1937 Sardiner

The top three photos in this post come thanks to Kyle Stubbs, who has contributed photos here before, not to mention many photos on uglyships, which is how we first met.   He’s not Sea bart.

I’ll tell you more about this fishing boat in a bit, but that mud says it has been below the surface of the water, and it ain’t a submarine.

Some claim it’s the most famous fishing boat in the world, although that sounds hyperbolic.   Guesses?

It’s Western Flyer, the boat chartered by John Steinbeck AND Ed Ricketts, which served as the platform for their expedition to the Sea Of Cortez aka Gulf of California.  Click here for an interesting article on how marketing removed Ricketts’ name from the Log from the Sea of Cortez account.  The vessel is currently undergoing a $2 million restoration.

Log from the Sea from Cortez is well-worth reading, although my favorite is Cannery Row, in which Ricketts is portrayed as the marine biologist.  For a portion of Log, click here.  My favorite pages in that excerpt are the second half of p. 6 and all of p. 7,  and the second half of p. 14 onto top of 15.

Tangentially related:  the elusive bowsprite has responded to an updated book on the Sea of Cortez here.

Many thanks to Kyle for these photos, taken in Port Townsend. 

 

1906 Fireboat

If you’re wondering why December has brought a run on dates, i.e., years and numbers as part of titles, it’s classic and/or antique boat month.

Sarah Elizabeth Banks, below, began life in the UK as SS Fire King.  In fact, it had a mate, SS Fire Queen, now long scrapped.  Today, it’s a yacht owned by the grandson of the manufacturer and based in Seattle.  Many thanks to Kyle Stubbs for this photo, which he sent me months ago and I never figured out how to use.

And since we’re talking old fireboats, let me add this never-posted photo of Edward M. Cotter, the Elizabeth NJ-built fireboat still in use in Buffalo NY.  As the Buffalo Fire Department says on their website here, Cotter was working Lake Erie’s margins three years before the Wright Brothers made their Kitty Hawk flight!!!   Click here for another photo of Sarah Elizabeth Banks.  Click here for photos/text about another old fireboat named Alki.

Many thanks to Kyle for sending along the top photo.  For other posts with photos from Kyle, click here.

For my previous Seattle area posts, click here.

 

Post Post-Panamax Plus 2

Yesterday’s post showed a larger than average container vessel in the sixth boro, CMA CGM Pacific Link.  That post prompted Allen Baker to send along photos he took last month in San Francisco. Pacific Link‘s teu capacity was just over 8000;  CMA CGM Margrit‘s teu capacity is 13,102.

CMA CGM Margrit used to be MSC Margrit.  Her dimensions in feet are 1202 x 158.  If you count the containers across the stern, you’ll see she carries 19 across, compared with 17 for Pacific Link and 14 for President Truman.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find the air draft on this vessel.  Anyone help?

One of the assist boats here is Delta Billie, 6700 hp.

All photos by Allen Baker.

Relief Crew 17

aka Blue Marlin‘s Vigorous cargo, with all photos and most text by Seth Tane, whose painting site has long been linked to this blog AND who took the photos of the sixth boro during the 1970s and ’80s that he and I collaborated on last year in the 10-post series I called “sixth boro fifth dimension.”  By the way, the dry dock will be the largest in the US, built by ZPMC.  Do you recall hearing of them here and in other posts like here and here?

 On the bow, Foss’ Pacific Escort.  On port, Tiger 9.  The view is from the St. John’s Bridge.

On the stern is Shaver’s Sommer S.   That’s the city of Portland upper left.

Ahead is the BNSF drawspan. They’re going to crane lift a few bits and pieces at the Vigor Swan Island shipyard (Click here for photos I took there last year.) and then transit back under the bridges to a deep hole off terminal 4 to float off the dock where they have the required 50′ draft.

Here’s the side view.  Recall that it was Blue Marlin that returned a damaged USS Cole from Yemeni waters.

Many thanks to Seth Tane for these photos.  Click here for another look at his painting.

 

Other Peoples Photos 30

Today’s photos come compliments of Michael Torres, who previously shared this and this.  Michael . .  great to hear from you and get a glimpse of the west coast city of San Diego . . .

And who’s being feted here?

It’s Reuben Lasker, a Wisconsin product and brand new NOAA fisheries research vessel getting a prismatic welcome from San Diego Harbor police less than two weeks ago.  Here’s some info on the namesake and the shipyard.

Also in port is T-ATF-171, Sioux.  Here is one of the posts I did two years ago on a sister of Sioux, one in fact that was recently in my old haunts of Portsmouth, NH, to pick up  a sad tow.

For scale, see Sioux here passing Nimitz and a gaggle of C-Tractors.

Also in port around the same time, it’s USNS Montfort Point, aka T-MLP-1, mobile landing platform.  She can partially submerge to load/offload hovercraft and other heavy equipment.  In the distance you see John Glenn, a younger sibling, also built locally.  Michael suggests squinting to imagine seeing the tanker influences in their design.   Click here to see other NASSCO ships.

And finally . . . for a Jones Act RORO with the best paint job . . . it’s Jean Anne.

Many thanks to Michael for sending these photos from “somewhere different,” which will be an emerging theme here on tugster.

In fact, if you have great photos from your version of “somewhere different” or “something different,” please get in touch.

 

Tappan

Notice a few cranes near the TZ Bridge,  as seen from MetroNorth train.  Click here for the project website including cameras.

A passenger in my car took the next two.

The one above and the next three were taken from a southbound boat.

Here’s a link to info mostly on the existing TZ Bridge.  Here’s a link to the old borough of Tappan.

And here’s the news in this post . . . December 22 Left Coast Lifter (LCL) finally departed San Francisco Bay bound for the Hudson River.  Here‘s video of the towed  LCL departing SFB.

Will it be renamed TZ Lifter?  .  Towing it were Lauren and Iver Foss.    And before it reaches the Panama Canal, no doubt Miss Lis (scroll thru) will arrive in the sixth boro with its TZ barge.

Click here for an article in the Journal News about the crane.   And from May 2013 San Jose Mercury News, more info . . . including a line that says New yorkers are free to rename the crane/barge.

Many thanks to my friend David Hindin for coordinating the SF views.   Join me in wishing David a prosperous 2014.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 7

You know the colors and organization, but can you name the vessel?  And as to the organization, do you know all the foreign countries where they operate?  I didn’t. 

Anyhow, all these fotos come from Oregon compliments of Michael Bogoger of Doryman fame.  Actual photographer is Jamie Orr of Bristol Channel cutter Baggywrinkle, returning from sea.

The vessel is USACE dredge Yaquina, here at the entrance to its namesake river.

Michael’s searched tirelessly for this dredge ever since last October, when I posted these fotos of McFarland.  That post also generated this impressive list of USACE vessels from the esteemed Harold Tartell . . . a veritable encyclopedia of USACE newbuilds from 1855 until 2012 . . . including the 1981 Yaquina.

Previously, the latest dredge in a distant location I’ve been looking at was Xin Hai Liu, in Rio.

For these fotos, many thanks to Michael and Jamie.

Sixth Boro Hydrofoil

There was a time when I was a boy . . . I thought that hydrofoils would dominate the future.  They didn’t.  My question is:  does anyone recall a hydrofoil operating in the waters around greater NYC?  This just in from a jolly tar, a British film clip that alludes to but seems not to show a hydrofoil on Long Island Sound . . .  ??

The foto below taken in heavy rain just east of the Astoria-Megler Bridge–north side–shows the remains of Plainview AGEH-1.   Here’s a video of AGEH-1 under way.

Here’s a year’s worth of links on hydrofoils.  And some more . . .

Foto by Will Van Dorp.

Columbia River Tugs

I’m not confusing the Columbia with Colombia, but here’s what I found when I mistyped, on purpose.  Colombia seems to be getting some new vessels.

But on the Columbia, Sommer S seems to be the most powerful vessel of the Shaver fleet.

Here’s the land office with Willamette and Columbia at the dock, as well

as Vancouver and Lassen.

On the far side of Sommer S are Deschutes and Tidewater’s Betty Lou (1950).  Closeup, it’s Mary B.

Kathryn B is Bernert Barge Line’s sister to Mary B.

Click here for Bernert Barge Line’s plea to save the dams that make the Columbia navigable for as far as it is.

Foss recently announced it was withdrawing from the Columbia.  A few days ago, Betsy L, Pacific Escort, and PJ Brix were parked at the dock on the Willamette.

Betsy L

Lindy Marie (1952) has unusual house lines.  Note in the background the bow of the black mystery tug to the left and USACE’s Redlinger, maybe the fastest survey vessel on the seven seas.

This is an escort tug built in 1947 with obsolete technology just because it was effective.

When Portland II was service, it was operated by Shaver.  Click here for a narrative of its operation and transformation to museum vessel.  Click here for a foto of the vessel Shaver replaced the steam vessel with in 1981.

Yup, I gotta see the movie.

Parting shot, it’s part of the Brusco fleet.  Nearer vessel is Sharon Brusco.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Road Fotos 32

Catching up on old business . . . the vintage sixth boro NYC fotos in yesterday’s post come compliments of Seth Tane, currently living in Portland, Oregon but a working resident on New York waters 30 years ago.  Tugster will feature more of those fotos in upcoming posts to illustrate the dramatic change that three decades have brought both on the water and along its margins.

I hope that anyone having similar images of waters and waterfronts will volunteer them into the public domain, either on tugster or on any other site.

Click here for Seth’s site–also linked below to the left–and here for a Portland media review of a show his work participated in recently.

Below is reserve Portland fireboat Campbell, launched 1927.

The next few fotos show vessels on the only recent rainless day at Swan Island on the Willamette.  In the drydock is USNS John Ericsson T-AO-194, named for the one-time NYC engineer and inventor.

Nearby were DoD vessels Pacific Collector  (in its third life after launch in 1970) and Pacific Tracker (in its third life after launch in 1965).

I’d like to know more about this drydock, but it’s clearly built on three re-purposed identical hulls.  I couldn’t identify the tug in the drydock.

Backing up the channel here is CS Tyco Dependable, a cable ship.

Later, Dependable was ensconced beside Global Sentinel, another cable ship.   Click here for Tyco’s fleet.

And here’s a mystery vessel looking for identification . . . at least 130′ long–I think–and just downstream from the St. John’s Bridge.  I saw no name or number anywhere.  Might it be an LT like Bloxom–cover vessel on documentary Graves of Arthur Kill–launched out of West Virginia in 1943 and 44?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’s physically returned from the wet coast.