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It’s hard to believe, but I’ve not been to the Great North River Tugboat Race since 2014, but in normal times, September 5 would see the next race. But we’ve dispensed with the “normal times” concept for the time being.
In selecting the batch for this post, I wanted splash, froth, bubbles, and the effervescence the river can react with when tons of steel and thousands of horsepower push through the ever changing water. The next two photos are from that 2014 race.
It was overcast during the race, but an hour or so later, when pushing contests were happening and
the wakes flattened out and we sized up USAV MGen. Anthony Wayne, patches of blue appeared. I should leave you in suspense about how this push went. Let me put it this way; they left town not long after the push-off.
2013 was an equally overcast day, and again, not to identify every tugboat in that lineup, it appears that W. O. Decker has either jumped the gun or activated its jet drive and will soon rise up out of the Hudson on her hydrofoil assists. I’d guess the latter.
See what I told you . . . Decker has gone so far ahead that it’s already over the horizon.
Second lap maybe for Decker?
It’s starting to appear that in 2012, as in ’13 and ’14, it was overcast.
It was great to see Buchanan 12, usually burdened with a half dozen stone barges, disencumbered and frothing up the river. That’s the 1907 Pegasus back there too.
In 2011, I was able to get a photo of the racing craft along with sky spray by one of the fireboats present, likely 343. What’s remarkable comparing the photo above with the one below is the color of the water; hurricane Irene had dropped a lot of rain upstate and all the tributaries sent that into the Hudson with tribute in the form of silt.
Quantico Creek and Maurania III did an excellent job of stirring up the water.
But again, it was overcast and hazy over silty water.
However, in 2010, we had blue skies that really accentuated the DonJon boats like Cheyenne and
the harbor colossus, Atlantic Salvor.
In 2009, there were wispy clouds, allowing the “queen of the day” to be Ellen McAllister. But look who else showed up!!!!
Urger. Urger would EASILY have won the race, but she was doing what she does best . . . urging all the other boats and crews to be fleeter than she, holding herself back, allowed herself to be that day.
All photos and commentary, WVD. See you at the races in 2022.
I caught this T-boat back two years ago, and here she is again. I’ve posted on this vessel before, (scroll) here and here. It’s the 1953 Sea Dart II, originally T-513.
She’s become a sign of spring for me.
A good old boat like this to learn marketable skills would have been heaven-sent for me as a kid.
Fly your flags high, Scouts.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Some government boats have jet drives. In this post from early September 2014, the smaller vessel had jet drive, whereas the larger one–propellers, although I can find no info about , eg, their diameter.
The other day in the East River I encountered FDNY’s newest (?) vessel, William M. Feehan. Click here for Feehan‘s dedication in the sixth boro.
Feehan‘s 3450 hp, generated by three Caterpillar C-18 engines, gets propelled by three HJ 403 Hamilton jets.
Speeds are slightly faster in fresh water, but both fresh and salt water need to be in liquid state.
USS Little Rock‘s 96,000 hp are to no avail when water converts to solid state, even with just some chunks of solid, because of the otherwise highly desirable waterjets. For complete specs on USS Little Rock LCS-9, click here.
The photo above comes via Marc Piché and was taken by René Beauchamp. All others by Will Van Dorp.
The title is such a mouthful that I’ll soon reduce it to GHP&W. Although this blog began with photos and observations of mostly working vessels in the great harbor associated with New York City, the watery part of which I call the sixth boro, the blog followed a course suggested by these vessels to other GHP&Ws. And given then the global nature of water traffic, it seems logical to devote at least a month to other GHP&Ws.
I’ll kick off with this post about a port I’ll likely never visit, the former Aral Sea fishing port of Moynaq in Uzbekistan. The photos come from Getty Images by Bjorn Holland and Kelly Cheng. Surprisingly maybe, I live in a neighborhood of NYC where Uzbek is the dominant language, which was part of my motivation to read a Tom Bissell book called Chasing the Sea: Lost among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia. I highly recommend it.
Embed from Getty Images
So here are some detail areas of a huge aerial photo print I saw the other day. Can anyone point to detail that confirms a date? My guess is somewhere in the 50s or 60s. The first photo below shows the southeast point of Bayonne NJ. The peninsula bisecting the top and bottom is MOTBY. Governors Island is upper right and the Statue is upper left with the southern tip of Manhattan along the top.
Below is a closer up of the lower right corner of the photo above, showing that tugboat, some barges, and two sets of trucks at the cement dock.
Note the Statue and Ellis Island. To the left of it is now Liberty State Park. The Caven Point Pier crosses the center of the photo and the current Global Terminal is still waiting for fill.
Below is the just capped landfill that is topped by the Bayonne Golf Club. Lower left is quite the gunkhole with disintegrating watercraft I’d love to see a closeup of.
Remember that all the B/W “photos” above are parts of the same aerial shot.
Let’s have a fun month with lots of GHP&Ws. And not to be too prescriptive, I’d love photos from a variety of GHP&Ws in Asia and Africa, mostly lacking in my previous 2900+ posts. Of course, here and here are a few posts I’ve done on African ports; here, Asian; and here and here, South American.
While I’m asking for collaboration, I have a chance to replicate a trip on a major African river that I originally did in 1973-74; what I seek is leads to a publication that might be interested in the story and photos. The trip is pricey, and if I can sell a tale with photos, I can offset some of the expense. Anyone have ideas or connections?
T-boats are up today, and seeing some in Baltimore led me into the archives. Click here for a short history of Carina, a T-boat I saw in Clayton NY but never got a good photo of. Here’s a database of the existing ones, although the info looks dated. Here’s another article on T-boats and Sea Scouts.
Enjoy. Higgins hull #424 from 1952.
taken in January 2011
Higgins hull 434 from 1952
taken in September 2015
Higgins hull 504 from 1953
taken in September 2015
Higgins hull 513 from 1953
taken in July 2014
same boat . . . stern
All photos taken by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated but fascinating to me: the October 2015 National Geographic article on river transport on the Congo River in the DRC. The article describes conditions not unlike those I encountered on my travels on the River in 1973 and 1974. Click here for a post I did about that time.
Totally related: Here’s the book to read on Higgins.
As I meander through my internal miasma, the blog stays noir–more accurately noir/blanc–with another set of screen shots from the NYC Municipal Archives, this time all 1940s . . .Department of Sanitation tugs Spring Creek, Fresh Kills, and Ferry Point, docked in the East River. Fresh Kills aka Miss Laura . .. is she still operating out of Duluth?
Here’s another shot of Fresh Kills aka DS 43 off the Bellevue Hospital. Anyone know what became of Spring Creek and Ferry Point?
Can anyone identify this 1941 tug moving coal scows eastbound into the East River off the Battery?
Undated but in Erie Basin, it’s SS Waziristan next to a floating grain elevator. It turns out that in early January 1942, SS Waziristan–bound from New York to Murmansk– was sunk by Nazi air and submarine attack off Bear Island, Norway, lost with all 47 crew.
Help me out here . . . an unidentified tug docking an unidentified ship in Erie Basin in 1940.
Meanwhile off Tottenville, here’s a fleet of US Army transports . . . mothballed from WW!?
I believe this is a different ghost fleet in roughly the same area. Notice the Outerbridge in the background. Is this where all
this debris lies today? Actually, I took this photo and the next two just “north” of the Outerbridge in August 2010.
All the vintage photos here are from the NYC Municipal Archives, where too many photos have lamentable scarcity of captioning.
Here was 16, and I’m asking again my questions about the last foto in that post . . . .
So here is this installment’s odds and ends. First . . . in the second minute of Woody Allen’s 1979 movie Manhattan . . . there’s this clip. Can anyone identify?
And . . . a foto taken not quite a thousand nautical miles from the sixth boro quite a while ago by a jaunty mariner who can’t be too careful . . . it’s LT-805 General Winfield Scott towing the IX-514 that later turned up in the sixth boro. I’ve no idea if the HLT towed here remains local as of this writing.
And finally . . . another set from Seth Tane taken in New York harbor in the late 1970s/early 80s . . . it’s Harwich-built 1890s Thames sailing barge Ethel, 84′ loa. According to former owner Capt. Neal E. Parker, the vessel, built originally as a linseed carrier and brought across the Atlantic for the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, was haunted. “She was fighting to die,” he said, and after an unsuccessful attempt as a charter vessel in downeast Maine, she returned to New London, where around 1992, she sank at the dock and waited happily to be dismembered and removed by a clamshell crane.
I’d love to hear more about Ethel from anyone who saw her back 30 years ago.
Oh . . and that tugboat from the Woody Allen film . . . it’s A. J. McAllister, I believe. Click here and here for previous film tug posts.
Thanks to Seth and the jaunty mariner for use of their fotos.
The foto below is Nellie Crockett, a 1925-6 Tangier Island “buy boat” that may never have cleaved sixth boro waters, but–used with permission here from the FB page Chesapeake Bay Buy Boat–certainly conveys the notion of a workboat decorated for the end-o-year holidays.
The rest of these fotos come courtesy of Justin Zizes, taken earlier this week in the Hudson off the west side of mid-town. Circle Line does lights this way. Here’s how you could get on board.
Nearby, World Yacht does it this way. And although you can’t get on for the end-o-year holiday, there are many other events.
Notice anything interesting about this arrangement? Look to the left side of the foto.
It’s Sea Bear aka Sea Gus as the red-nosed draft animal.
Here’s that same small tug without the Rudolphian accoutrements.
Many thanks to Justin Zizes and to Chesapeake Bay Buy Boats for permission to use these fotos.
In the next week or so, if you take a foto of a workboat–or mariner– with colored lights a la Christmas, please send it to tugster. I could possibly even come up with a gift for what we deem as the best foto. By the way, I’m still mildly obsessed with finding a foto of the 1997 transport of the Rockefeller Center tree down the Hudson via tug Spuyten Duyvil and barge.
And what is the story of Sea Bear aka Sea Gus? It looks to be cut of the same plans as 8th Sea.
. . . sometimes aka Kate’s Light. And I did a Katherine Walker post here without including the light in that post. So here’s my attempt at amends. All Robbins Reef today . . .
The tug Robbins Reef is an ex-army tug, sibling of 8th Sea, built in 1953 in Fells Point at American Electric Welding. Can anyone add info on the former American Electric Welding shipyard? National also appears to be a sibling, but I am starting to digress.
Back to the light by that name . . . in the distance.
See you at the Noble Maritime auction tonight, I hope.
Heard of Morehead City? Know much about it? It turns out to be quite the bustling port, with Grace Moran,
Na Hoku . . . previously of the sixth boro,
a pilot named Able,
Fort Moultrie and Matamoros,
and Aurora. More on this later.
All fotos today by Will Van Dorp. More soon.
And the population of Morehead City . . . less than 10,000.
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