Sixth Boro Details 16

It’s not the best photo maybe, although–hey– it was the golden hour when B. E. Lindholm came into the boro recently.  They’ve been working along the east side of Sandy Hook.

Some small craft traffic the boro all seasons of the year.  I suspect this is going out fishing, but I’m not sure.

Daisy Mae here southbound along Newport . . .  in a clash of horizontal lines. 

This morning had Meaghan Marie, Eastern Dawn, and Evening Mist rafted up in Red Hook.

I’ve often seen David Auld Scudder on AIS, but not until the other day had I seen the boat,

diminutive beside Pegasus Star.

As have appeared here before, Millers Launch has a lot of small workboats like Erin Miller. 

Discovery Coast has been working a fair amount in the boro in recent weeks. 

Too distant to tell, but Twin Tube here is lifting new life rafts onto Nordic Harrier. 

Hayward dates from 1974, when the drift collection vessel came out of a Boston shipyard.

And there we’ll leave it.  All photos and any errors, WVD.

Retro Sixth Boro 24 B

Some things like winter fishing in the harbor appear not to change in a decade, but

Houma will never again move Mary A. Whalen.  Houma, built at Jakobson in 1970, was scrapped in 2017.  PortSide NewYork currently has a berth for the tanker and many other activities in Atlantic Basin, Red Hook.

B. E. Lindholm, built in St.Paul MN in 1985,  is alive and well, currently dredging off Fire Island.

This Kristin Poling was still working 10 years ago, definitely a survivor from before WW2 and also definitely then in her home stretch.  Byearly 2012 she was scrapped.

In March 2010 I also had a chance to gallivant off to Baltimore, home of NS Savannah.  If my calculations are correct, she was in service for 10 years total, and now in mothballs for 48!! Truth be told, she was a prototype, a demo ship with limited cargo capacity but also passengers.  Her beautiful lines were designed by George S. Sharp.  Recently she was at the end of a towline,  a sight I’m sorry I missed.  A wealth of info and video as well as smart comments can be found on this demo vessel here in a publication called Atomic Insights.  Let me quote a small section to tease you into reading the article:  “By technical measures, the ship was a success. She performed well at sea, her safety record was impressive, her fuel economy was unsurpassed and her gleaming white paint was never smudged by exhaust smoke.”

Cajun stood by Chios Voyager near the Inner Harbor Domino Sugars plant.   Cajun still works along the east coast US.  Chios Voyager, built 1984, has been scrapped.

And a somber last photo . . . I caught El Faro in Baltimore 10 years ago.  Little did I expect then what we all know now.

All photos, WVD, in March 2010.

 

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 2

Here was the first post in this series.  Some months back I wondered what this vessel was;  only by the time it had sailed a thousand miles southward did I realize it was a dredger, B. E. Lindholm.  If only I had gone around the barge here at the east end of Caddell’s . . .  .   But I was in a hurry that morning.   Kenny Wilder took these fantastic dredge fotos for which I am grateful.  All my hopper dredger fotos are too far away to demystify the bottom vacuuming business.   More Lindholm fotos can be found here.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock has a hopper dredger in the harbor right now, but my shots are

always too far off.  This trailing suction hopper dredger is called Padre Island.

Here’s a GLDD clamshell submerged and probing the topography of the bottom of the bay,

emerging,

and re-submerged.

Here’s a hydraulic excavator.  The equipment is mammoth.

Deeper, deeper, the task seems herculean and somewhat futile at the same time, except it’s not.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

To see how the huge dredger Leiv Eiriksson is put together, click here.

Dredging . . . besides being essential work of the harbor, it reminds me of how my consciousness works:  each morning, whatever the hour, when I wake up, my perception is affected by whatever topography of my memory is then exposed.  It may be peaks or valleys or even human-created highs and lows.  Stuff resolved or not but accepted last week or last year needs to be dealt with again and again.  Not that I’m a slow learner, just new perspective brings new doubts, refreshed hopes.  Unsettling, pun intended.  I suppose this makes a post about dredging an apt end-of/beginning-of  year post.

Related to dredging is dealing with the nagging stuff that comes up in many of our consciousnesses as relates to getting along with people.  A type of post I’m thinking to add is an advice column.  Being on Georgia backroads now with only a quite blank laptop,  I have no sixth boro fotos to illustrate, but here’s a an example, which–@!%&*#@–sounds so much like Shakespeare that I’ll just modify this synopsis of Midsummer Night’s Dream. . . except this writing happens to be  midwinter.

Sample advice seeker whom I’ll call “December dredgerist”  —-

Dear Tugster, My crewmate Mori (married to a lubber Elfin Princess . . . aka EP) feels profoundly attracted to Tori (a lubber), and Tori feels deeply attracted to  Luis. EP loves Mori but also–being elfin–has strong attractions and liaisons with a plethora of  fairies, sprites, nymphs, mermaids, and sirens, and other magical creatures of the forests, islands, tidepools, hills… all of which is fine with Mori, who understands elfins and their openness about Mori and Tori.  There is neither pressure to change anything nor complications that exist, but (I’m writing for Mori) Mori wants to know if you could dig into your experience to help Mori either attract Tori or deal with her lack of attractedness to him without turning into an ass.  Many thanks… December dredgerist.

My response:  Dear Decemberist:  Tell Mori that change is the only constant, and since I have no control over the elves, sprites, and other magical creatures that make  stuff happen in your/my lives, just  . . . do what you’re doing–be sweet or salty or neutral according to your custom and … ride out the hurricanes, calms, ebbs, surges.  May your anchor hold tight in spring tides as in lows.  Dress warmly, and always wear a life jacket.

Lame, maybe?  Any  advice for either the advice giver or the advice seeker?  Much appreciated, and  Auspicious 2010!  Enjoy the midwinter’s full moon.  I’m starting to make my way down the Savannah watershed.

PS:  If your advice to me is to call off this column and terminate the personals-dredging, I’ll consider it.

Unrelated:  check out the mini-tug on Gypsy pirate wench! Fair winds to her as she joins Amistad!