You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Weeks Marine’ category.
Let me interrupt my “out of the bayou” aka “regular programming” posts to a) announce my return to the sixth boro and b) update you on some exciting cargo that arrived in the sixth boro earlier this week. For the first 4 photos, I’m grateful to Benjamin Moll, since I had not yet returned here when he took those.
But first, do you remember 20 Barges, the post about a delivery of that many barges on a barge in June 2016? This is similar. Tradewinds’ Caitlin came into the sixth boro with barge Prometheus, seen below. Prometheus is a large 300′ x 100′ barge that came to the sixth boro at least once before and reported on here, back in spring 2019.
Two tugs also tagged along as cargo.
Eastern Dawn provided the assist.
I took the rest of these photos. By the way, as of today’s posting, Caitlin and Prometheus are still in town, over by the Weeks yard.
The new vessels will operate for the Haughland Group. More on Haughland tomorrow before I return to my Gulf of Mexico reporting.
Sarah D was assisting over at Weeks yesterday.
Many thanks to Ben for sharing his photos. Some previous posts with Ben’s photos can be seen here.
Any errors can be pinned on WVD, who provided the last four photos.
I’ve previously cited the line about eight million stories in the naked city, a reference to a 1948 movie and subsequent TV show. More on all that at the end of this post, but for now, with the sixth boro added in, I’d double that number . . . 16 million stories in the naked city, considering all six boros. And thanks to Tony, here are a bunch of stories from the past few days that I’d otherwise have missed entirely.
An Italian destroyer visited the sixth boro, D-554 Caio Duilio.
A Maine purse seiner Ocean Venture came through. I caught her coming through the boro here two years ago.
More on Ocean Venture can be found here on pp. 20-23 of March 2021 of National Fisherman.
And there’s more . . all from the past week, name that tall ship with the flag of República Dominicana?
That’s Weeks James K in the foreground.
So here it gets confusing; it appears this DR training ship barquentine is called Cambiaso. She was acquired from Bulgaria in August 2018. However, it’s possible that for a short and unrecorded period of time, the same barquentine carried the name Maria Trinidad Sanchez. What happened? Was that simply a delivery name, or am I still showing effects of my time in the heat with the alligators while the robots attempted a coup?
That being said, along with a DR training ship, there was also another DR naval vessel. Do her lines look familiar?
Vintage? Where launched?
Today she’s known as DR’s Almirante Didiez Burgos. But at launch in Duluth in 1943, she was USCGC Buttonwood, a WW2 veteran and now flagship of the DR Navy. She reminds me of USCGC Bramble, which I saw way back when on the St. Clair River. After an epic journey from Michigan to Mississippi for refitting by a private individual, she might now be scrapped.
All photos by Tony A and shared with WVD, who feels privileged by this collaboration.
I also think, given the reference to Naked City, that moving pictures producers should revisit the concept of a Route 66 series, incorporating Charles Kuralt’s influences. Want the season 1 episode 1 of Route 66? Click on the image below and prepare to go back in time for good or ill! It’s disturbing watching. Season 1 episode 1 provides some backstory about how a “broke” Manhattan kid came to be driving a 1960 Corvette. Hint: Hells Kitchen, the East River, barges, and bankruptcy are all involved. A luminary of the series was screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, a name I should have known earlier.
And to give equal time to Charles Kuralt, watch this 8-minute segment on wooden replica vessel building in Wisconsin. Watch highlights as the boat builder, Ferd Nimphius, works on his 113th build.
June 2012 was pivotal for me. A photo sent along by a friend alerted me to Canal commerce–Canadian corn– entering the US at Oswego, a place I knew something of from my youth.
If that was a spark, then the breeze that fanned it was an invitation to do my trial article for Professional Mariner magazine, which led me to Kingston NY, the mouth of the Rondout, and a project involving use of a half century old tug Cornell to do TOAR signoffs. My most recent article in the magazine came out today and can be seen here.
On that assignment, I was privileged to have a mentor, Brian Gauvin, do the photography.
Other big events for June 2012 included the movement of shuttle Enterprise from JFK airport ,
ultimately to the Intrepid Museum to be
hoisted onto the flight deck as part of the display, now covered.
My daughter went off to Brasil (again) and the Amazon, leading me to go there myself a year later, fearing she’d never return because she loved it so much there.
I’d given her a camera before she went, and was rewarded with some quite interesting photos, like these small motor boats that looked almost like slippers …
with straight shafts coming straight out of air-cooled engines.
During my trip up to the Rondout, I stopped in Newburgh, where replicas of La Niña and Pinta, crafted using traditional techniques on the Una River in Bahia, Brasil, attracted crowds, one of many stops along the great loop route.
Other festivities on the Hudson that summer . . .
included the sails and music associated with the Clearwater Festival, and of course the small boats moving in some of the venues.
Patty Nolan and Augie were the small tugs, and of course the sailboats including Mystic Whaler, Woody Guthrie,
and of course the sloop Clearwater. The Clearwater organization will not be doing a music festival in June 2022. Mystic Whaler is now working in Oxnard CA at the Channel Islands Museum.
Summer time and the living is easy well, at least it feels that way some days . . . .
All photos, except the first one, WVD. That first photo was taken by Allan H. Seymour.
Dace lighters STI Excel.
Neptune comes into town again.
Buchanan 12 makes a rare appearance light, but everyone needs to refuel periodically.
Janet D follows Seeley into the Kills.
How a bout a four’fer . . . counter: Marjorie, Kristin Poling, Nicholas, and Jordan Rose.
Sea Lion heads eastbound.
B. Franklin travels west, and
Discovery Coast, east. . . both light.
Nathan G moves a deep scow into the Kills with Cape Wrath lurking in the background.
Traffic never stops, and it’ll outlast me, the photographer, WVD.
I’ve used this title a dozen times before, but never have four relatively recent hulls shared sixth boro waters until now, at least not that I’m aware of.
So let’s start here with an obvious logo and a name I couldn’t quite parse, Viking
Octantis, until I realized it was named for a star visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
From here, they head north and are expected on the Saint Lawrence by the end of April. This is the vessel that is supposed to transform cruising in the Great Lakes, including Lake Superior, using Milwaukee as its hub for the summer months. I can say from experience that Milwaukee could be a great city for this. Here, here and here are more Milwaukee posts previously on tugster.
I understand that Blount tried Lake Superior with their vessels years ago, but Viking will bring in a few hundred guests at a time. Other itineraries explain the name, as they will sail under the southern skies. As of this writing this 2022 vessel is still at the passenger terminal, unfortunately, stern to land, and I wanted to see the bow. She was delivered from the VARD Shipyard in Søvik NO in January 2022.
As of 1130 today, she headed for sea, for Charlottetown PEI, specifically.
Another 2022 vessel arrived in the sixth boro yesterday, USCGC Clarence Sutphin WPC-1147, the 47th Sentinel-class cutter has delivered to the USCG. After christening, WPC-1147 will head off to Bahrain.
Christening is here most likely because the namesake was a Queens native. I thought that learning this would help me understand the origin of this major street near where I live, but it seems both street and hero have names traced back to the old country. The new cutter overtook the container ship under the VZ Bridge.
While we’re looking at hulls delivered in 2022, here’s another, with noticeable style-cousins already working in the boro. I’ll let you look for the similarities in superstructure. James K was recently delivered to Weeks, as reported here.
She’s been hauling dredge scows the past few days, as was the case Easter morning at first light.
See the resemblance certainly with James E. Brown? Rodriguez Boatbuilders needs their history site updated.
Another fairly new hull in town, possibly calling in PoNYNJ for the first time is CMA CGM Osiris. I’ve not yet seen it, but she may depart today.
All photos, WVD.
Tony A sent this along labeled as “m-o-a-t,” mother of all tugs, and Pacific Reliance is truly a large tugboat at 121′ x 42′
with 9280 hp turning two 12′ diameter propeller and pushing around a 560′ tank barge that carries 155k barrels of liquid product. But there are larger tugboats. Justine McAllister gets called in to assist the Crowley unit into the dock.
CMT Pike heads north about to be obscured by an incoming MSC ship.
Seeley pushes along a block of four scows.
JRT and Kirby prepare to sail a Minerva tanker. Minerva, Roman goddess of war and other things, seems appropriate these days.
The indefatigable Ellen McAllister passes Barney Turecamo on her way to a job.
Catherine C. Miller moves Weeks crane 577 to a lift site.
Emily Ann returns from a job.
Nicolas Vinik gallops off to a job,
following Liz Vinik, herself
follwing Gregg McAllister.
And the beat goes on . . . all photos, WVD, except of course the one from Tony A, to whom I am grateful.
Two separate parties sent me this article from the LA Times. With a title including the phrase “humble tugboat,” I was interested but not prepared for the fantastic photos. Thx John and George. Enjoy. Meanwhile, here are some more of my recent photos.
James D. Moran assisting on a towline above and Robert Weeks leaving the fuel dock below,
Andrea walled off from her barge above and Sarah Ann light below,
Gregg McAllister returning to base and Pegasus heading to work,
A light William Brewster and an equally light Daisy Mae,
Mackenzie Rose and Philadelphia, and
to close out this installment . . . Kimberly Turecamo assisting a ULCV.
All photos, WVD, who never associated the adjective “humble” with tugboats or their operators, and that’s not a bad thing.
If you’re new to this blog (or even if you are not), I’m always looking for photos from other people and places, especially, tugboats seen in South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australia.
Just photos will appear here today, and I realize I’m contradicting that statement by writing this sentence and the others. However, inspiration was failing me, so I decided this post should be not photo-driven, but photo-dominated. Names are provided in the tags.
Sunday started sunny, but then clouds moved in.
The sixth boro offers many vistas. Enjoy a few, starting with Sarah D towing a deeply loaded scow past Bay Ridge.
At sunrise, Atlantic Salvor and Patrice McAllister head in the same direction for different tasks past Stapleton Heights.
Jonathan C works shipside on the ConHook range in the sixth boro
Julie Anne heads north or so inside the VZ Bridge. I should know what buoys are there, but . . . I don’t.
Sarah D again and here shipside in the KVK.
Mary Turecamo assists alongside a rust-flecked box ship.
Seeley pushes Weeks 250 eastbound in the Kills.
Kirby Moran, Patrice McAllister, and Gregg McAllister assist another box ship, as Marie J Turecamo heads in their direction.
Sea Fox moves a barge past Global terminal in Bayonne.
Navigator rotates clockwise away from St George and heads north.
And finally, Charles James stands by with a scow off Sunset Park.
All photos and any errors, WVD.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON. In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy. Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.
Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses. Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.
Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine,
and two more I took in September 2019 in
the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals. Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist. Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.
Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold
can be tricky.
Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island. Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots.
Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.
Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . . sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . . it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina.
Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro.
Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . . the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.
Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class; the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind. If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver. I have lots more photos that you’ve sent. If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.
If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working. This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life. I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments