Retro Sixth Boro 4

OK, if old songs make for “classic rock,” then old photos of tugboats could be called classic roll or pitch, yaw, or some such.

Let’s start with one from March 2008 . . .  American Patriot over NW of Shooters Island as seen from the Port Elizabeth shoreline.  I’ve no idea why she was here and have never seen her again.

Given recycling of names, check out Dean Reinauer of June 2008 over by Gracie Mansion.

Same time period, here’s the Curtis Reinauer of that era.

Labrador Sea . . . she’s the first boat in this post that’s still around here.

Emma M. Roehrig  has changed colors twice since 2008 and has not been in the sixth boro for at least five years, maybe longer.

Great Gull still around back then.  She’s gone down to Panama.

And finally, June 2008 saw the transition from the Roehrig fleet into the K-Sea one.  Note the new name on the nearer tug although the colors were still Roehrig.  Aegean Sea had been Francis E. Roehrig.  The farther tug had been Vivian L. Roehrig, renamed Caribbean Sea under K-Sea, and now still works in the boro as Emily Ann.   Did Aegean NOT have a mast?

All photos from a decade ago by Will Van Dorp.

 

After Panama

Can you identify this general area?    I just arrived here, but all last night I was dreaming about the Canal.  Should medical attention be sought?

Some quick final shots:  Fortunato.

Stellanova here and

at the lighthouse below Miraflores.

Atlantico,

American Patriot, 

Buzzard Bay escorted by

Panama XIV, 

and with this type of cargo . . .

it’s National Geographic’s Sea Lion.

A final observation:  Panama was dusty, generated by all the urgent excavation, blasting, and construction.  I felt an excitement.  Dozens of large trucks like this tranported rearranged earth along the ridge between the old and new canals at Miraflores . . . day and night.  Notice the spotlights.  I’m guessing a return trip in a few years to see the results is a must.

And if Panama seemed dusty, this place–and maybe it was the window or the mix of clouds . . . this place seemed oily.

More to come.

Random Tugs 11

I’ve never noticed Tradewind Service in the Kills before, and

American Patriot, ex-Mister Robert (hailing port Honolulu but rounding Shooter’s here a month or so back) is a new one for me, as

 

is Houma, but then again stuff is always changing. New equipment and people arrive all the time. And

 

this fact highlights the need for updating records and archives and delving once more into storage boxes. I got a jolt of energy from stumbling onto these archives of postcards showing tugs, barges, and canal/river details. Thanks much to the folks at Virtual U. It occurs that a fun project might be to match these canal town postcards with Fred (Tug44)’s 2007 fotos of the same canal towns.

I discovered it while hunting info on Philip T. Feeney featured here last week. Click here for a black/white foto of Thomas A. Feeney. So anybody know what happened to the Thomas A. Feeney Corporation? Who last operated Philip T. before grounding it on Richmond Terrace?

Also, Philip T. was “dieselized” in the late 1940s. Has anyone ever heard of old marine steam engines recycled into vessels in other countries? Let me explain the question: in the mid-1970s I spend some years working in the Congo (Zaire), where steamers still operated on Congo River tributaries. I heard a story then of these steam engines having been shipped from the United States shipped to be refitted into steamers. At river town docks, wood piles always awaited.

Photos, WVD.