A. V. Kastner

I wrote about this ship a little over a year ago (scroll about half way through).  This time, a cold day last week,  I recognized her immediately and

got closer ups.  A Saugerties lighthouse keeper recorded the same vessel passing some time back.

Only a cold winter shot catches the white smudges around its bow and hatches.  By the way, inside under the hatches lie tons of the white material from the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia that becomes sheetrock, plaster board.  Some blogger’s eyes monitor Kastner and other gypsum carriers well here.

Ice, of course, cold water sprays up and coats an even colder hull.  You may recall fotos of hatches encased in ice on Kastner‘s sister vessel Gypsum Baron,  posted here.

Here’s a closer up of Kastner‘s “unloader,” aka slewing boom.

Which brings me to uninvited thoughts of cold water, ice such as that broken up farther north along the Hudson, and people who see solidifying waters as places to test human endurance.  Warm-blooded Bowsprite writes about some of these swimmers, New York residents, here.  Rachel writes about it here.

On swimmers and blogs about the water:   get the Beatles,  a wild swimmer in Amsterdam, and something about a submarine here at the incomparable Peter Mello’s Sea Fever.

Photos, WVD.

Gypsum Bulker

309 posts ago the debut post introduced you to Alice, a bulker. One of the shots showed her from head on, highlighting the bulbous bow. Here’s another bulker Gypsum Baron, bow thruster just aft the bulbous bow getting service. Without the grate and prop, that launch could navigate right through.

Here in dry dock, yard workers maintain Gypsum Baron or its sibling Gypsum King. Notice the worker along port and two on scaffold near prop shaft.

 

Maybe I should call this requiem for a bulker, as this vessel has delivered its last gypsum up the Hudson to Stony Point and been crewed off to points east, maybe a beach in India, for . . . well, I won’t say it. Foto below shows Gypsum Baron loading on a windy day.

 

How many homes and businesses have wallboard dividing spaces made from gypsum delivered by this vessel and siblings? One of these siblings, A. V. Kastner, below and currently a regular through New York harbor, appeared in my blog, and

 

prompted a much appreciated email from coyote des neiges (snow coyote), to whom I owe these spectacular fotos. Merci!

Check out coyote’s site here. Canard a vapeur . . . literally, steam duck. Enjoy the fotos and learn some French. More of coyote’s tales and fotos soon.

This just in: see this link for the Dec, 3 2007 New Yorker magazine’s coverage of Tuesday’s atmospheric and most unusual book launch. See my post “launch site” under recents posts and H2O’s info about this. And come on down to the Navy Yard. Posts from there soon.

 

BigLift Tra-type

Damn Dutch entered the harbor today; my last name authorizes me to use that adjective. And just kidding about it, of course. Welkom. My May post called “specialized 11” had a larger BigLift ship. Would that be “bigger lift”?

Here’s the rest of the ship. See the whole fleet at this link; this vessel is Transporter, hence, tra-type, by their nomenclature.

 

A fun foto… suppose they could lift and haul away our V Bridge?

 

A question: last Wednesday afternoon, a vessel with large cranes went up river: a frustrated tugster needed to content himself with this shot from the 32 floor of a building on 42nd Street. The stack says CTL or GTL. Anyone identify, please? Doesn’t the Hudson look narrow in this shot? Anyone know what Transporter is going to pick up?

 

Photos by Will Van Dorp.