Transformations

Kirbyfication, which looks

like this on Norwegian Sea, is only one transformation, although if you asked me to personify and interpret, I’d say Norwegian looks positively

mortified in these fotos.  “OMG!!  I can’t bear bare   . . .

myself, can’t bear to see this,” she seems to say.

Here’s the changes from Barbara C (October 2010) to

Arabian Sea sand stack decorations (March 2012) to

this past weekend.

Others, like Miss Yvette take things much more in stride from  here (third foto down) to June 2011

to yesterday.

Heron transforms from this March 2011 foto to

this one last week.  And a year from now, as she plys waters off Equatorial Guinea . . . what will that look like?

Sun Road was clearly not always known that way, although

one of my sources was of no value.

For a thrilling transformation story, check out The Skipper & the Eagle, which relates how Horst Wessel became Eagle back in 1946.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

If you like to hear Jefferson Airplane, click here:  their lyric based on a John Wyndham sci-fi novel goes “Life is change.  How it differs from the rocks . . .”

Swan’s Weight

Note the Crowley props and the orange-clad crew.  Doubleclick enlarges image.

Note the huge design difference between Socrates (1966, 3200 hp) and

Heron (1968, 3200 hp).  

My question is this:  what is the actual weight added to Swan by these five tugs, one barge, and one crewboat?  Does the load change the draft of Swan at all, given that she like any vessel is ballasted as needed?  And I do not know the answer.

For outatowners, these shots from Bay Ridge show the “west” end of the Verrazano Bridge.  Yesterday’s fotos were taken from the bluff more or less just above the white dome of the lighthouse.

And for this foto, I pivoted slightly toward the south, capturing both towers of the Bridge.  Entering the Narrows is a ferry and dredger

Terrapin Island, which as recently as two and a half months ago was sucking up silt from Jed’s coast in southern Georgia.

All fotos this morning by Will Van Dorp, who probably has one more installment on Swan.  For the title, my apologies to Marcel Proust.

Swan is Down

(Note:  Doubleclick enlarges.) The title . . . those were the exact words John Watson emailed me last night.  If the message had been “hawk is down”  . . . or “condor …”  it would have alarmed me, but instead I charged my camera so that right after work I could zoom over to Fort Wadsworth for these shots.  By one, I found Alert loaded onto barge BFT No. 38, which

was already on Swan.  Gabby Miller was present, of course.  Lined up on the Brooklyn side was a cast of characters identified as

Cavalier, Pioneer, and Mars . . . in custody of Charles D. McAllister.

The three Crowley tugs glided onto Swan‘s back, extending beyond the hull on

both sides.

For outatowners, that’s Manhattan in the distance looking across most of what’s called the Upper Bay.  The Lower Bay is behind me, as is the Verrazano Bridge.    On the right is the boro of Brooklyn.  The red tugs are Charles D. McAllister and McAllister Sisters Girls.

If you wonder about my shifting POV, the tide turned from ebb to flood during loading, and with it a bank of fog crept in and out, several times.

Next on board . . . Socrates, who in spite of the fog, found

a place midships, starboard.

This left space for

Heron!  It’s not quite Noah’s ark, but I’m hoping Bowsprite will find a spare moment to drawing this vessel with its cargo almost as diverse as that of Pi Patel.

Loading completed, Susan Miller glides by.  No doubt Swan has already begun to deballast to rise back up, and tomorrow the menagerie onboard Swan will be high and dry.  After that, next stop, Nigeria.

I include this foto for outatowners.  The vessel farthest left and most distant is Swan;  I took it on the ferry about halfway back to Manhattan.   Land to the right of King Emerald is Staten Island.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Some related posts include Mighty Servant loaded last December, Blue Marlin loaded a year ago, and Socrates last summer . .  seventh foto down.

Daily Ship 5

Cold waters of the KVK were not warmed  by this swarm of colorful steel housing powerful engines.  From left to right here:  Margaret Moran, Torm Carina, Evening Mist, Joan Moran, and facing us on the far side of the waterway, North Fighter.

At the same moment less than a mile away and at the same moment, Louise Knutsen prepared to turn south, bound for sea.  Her port of registry is posted as Haugesund, which I had to look up.

Nicholas Miller helps with crew change, and

ABC-1 assists with supplies.

Scotty Sky glides by, looking more submarine than tanker.

BBC Germany bunkers in the anchorage over by BAT.  Tug on the bunker barge looks like HMS Liberty. BAT is a Cass Gilbert-designed harbor gem.

Meanwhile, west side of the harbor, Michele Jeanne and crew survey while bobbing in the wakes of  vessels like Heron.  An unidentified bulk carrier loads scrap metal in the distance.

For some beautiful contemporary maritime paintings, check out the site of Melinda Hannigan here.

OKAY . . . I have to put up one more foto, taken just seconds after the lead foto in this post.

The harbor never sleeps, especially not with these neon safety colors mixed in.   The warm colors might not warm the waters, but they do, the air.  More Torm orange here and here;  if I didn’t like that shade so well, I’d be tempted to call it “tormented orange.”  Carina, despite Danish registry, was built in Korea.  To see work at the Danish shipyard of Odense, click here.

Fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 55

Quick post here.  Laura K Moran rousts Westerhaven off the dock.  Notice the docklines at the bow, starting to unlace like a shoe.

F. Dawson crosses the Buttermilk Channel.

Socrates gets some bottom scratching.  Uh . . .  if Socrates gets lavished with this sort of attention, who’s minding Sugar Express?

Why . . . Sugar‘s having a blast in the same shipyard–GMD–of course.  Click here for some earlier fotos from GMD.

And to conclude, here’s GMD from the water . . . with North River and Sea Hawk waiting outside the door.  By the way, does anyone know the specific role played by that (obsolete) horizontal antenna atop the building in the background right?

All fotos this week by Will Van Dorp.