From the Line Locker 30

Have you read or heard references to a “trackless sea” or “trackless deep”?  Last night I was looking a “whole ocean” views of traffic.  Notice the magenta stream?  Recall that the magenta arrowheads show recreational vessels.  The green (cargo ships) and red (tanker) arrowheads seem much more random, but the magenta . . . pink . . . ones, they are totally following a track.

Ditto here; notice the magenta stream showing the “coconut milk run” on the tradewinds to the west to the Marquesas, French Polynesia, and beyond from Panama.

If we look at the Indian Ocean, the red icons heading east out of the Persian/Arab Gulf and the green ones heading both ways around southern Africa . . .  does rush hour on highways around any major metropolitan center come to mind?  It does for me.

Given all the sea shanties dating from the 19th century and references to Cape Horn, how about a shanty or two about the Cape of Good Hope?

Tracks in the southern Atlantic form an X. Try it out yourself.  Without AIS, we’d still talk of “trackless seas.”

A “little sister” Statue of Liberty will be displayed on a sixth boro island later this month and next.  Note the photo credit;  I wonder if the half-ton statue will arrive by CMA CGM water cargo or air cargo.

And finally . . . thanks to a Great Lakes mariner for this page from the Detroit Marine Historian Newsletter.  Grouper was a name yet to be when that publication hit the stands. The auction info is here.

I use the term “line locker” where some might say “miscellaneous.”  That’s the bright red hull of Issuma a decade ago as it encountered a local mammal while transiting the Northwest Passage.  You might wonder what became of Richard Hudson and his boat.  The good news is that he’s still sailing, and the better news is that he’s creating a rich offering of sailing videos on YouTube.  Check them out here. 

Screen grabs, WVD.

 

Something Different 50

This follows such “something different” posts as Whatzit 41 and 39, Something Different 48 and Irene Aftermath 1 and 2.  If you’re not familiar with the color coding, blue is for passenger vessels, pink is personal vessels, and aqua is tugboats.  A circle means anchored or moored and an arrow means underway.   These two groups of five then are passenger vessels, image copies last night about 1800.

In fact, from l to r and if one atop the other, top to bottom, they are Veendam, Zuiderdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, and Volendam.  The other cluster is Anthem of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, Celebrity Reflection, Celebrity Edge, and Nieuw Statendam.

Green is for cargo ships and red is tankers.  The moving blue symbols (l to r) are Independence of the Seas,  Harmony of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas.  The blue circles are (l to r) Symphony of the Seas, Emerald Princess, Crown Princess, Island Princess, and Regal Princess.

To add some drama to the top two images, let’s tally up the potential number of passengers on these vessels.  Since I don’t know what the status of passengers on the vessels in the top two photos is, I’ll just give maximum capacity totals, passengers plus crew.  Want to estimate?  How many crew in the case these vessels have no paying passengers?  Answer follows below., but please guess?

Adding to the strange clusters, how about destination given as “nowhere” or

“adrift”.  There are some metaphors here . . .  like this and this.

 

My totals . . .  for the enumerated vessels in the top two photos . . .  at capacity paying passengers . . .  86,535.  And if all those vessels are crew only, there are still 22,331 onboard, folks not earning tips.  If you’ve been on a cruise, which I have not, you can guess the general range of nationalities of these crew and what they do with their money.

As of this morning, the clusters are shuffling.

 

No. 11 Asomaru Mystery

I’d been watching No.11Asomaru for a few days, wondering what the story was.  It appeared to coexist with containership MOL Courage, the green symbol surrounding the smaller gray one.  It did this screen grab Friday morning . . . yesterday.  When I saw there was a Asomaru No.8  and it was a tugboat, I thought possibly there’d be a tugboat riding on the containers, and I made excuses to avoid work and zoomed out to the Narrows.

There I saw MOL Courage anchored, an unusual spot for a container ship.

Several Moran tugs were standing by with it.

When the MOL vessel headed in, I leaped into motion and followed it, hoping to catch a glance of the Japanese tug.

 

But I saw nothing, except containers.

Later in the day, I checked on MOL Courage in Port Elizabeth, and sure enough, the

gray icon for No.11Asomaru is still there.

Can anyone explain this signal?  I saw a similar signal once before last fall . . . supposedly an unspecified vessel on a container ship, also in Port Elizabeth.

I’m puzzled.

Dd you catch my reference to leaping into motion . . .   Sorry . . . I couldn’t pass up that opportunity, given today’s date.  Previous leap days’ posts are here and here and here.

All photos, captures, leaping imagination here, WVD.

 

Something Different 48

Before the internet and interactive maps of all sorts, I covered my walls with maps and studied atlases.  I’ve moved along with some technological modifications.  Recently when a friend reported a planned trip to Guinea Conakry, I was looking at various ships in the offing there, and saw this notation below for STI Onyx.   Intriguing.  That was about two weeks ago, and when I checked last night, they were still on board.  Of course with news like this, one should not be surprised.

Decisive was in port briefly on January 2, but I was unable to get photos before she departed.  As I understand it, she is retrieving old cable, rather than laying down new at this point.  I was unaware of an area in the New York Bight referred to as “cable grounds.”  TSS I believe refers to “traffic separation scheme,” not unlike a jersey barrier or a median strip on a highway.

I checked on Decisive a half day later and saw her “destination” marked differently, now, if expanded, to one nautical mile closest point of approach required,” ie, keep your distance.

AIS is an effective tool for a photographer to see if anything interesting might be moving in the area.

Did anyone manage to get shots of Decisive last week?

Here’s an interesting cutaway drawing of a cable layer and info on the SubCom fleet.  The cables they lay, they ARE how the internet travels between continents.

And those armed guards, I don’t think they have anything to do with Internet security.

And to add to the chaotic nature of this post . . . ever see a dazzle painted tugboat?  Check this one out . . . about a five minute clip here.

 

Whatzit 41

Or . .  . what day of the week is it?  There is a logic here.

While we’re looking at AIS, notice this surprise . . . 10 or so nm south of Fire Island, Grasp is (or was)  . . . grasping.

This is not Grasp but her sister Grapple, both product of Peterson Builders of Sturgeon Bay WI, a shipyard now defunct but not far from one currently called Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, source of many vessels known in the sixth born.   Over beyond Grapple is Apache.

My second question, for which I have no answer, is what project is Grasp doing off Fire Island?

Answer tomorrow to the first question.

Photo and captures by Will Van Dorp.

Irene Aftermath 1

Quickie here, thanks to AIS and John Watson, who manages to stay aloft in his  . . . would you believe stealthy hot air balloon?  Anyhow, believe that or not, check out this line of vessels between Poughkeepsie southward to West Point . . . as of 0900 hours today.  Note that Bremer Johanna–in the sixth boro since late spring–has retreated up to Hyde Park.

As of 1100 h today Sunday, in the eye of the storm, only Miriam Moran (over in Newark Bay) and some of the Sandy Hook pilot boats moved.

Here’s a shot of Elizabeth McAllister at 1130 hholding onto Horizon Discovery (1968) at the GMD Bayonne yard.

By 1530 Sunday, winds had started to kick back up on the backside of Irene as New Jersey Responder–visible on the second AIS map in yesterday’s post–

motored through the whitecaps on her the way to her station near Perth Amboy.

Notice that I mentioned Miriam Moran earlier in this post, she may have headed up to the Manhattan passenger terminal where–believe it or not–Veendam (pronounced “vain dumb”) withstood Irene’s vagaries . ..  all of them . . . start to finish.  I will try to catch Veendam on her departure tomorrow.

All fotos by John Watson, for whose efforts I am indeed grateful.  The sixth boro–writ large–seems to have weathered this overrated storm well.  More details–I hope–tomorrow.

Irene Chases Vessels

If you’re not familiar with AIS, click here.  Play with this tracking software.  Remember that not all vessels . . . especially smaller ones . . . use AIS.

Here are screen shots I’ve taken today.  Doubleclick enlarges. In this snapshot from 11 am Saturday, notice the large passenger and cargo vessels like Explorer of the Seas and APL Sardonyx in port here.

By 530 pm, a line of tugs (and likely barges) had  moved up to safer anchorage between the George Washington and the Tappan Zee Bridges.  So had New Jersey Responder.

A line of passenger and cargo vessels had headed for sea by 530 pm.

By 10:30 pm, this set of tugs (and barges) and yachts had moved even farther north . . . between Tappan Zee and Poughkeepsie bridges.

Furthermore, Pioneer, Lettie G. Howard, and W. O. Decker (none of which have AIS) had also moved north from the sixth boro to Kingston.

As I was told 21 years ago in the most precarious time of my life,  good night and good luck to all the vessels .