.“
If you have the Marinetraffic app on your phone, you might recognize this. Note the info on destination for Driftmaster, a USACE debris collector in the sixth boro. “No place” is what is usually displayed. It might just as well say “wherever debris is.”
These next screens are already out of date: by now, H. Lee White has departed its winter lay-up quarters in Toledo and is back at work.
Ditto, Herbert C. Jackson; she’s off and running, pushing through ice if need be to move ore from Lake Superior down to the steel plants.
Clyde S. . . . same story: no nap now except as allowed by the watch rotation.
As of late March, Canadian Coast Guard Ship Griffon was stopped in the ice, along with all these
vessels as of March 27. In this case, it was high winds in the lake.
So now you know what I might be looking at if I’m staring at my phone.
Captures, WVD, who has been traveling outside the sixth boro.
Below is a variation on the photos I posted yesterday, showing a bit more context to the west. Let’s recap identifying right to left: Regulus, Teresa with Acadia, and GLDD tugboat Douglas B. Mackie and dredge barge Ellis Island.
I’ve posted other GLDD dredges in the past: Padre Island here, Terrapin Island here, Dodge Island here. GLDD trailing suction head dredges have “Island” in the name, but they are only some of GLDD’s dredging machines.
Mackie is huge: 158′ x 52′ x 27.3′ draft, and powered by two Mak 12M32C-T3, 7,831HP each, turning controllable pitch propellers. The dredge barge has its own power for the pumps. See some stats here, and more stats here.
Note the black hull of Mackie and the red of Ellis Island.
Ellis Island measures 433′ x ’92, can dredge down to 122′ and has hopper capacity of just shy of 15,000 yd3. Dredge spoils can discharged through the bottom of the hull over a designated dump site.
She’s been working off Sandy Hook. I believe this is the only ATB trailing suction hopper dredge in the US.
All photos, WVD, who supposes she came in for protection from rough seas; as of this morning, she headed back out to the work area.
The point of this series–other than the point of this whole blog which is to document commercial happenings in the sixth boro–is to track changes, and changes in size and capacity have clearly happened in the container vessel department. I try to add other info as well.
Yesterday, besides enjoying the cold and snow accumulation, I caught three ULCVs moving through the KVK within the same hour. Although this did happen, you shouldn’t conclude that ULCVs regularly pass through the KVK at the rate of three per hour.
Cosco Development was the last of the three, so these are not in chronological order.
For the stats, the 2011 build had assistance from four tugs; her dimensions and capacities are as follows: 1200′ x 158′ and 13100 teu. She departed Busan Korea on November 21 last year, making this the end of a one month, nine-day voyage.
The first ULCV moving yesterday was Ever Far, which had been in port almost exactly 48 hours.
Her stats are as follows: 1095′ x 158.7, launched 2020 and carrying up to 11850 teu. After clearing the Ambrose pilot, she headed in the direction of the Panama Canal at an unstoppable and consistent 21 mph, about the same speed I rolled eastward on the Belt Parkway yesterday.
If you look carefully to the right side of the photo below, you’ll see Cosco Development beyond the trees and following the vessel below, CMA CGM Jules Verne.
Ditto below. CMA CGM Jules Verne also had a complement of four assist tugs; it was windy yesterday.
CMA CGM Jules Verne is one of the handful of largest ULCVs–or vessels of any sort– to traffic the sixth boro ever: 1299′ x 177′ and 44′ draft. the capacity of this 2013 launch is 16,100 teu. She departed Port Klang Malaysia on December 10, making this the end of a 29-day 4-hour voyage.
All photos, WVD, who hopes you enjoyed seeing these photos and reading these numbers and places.
If you’ve read through to this point, I have a curious story I can not confirm, but it was told to me yesterday by my friend bowsprite, who attributes it to someone she spoke with in a phonecall to the Department of Motor Vehicles. She had called DMV because she’d not received her replacement for an expired car registration sticker. The DMV told her not to worry because they would send her a new temporary sticker to print out herself because–here’s the kicker–the DMV was out of official sticker paper because of the supply chain backup. Wait a minute . . . does NYS, which has a paper industry of sorts, get its DMV “sticker paper” from abroad? Of course, i know that many specialty papers exist, and even consumer toilet paper differs from the commercial type. Ah, the things we’ve learned because of Covid!
Like I said, I can’t confirm the veracity of this story, but don’t you suspect were are truly doomed if we’ve outsourced sticker paper to foreign manufacturers?
I just happened to look at the August 2014 section of the archive, and this was the engine room at that time of the living, breathing tugboat Urger.
The top photo shows the Atlas-Imperial fore-to-aft along the portside, and below, it’s the opposite . . . starboard side aft-to-fore.
Below is that same view as above, except with a tighter frame on the top of the engine. On my YouTube channel here, are several videos of this engine running and Urger underway.
Below from early September 2015 are three NYS Canals boats, l to r, Tender #3, Gov. Cleveland, and Urger. . . . all old and in jeopardy.
At that same 2015 Tugboat Roundup that precipitated the photo above, notice the juxtaposition of old and new: passing in front of the 1914 Lehigh Valley 79 is
Solar Sal, which a month later would earn distinction as the first solar vessel to transit the canal from Buffalo to the Hudson with four tons of cargo, as a demonstration of its potential. Solar Sal‘s builder was David Borton, whose website has all the info on his designs for marine solar power.
A story I’d missed until looking something else up yesterday was David Borton’s 2021 adventure, sailing on solar in Alaskan waters.
And that brings this zig-zag post to another story linking the Canal and Alaska.
Last August Pilgrim made its way through New York State to the Great Lakes and eventually overwintered in Duluth. I took photos above and below on August 1, 2020.
Earlier this summer, Pilgrim was loaded on a gooseneck trailer
so that it could transit the continent
along the Interstates to the Salish Sea. As of last week they’d made Ketchikan, and their next stop will be Kodiak Island. Eventually they clear customs and their next stop will be Russia.
All photos except the last three, WVD. Pilgrim photos attributed to Sergey Sinelnik.
The Waterfront Museum in Lehigh Valley 79 is now home to a high-res livestream harbor cam aimed from Red Hook; check it out here.
I’ll return to the Erie Canal tomorrow, but for now . . . the clock is ticking louder.
In exactly 24 hours, Grouper will thaw out; a new owner, the person with the highest bid, will be acclaimed. I’ve been following the fate of this boat in Wayne County for so many years that I can’t look away as we get to this milestone. So have a lot of people who live nearby, or live farther away and have been intrigued about it since it arrived. Many others know it from its various places of work in the Upper Great Lakes, having some family connection going back many decades.
The big question is . . . Will it be scrapped or reimagined as a vessel of some sort. Reimagining has been a theme of NYS canal efforts in recent years, right?
Here’s one of my first photos of the boat, literally frozen in place, a great metaphor for its years of being frozen in time, showing remarkable resilience to the ravages of rust. In all this time of neglect and in the absence of bilge pumps, it has not sunk, has not gone down to a muddy grave where the catfish and gobies lurk.
Friends have devoted countless hours reimagining Grouper.
Lee Rust sent along these diagrams highlighting the hull similarities, the 1912 tugboat and
a late 19th century sail/steam half model.
Lee writes: “Maybe we’ve been misunderstanding the possibilities of Grouper by getting [ourselves] stuck on the old tug story. Here’s what she really is. Subtract Kahlenberg, add ballast, masts & sails. Maybe an auxiliary electric motor to turn the propeller. Voila! Clean and green and good for another 100 years. Piece of cake! Only [a day] left to decide to take that plunge. Here’s [an aerial] view of the hull model revealing the significant difference in beam [and bow design] from Grouper, but the profiles are almost identical. This even shows where the masts would go.
A simpler approach might be to remove 15 tons of Kahlenberg and replace with 7 tons of batteries and an electric propulsion system. This might be enough to decrease draft by the 3 feet needed to maneuver in the current Canal. Compare the waterline on the model to that of Grouper. Image below shows ship model by my friend Rob Napier.
Looking back at this hypothetical lift diagram I made [above], aside from the difference in beam, the antique hull model could be that of any ‘City’ class Great Lakes tug. (You can pick out the ‘City’ class tugs here.] The ‘lifted’ waterline on Grouper is awfully close to that of the model. I suppose this hull form was pretty normal back at the end of the 19th century and the tugboat designers of the time just went with what they knew and hoped the vessels wouldn’t sink when they threw in all that coal and machinery.
OK, I know… daydreaming again. Must be time for my nap.”
Thanks, Lee. As I said before, lots of people have been looking at these “excessed canal vessels” for a long time now, and tomorrow, in the heat of summer, Grouper will thaw out. May the highest bidder win and show exuberance in reimagining canal technology.
Related: This NYTimes article from this past week which examines sail designs on cargo vessels is worth a look.
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