Speediest Great Loop

Do you want to do the Great Loop, all 5000+ miles of it?  And you don’t have more than–say–a few days?  How about a few hours on a weekend when the weather’s inhospitable?  Now you can do it . . . and click on the photo below to see what it looks like to do the circumnavigation at warp speed . . .  from Sandy Hook to Liberty Landing in . ..  just over a minute.

That video of one of over a hundred now available on Youtube.  Try this one . ..  Liberty Landing to Croton Point Half Moon Bay in just over two minutes in the rain.  The videos were produced by ActiveCaptain. The vessel, a DeFever 53RPH Trawler,  below is the ActiveCaptain’s version of the google camera car.  Read Bob Stopper’s article on the project here.  Bob also took all the photos in this post.

Many thanks to Bob for info about these videos and these photos.

 

Eyes on Staten Island

If you ever drive eastbound on Staten Island’s northern “land edge” route aka Richmond Terrace, you’ve probably seen this mural by Ian Kelleher.   The other day I stopped for a closer look and noticed

a delightful additional spoke on Bayonne’s windmill–harkening back about 400 years–and a huge upside-down unicycle just west of the ferry racks.

When I approached the ferry terminal, I noticed some wheel hardware beginning to accumulate.

Parking racks?

Keep your eyes on this location . . .  things could be happening soon.  By the way, notice there are details of ships hidden in the background of the three previous photos, speaking to the proximity of the Eye . . . or Wheel . . . to shipping channels.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Canal Barges

This photo was taken in late spring 2009.  Onrust had been splashed just a day or two before, as recorded in post 1 here and then 2 here.   But look over to the right side of the photo, the two bollards on squarish platforms in the water.

These.  Well, at summer pool . . . when the water level of the canal is up to allow navigation, they look like so, but

when winter comes and the state hydrologist directs draw-down of the pool, the bollards are on platforms that

are actually concrete barges, ones that do NOT rise and fall with changing pool levels.  The snowy photos I took last weekend.

Click here and here for some of the history of these century old barges.

Note the reference numbers below and

below.

Here’s how they look on google satellite view.   For more on the builder behind these, click here . . . G. A. Tomlinson.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Tale of Two Bows

North River entered service in 1974.

Hunts Point entered the sixth boro sludge trade in February 2014.  My my my . . . how the design has evolved!

Photos by Will Van Dorp.

Here and here are previous sludge tanker posts.  Here are pics from five years ago when sludge tanker Red Hook began service.

Small Tankships 2

I should rename this post “Time Warp.”  I started it in May 2008 and this morning–in response to some Facebook exchanges–resurrected it.  Maybe I will begin a series called “Time Warp,” though, and any photos no more than 20 years old–to pick an arbitrary boundary and to keep the series from becoming ancient time warp which could be its own thing– . . . any photos you wish to contribute no more than two decades old would be welcome.   Maybe I gave up on this post six years back because I had too many unanswered questions.

Anyhow, to plunge back in . . . Robert Silva and Harold Tartell provided foto of Manhasset from way back, when it sported a flying horse on its stack . . . .  I assumed this vessel was long ago scrapped.  I’m also assuming the location of this shot can be pegged by the two LNG tanks in the background.

 

Here’s another shot of the vessel (1958) (or 1952) in transition, I presume, sent along by Robert Silva.

Here’s a photo I took in 2008:  a different small tankship Mostank (1950) maneuvers close to a tanker.  I don’t know if Galahad is still in service, and

Here in Arthur Kill to resupply, I suppose,  Mostank . . . M O S being Marine Oil Service.  Mostank shows up as registered until at least a year ago.  Emma Miller now serves the sixth boro.

Here’s where the time warp impinges on this post.  Great Gull was around still six or seven or eight years ago.  Time flies.  The Gull has flown south.

Back then, John B. Caddell was still working.  Is she still intact?

Nathan E. Stewart was still in town and here moving Mary A. Whalen to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The unique Odin still worked here, and

Weddell Sea was still known as Scott C.

 

All photos here by will Van Dorp unless otherwise attributed.

 

 

What Düsseldorf Showed Me

Thanks to Les Sonnenmark and Peter Lellow for helping me “see” what I was just looking at.  Last week I got some fotos of Düsseldorf Express leaving the sixth boro via the KVK.  See anything different?

Watch the vessel . . . .

There . . . the aftmost starboard container.  What is so special about it?

Here’s a foto Peter sent me . . . a container ship in port hooked up to shore power.  Cold ironing . . . I’d heard about it but never known what it looked like.  I don’t know if the service already exists in Port Elizabeth . ..  but this vessel is equipped.

Click here and here for more info on the system to reduce ship emissions in port.

I took the first three fotos.  Thanks much to Les and Peter for directing and educating my eyes.

Whatzit 18

Lots of images you can try to identify today, but I’ll hold any further info until tomorrow.

First . . .  this vessel will be visible and will be an interesting subject of photographs from many points along the Hudson next month,  February.  Clue:  Note the hull  color.

Unrelated to the top foto . . . any guesses about this and

and this from the same vessel and

this from the same fleet?   Both vessels are occasional visitors in the sixth boro.

And finally . . . from a secret salt, a foto easy to identify.  My question in whether there’s any news about this incident.

You’ll have some answers tomorrow.

Finally . . . here are some of my favorite ice pics on the Hudson taken a few years back by Paul Strubeck.

And here’s hat’s off to my Canadian cousins . . . if case you missed this late addition to yesterday’s post.

Balder’s Belly

The link here may show the first glimpse I had of Balder.  Let me share my getting better acquainted, but first . . . the foto below I took 13 months ago.  Note the different colors of salt, reflecting

different provenances, as explained in Ian Frazier’s New Yorker article below.  Buy a copy to get the rest of the story.

Without this vessel, all of us who drive the roads or walks the sidewalks and streets within the metropolis surrounding the sixth boro would be at greater risk of slipping and crashing.  Framed that way, Balder could not be better named.   Here’s what Kimberly Turecamo looks like from Balder‘s bridge.

On the far side of the channel, that’s Dace.

Here’s what has come forth from Balder‘s belly, a bit of the Atacama Desert on the KVK.   Huge tractors load the trucks that come to a highway department near you today.

This 246′ arm, reaching nearly to Richmond Terrace, offloads at the relatively slow rate of 8oo tons per hour.

And here’s the hold just emptied, one hold of five.  Notice the ladders and the tracks at the base of the hold.

Click here to see the unloading machinery in action.

Navel, perhaps?

Here’s what gets even the last pound making up the nearly 50,000-ton payload onto the salt dock.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Thanks to Brian DeForest of Atlantic Salt and the Balder crew for the tour.

Salt 8b

I could have called this a “scale” post, but I wanted to keep the thread.  The next two fotos were taken over a hundred years ago;  I used them back in 1989 in a now out-of-print book called Incomplete Journeys.  It was about shipwrecks in or near the mouth of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts.  The fotos show not salt but sand being loaded onto a schooner.  The vessel would be run onto the “sand pile” bank at high tide, loaded, and then floated off the next high tide.

These ships were called sand droghers there, although that usage doesn’t seem very widespread.   But I digress.

Let’s return to Port Newark, United Challenger, and salt.

61,000 tons of salt arrived on this ship.

Two men in cranes emptied the ship in about five days.

That involved an additional eight men driving trucks to the mountain.

Time lapse photography might be fun.

Notice the spiral staircase into the hold.  Also, this hatch is midships;  the bridge is quite a distance away.

Double click to enlarge (most fotos) this foto and just to the left of the Newark Bay Bridge, you’ll see WTC1.

This is taken from just forward of the first hatch, counting from the bow.

This is the bridge view.

This parting shot is from the starboard bridge wing.

Safe driving on icy roads.

All fotos (except the first two, of course)  by Will Van Dorp.   Many thanks to Brian DeForest of Atlantic Salt.

Salt 7a

It’s appropriate that this was Salt 6.  You’ll understand as you go through this post and the next one.

Just like it’s appropriate that this Cat is prowling.

Wonder what’s the relationship between this dark shape arriving and safe driving and even on safe walking on streets in the lit-up Manhattan in the distance?

Balder is in port with almost 50,000 tons of crystals from the deserts of Chile aka road . . .

. . .  salt.

She drifts in silently and crews make her fast.

Can you imagine doing this in a February or any other cold month sixth boro?

Well  . . . it happens

again and again, ship after ship, with utmost concern for safety.

Balder (2002) features a self-unloading system.

Once all lines are secured along with customs check and other paperwork,  partial crew change .  . .

While some of the city sleeps, Balder’s arm stretches forth and the Cats get to work.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who is very appreciative for Atlantic Salt terminal manager Brian DeForest’s permission to  be in the yard.