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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.
Many thanks to my friend Lew who caught this even without a functioning AIS… on the Connecticut River, coming from Windsor Locks CT and heading for the Intrepid Museum . . .
it’s an Douglas F4D Skyray aircraft, not to be confused with an F-4 Phantom. Here I quote from officials: “The Skyray, named for the unique shape of its wing (which resembles a manta ray), went into operation with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in 1956. It was designed to be a high-altitude fleet protection interceptor, fast enough to catch and neutralize an approaching enemy bomber flying at 500 knots. Skyrays set many speed and time-to-climb records in their day as they were able to reach supersonic speeds. The specific Skyray acquired by the Intrepid Museum from the New England Air Museum … served in VF-162 and deployed on Intrepid between June 1961 and March 1962 with Carrier Air Wing Six.” Ah! So there’s a connection between this plane and the carrier.
Shawn Miller is doing the job with deck barge Weeks 47.
I’ll post this early so that folks might be able to catch it on either side of Manhattan Monday morning. As of 0600 now, she is anchored just east and north of Throgs Neck Bridge. Once she gets underway, she could be passing lower Manhattan in a half an hour.
Many thanks, Lew.
Sleepboot . . .? it’s Dutch for tugboat. It’s pronounced more like “slape boat”
See the tricolor courtesy flag between the lower and upper wheelhouse? The photos were taken Monday (July 5) by Jan Oosterboer, in Het Scheur, aka “the rip”, a section of the Rhine-Maas-Scheldt delta near Rotterdam.
And those certainly are not buoys you’d see in the US.
Weeks tug Thomas recently arrived in Rotterdam area.
It’s just off the Nieuwe Maas in the Delfshaven section of Waalhaven. The Plymouth pilgrims ended their Dutch sojourn by departing from the port of Delfshaven. It’s not too far from all these kinds of sights.
Thomas towed barge Oslo and had an assist from Dutch telescoping-house tug Walvis.
Thomas may be doing crew change in Rotterdam; a few months back they were working off Ascension Island!
Many thanks to Jan and Jan for sending along these photos. Evidently, a US tugboat in the Netherlands draws attention! I’d love to hear more of the story.
Mary Turecamo, 4300 hp and waiting for a ship at the Narrows, could not look better. She’s an almost 40-year-old product of Matton Shipyard. In fact, she was their last product.
Christiana heads out as
Virginia, 1440 hp and launched in 1979, comes in
from sea, out of the haze.
Christiana was launched in Marinette WI in 2007, a year after Brandywine and a few years after the Molinari class of Staten Island ferries. She’s married to Double Skin 143, another Marinette vessel.
Barney Turecamo (1995 and 5100) and barge Georgia gets rotated by Marie J Turecamo (1968 and 2250). Yesterday I started a re-read of the 1956 book Tug Boat: The Moran Story, and am finding it very satisfying.
Here’s a dense pack over at the east end of IMTT: Josephine, Evelyn Cutler, and Cape Lookout: (2018 and 4560), (1973 and 3900), and (2018 and 5000).
Crystal Cutler arrived here from the shipyard in 2010 and works with 1500 hp.
She’s pushing Patricia Poling.
And finally, a light Hunting Creek, 2011 and 3000 hp.
All photos and any errors, WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
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