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Is that really USS Cole (DDG 67)?
I’ve not seen it mentioned much in media coverage today.
Ocean survey vessel HMS Scott (H131) and why the
penguin? Answer follows.
USS Oak Hill (LSD 51), a dock landing ship is named after a former president’s residence!
ITS Virginio Fasan (F 591) is an Italian frigate. Click here for the namesake.
USCGC Warren Deyampert (WPC-1151) has a quite interesting namesake story.
Deyampert and Ollis meet.
HMCS Glace Bay (MM 701) is a Canadian coastal defence vessel, as spelled in Canadian English.
USS Wasp (LHD-1) history can be read here.
Is that a Harrier AV-8B?
USNS Newport (T-EPF-12) can transport over 300 troops at almost 50 mph.
I’d love to tour it.
All photos this morning, WVD.
OK, H131 is named for RF Scott, the explorer.
On this date in May 2013, I was near Portland OR scanning slides, images Seth Tane had taken decades earlier.
The images have value in a macro sense, not the small details but rather the extent of change in the past almost 50 years.
Tomorrow (2023) the fleet comes in. But what year did LCC-20 come in . . . maybe 1985 or 1986? It seems she’s still active. I now believe that lightship is the former LV-84.
But there are details here too, like these. Might these two tugs be what’s more commonly known to me as Christine M. McAllister and H. J. Reinauer? And look at the crowds!!
Is this the former lightship St. Clair?
Will this former tanker, former crane ship be fodder for underwater archeologists of the 22nd century?
I’d love to see this tugboat today.
What a different skyline!! The Esso tanker’s been scrapped two decades already.
Kehoe tugs have appeared here on this blog a few years ago. Here in this fog, they look every bit to be a fading past.
All photos, thanks to Seth Tane. Any errors, WVD.
If you’ve got time and inclination and an interest in the comments of a decade ago, click in the links below for that journey back in time to 6 b 5 d aka sixth boro fifth dimension posts . . . .
Many thanks to Tony for keeping me current on vessels in the boro. Most of these are transients, like Capt Richard of Norfolk Dredging. Other equipment of the dredging
company was towed through in recent months as well, likely returning from a dredging project somewhere.
Stadt Amsterdam was in town, in fact at Pier 17, about a month ago. From the sixth boro she headed east, with her itinerary listed here. Pier 17 is also where I caught Capitán Miranda–after being tipped off by Tony. Danmark was there too as well as the vessels of the beer run. Has any beer been delivered there by boat since?
With LCS Cleveland just launched with a splash and a douse over in Marinette, USS Cooperstown was recently commissioned in a location relatively close to . . . Cooperstown.. I believe she overwintered in Escanaba, where we we welcomed recently as the first passenger vessel to call since the Americans.
Hidden away, Tony caught Rachel Marie and more. Here’s a blast from the way past featuring her exploits tugging on whole islands!
Shelby Rose may be a fleet mate.
Jimmy, recently spoiled by spa treatment, stands forward of a whole line of boats and countless stories.
Mr Connor was ashore getting spiffy.
I’ve often seen Manhasset Bay on AIS, but thanks to Tony, here’s
my first time to see her in the boro.
And rounding things out, behold Joanne Marie, following her makeover after I got these photos over her coming into town the other month . . . wow!! that was February. Time does pass quickly!
Much appreciation to Tony A for keeping an eye on sixth boro traffic while I get lost elsewhere.
A friend and occasional contributor recently sent this photo, a tighter cropped version of just this photo and asked what is was. I won’t volunteer what I thought, but I was wrong. Can you guess?
Here’s a bit more detail, quite a bit more, in fact. It was intended as number 3 of 32, but now it’s much more limited, the third of three.
Behold USS Lyndon B. Johnson aka DDG-1002. Her ceremonial keel laying was exactly six years ago, January 30, 2017, although she was partially built by then. Her launch was late fall 2018, and christening . . . spring 2019. She’s currently in Pascagoula MS and at last report, being prepped to enter service in 2024.
Many thanks to eastriver for passing these photos along.
As I’ve stated previously, these 600′ x 81′ military vessels are reminiscent of the ironclads, especially the CSS ones, of the US Civil War.
I saw DDG-1000 in process of being built in the Kennebec way back almost a decade ago here.
Here was the first redux for the Delaware.
Handy Three appeared on this blog almost a decade ago in a different livery and in a different port.
Of course, she’s been a Moran tugboat for a half dozen years already.
In the background above, that’s the 1968-commissioned, 2007-decommissioned USS John F. Kennedy.
Several hundred yards away from Handy Three, Hunter D. I’d never seen this boat previously although for some time a few years ago I’d see her AIS “ghost signals” all over the sixth boro.
She’s still in Harley livery even though on paper she wears a lion.
All photos, WVD.
A relative’s big birthday brought me to Philly for the first time in a long while and afforded a few minutes to look around. Name that carrier? I once walked its decks as a visitor more than three decades ago, and have a friend who served aboard . . . as a journalist in the USN.
On an earlier trip of the Delaware, I recall seeing that faded reddish, peeling gray on Arthur W. Radford (DD968) before it was reefed.
Got the name?
But wait, there’s more . . . including one that should not be there.
I’d heard that Powhatan-class Apache had just been decommissioned and towed there last week, and this was the vessel I wanted to check on. The link in that previous sentence I posted a decade ago, after walking her decks. Recognize the larger vessel to Apache‘s port?
I wonder where Apache‘ll end up, now that her replacement(s) are under construction.
The one below would not have been there if a tow last month has gone without issues, as seen here but you have to scroll. I wonder when she’ll attempt her final journey next.
Yup, it’s ex-USS Yorktown (CG-48), and the carrier is the JFK, another fading Kennedy.
All photos, WVD, who really needs to get to Delaware River ports more often.
For the past week on AIS, this has been “govt vessel 5,” and she’s currently in Stapleton taking on fuel.
Clearly she’s a Freedom-class LCS, with its distinctive bow-low profile. It’s powered by four engines: 2 x Fairbanks Morse/ Colt-Pielstick 9,100 hp diesels plus two 2 x Rolls-Royce 48,000 hp gas turbines run through four Rolls-Royce/Kamewa waterjets. For routine cruising, I was told on my tour yesterday, only the diesels run. For sprints, all four are on line.
Tours were open to the public in Stapleton the past few days.
The vessel has no curves, but neither does it have many right angles.
The explanation offered for the large flight deck is that as a relatively small vessel, it rolls/pitches/etc. in a sea. The additional space is appreciated by helicopter and drone operators.
I’d love to have seen the engine room, but this is as close to the engine I got.
Here’s the view back toward the bridge, as seen from between the anchor machinery and the deck gun.
And finally, some views from the helm and
assorted screen, indicators, and the four engine controls.
All photos, WVD.
Below is an article from Saturday’s NYTimes, and the women of the fleet.
I’m just observing, not criticizing, but the vessel turnout in 2022 seems quite small. I understand that lots of other things are happening globally. Following USS Bataan, USCGC Sycamore (WLB-209) and HMS Protector (A-173) arrive. They are both about 20 years in service and have both done assignments in the Arctic.
Sycamore made a run up to the GW before turning around. I saw her here in the sixth boro just over a year ago.
Protector did not begin life as a UK Royal Navy ice patrol vessel. Rather, it was built as the 2001 Polarbjørn in Lithuania for GC Rieber, a Norwegian company based in Bergen, a port I visited way back in 1985, on one of my early gallivants. Unfortunately, in those days I traveled sans camera.
USCGC Dependable (WMEC-626) built at AmShip in Lorain OH and commissioned in 1968, is over the midcentury mark and still at work. AmShip Lorain-closed since the early 1980s- built some icons, several of their lakers still very much in active service.
Most of the medium endurance cutters of Dependable‘s cohort-Reliance class– are still in service, either in the US or elsewhere.
USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) was commissioned in 2015. Like Sycamore and Dependable, she was built on the Great Lakes
Four years ago here, I visited the Marinette Shipyard town where Milwaukee came into existence. Some products of Marinette include Sycamore–above–and Ellen McAllister, also involved in Wednesday’s parade into the sixth boro. Katherine Walker, part of the welcoming committee Wednesday, is another Marinette product, as are some of the current Staten island ferries (Molinari class) and some ATBs, like Brandywine and Christiana that pass through the port now and then.
As Milwaukee steamed upriver, she slowed and spun a 180 turn much faster than I imagined possible for a 378′ vessel. I wish I’d been on shore just off her improvised turning basin when she did so. Was anyone there and can send photos?
A sister of Milwaukee, USS Duluth (LCS 21) was commissioned in her namesake city only earlier this week.
All photos, WVD, who hopes to get in some more Fleet Week sights this weekend. If you’re reading this and arrived in the sixth boro–aka the primary boro–of NYC, welcome.
Scouts? Patrol? Search pattern? First and foremost, it’s to honor our war dead, and there are too many of those, even the walking wounded and dead….
Thanks to New York Media Boat, I caught the fleet from a different angle, all while respecting the safety zones.
Note the unmistakeable red of a McAllister tugboat on the starboard bow, along
with a handful more McAllisters and the other fleet vessels following.
The USACE and USCG always take part . . .
USS Bataan (LHD-5) was the lead ship, and
it docked in the Hudson River Passenger Terminal.
More WVD fleet week 2022 photos tomorrow. Lots more photos of the LHD can be seen here. A guide to Fleet Week activities can be found here.
Previous tugster fleet week posts can be seen here.
One of the joys of wandering around an unfamiliar port is getting surprised, as
I was to see an LCS underway. I also saw some reference to the place of LCS vessels in the USN fleet here and here on gCaptain. More on the ship and the Independence-class variant can be read here.
Know the LCS-8?
I guess one aspect of the surprise was that she moved through the San Diego harbor without an escort, as if this were a routine transit, and maybe it was.
More San Diego soon, a port I could have spent more time in and one I surely hope to return to.
All photos, WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
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