You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Baltimore’ tag.
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.
Earlier this month gothamist.com ran an intriguing set of photos taken by Mr. Cushman. Here’s his entire archive. Here’s a good selection.
The warehouses on the opposite side of the river from red vessel below are the current location of Brooklyn Bridge Park. That makes the pier location a little south of piers 16 and 15. South Street Seaport Museum’s boats today. Could that be Ollie, the stick lighter currently disintegrating in Verplanck?
I’m not sure what we’re looking at here, but the Cushman identifies it as 1941. According to Paul Strubeck, it’s likely an express lighter–a category of self-propelled vessel I was not aware of–possibly operated by Lee and Simmons Lighterage.
And finally . . I wish this photo–dated September 1940-– had been framed differently. Phillip’s Foods is still around, although I’ve never eaten at any of their restaurants or if this is even the same company. Royal Clover . . . I can’t find anything about that brand. And seeing all those cartons in Jeff and the barges, today there’d be a few containers and you’d have no idea of the contents.
You can search Cushman’s archives here. I call these “fifth dimension” i.e., time added, photos.
For another treasure trove of photos of old New York harbor, click here.
She hardly looks her 75 years, but as I walked across a marina in Baltimore earlier this fall, I had to turn my head and
look a little closer. Other than that she’s Chas. D. Gaither, I can’t say much else.
But I can tell you something about her namesake and one of those responsible for saving her. Click here for the Gaither story and here for a restorer’s story.
It appears that Gaither‘s builders, Spedden Shipbuilding, also built Driftmaster (1949) and Wilhelm Baum (1923), which sank at the dock nearly two years ago. Does anyone know what has become of Baum? All photos here by Will Van Dorp. I took the Baum photo back in 2008.
Click here and scroll to see the oldest retired NYPD launch I know of, Patrolman Walburger aka Launch No. 5.
Many thanks to Steve Seely of New Brunswick, Canada, for sending these photos and this story. Never heard of a “quarantine tug?” Well, neither had I. But here it is, launched at Bath Iron works in October 1932 as a tug for the US Public Health Service, christening with ginger ale–since it happened to be Prohibition era. If you have 50 minutes, here’s a 1936 film from the US National Library of Medicine at NIH on the work of these vessels; good references in the movie to Hoffman Island and Ellis Island. I’d forward to about five minutes in for historical background; quarantine tug activity, including clips of vessels like the one below, starts at about the six-minute mark.
Here’s some specs on the vessel: T. B. McClintic is “built of riveted Norwegian Steel (Charcoal Iron)… 60 feet, 10 inches in length overall with a 16.5 foot breadth and a 9.2 foot draft. At launching, [she] displaced 65 tons. This single screw vessel with its engine–direct reversible Standard Motor Construction Company diesel engine with 100 horsepower … four-cylinder, eight-and-one-half- inch bore by 12-inch stroke weighing 13,475 pounds–turning a 50-inch diameter, 36-inch pitch bronze propeller at 350 RPM, cruised at an average of 10 knots.”
During her life as a quarantine tug, she operated out of Boston, Norfolk, and finally Baltimore, where she also performed some light ice breaking work. The photo below shows her in Baltimore in the early 1960s.
In the early 1960s, she was sold at government auction and purchased by “City of Wilmington, North Carolina, to become the city’s new fireboat, she was completely rehabilitated by the Wilmington Iron Works in order to perform her new function. This included adding a full array of fire-fighting equipment, replacing her original 100 HP engine with a new Gray Marine 671 Diesel which increased her HP to 185, and installing a new Twin-Disc 4.5 to 1 reduction transmission. In addition, due to dangerous rust-pitting on each side of the bow, the forward steel plating was replaced. The conversion cost the city approximately $18,000. … Renamed Atlantic IV, she “was distinguished as the only ship that could sink the battleship USS North Carolina in one of her first services after conversion to a fireboat, when her hoses were used to fill the great ship’s bilge with water in order to settle her into her permanent berth in the Cape Fear River.”
From 1987 until the present, she’s been owned privately. The photo below, taken by current owner Steve Seely, was taken in Baltimore in 2012. Here I quote Steve: “I bought [her] in Baltimore in 2011 and brought it to New Brunswick, Canada in 2012. I happened to pass through NY Harbor to take advantage of the lack of swells in Long Island Sound.”
He continues: “The photo underway show it moving as fast as it’s Detroit Diesel will push it, just shy of 11 Kts. It’s an official antique by your standards but that doesn’t mean it can’t work. I salvaged a sunken barge in St Andrews harbor this summer.”
And what identification does she sport on her stern?
Her original name and Bath, Maine. The tug’s namesake was ” a University of Virginia Medical School graduate and twelve-year veteran PHS officer, Thomas B. McClintic. In 1911, at the age of thirty-eight, McClintic was detailed to Montana to perform research on Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. In August of 1912, McClintic contracted the disease and died.”
The tug has its own website here. The info quoted above not by Mr Seely comes from the application for her admission to the National Register of Historic Places, which makes for fun reading if you wish.
Because of the dimensions and certain missions of T. B. McClintic–boarding ships for quarantine purposes and ice breaking–this vessel is a forerunner of the WYTLs that will soon start to work the Hudson River ice chokepoints. Click here for an unpublished magazine article I posted less than a year ago on the “extended cabin” sixth-boro WYTLs.
Steve, thanks much for writing.
I supposed you’ve read about the latest Bath Iron Works(BIW) vessel, but if not, check out the Zumwalt here. Click here for previous mentions of BIW vessels on this blog.
Bergen Point, a 1958 Blount product, coming through the Narrows last weekend. Click here for many interesting vessels from Blount that have appeared on this blog.
And a first timer on this blog . . . John Parrish.
Penn No. 4 all painted white . . . click here and scroll through to see her in PennMaritime gray.
Bluefin . . still in PennMaritime gray . . . or is that primer?
Maryland . . . with reflections.
If my search window serves me right, then this is the first appearance of Katie G. McAllister on this blog.
This is definitely the first appearance of Pelican State here. The photo of this Great Lakes Dredge & Dock boat is here thanks to Mike and Michele Mcmorrow.
And thanks to Mage, here’s Esti and
Cerro Jefe.
A previous view here of Emily Ann had her as Solomon Sea.
Brian Nicholas at work in Great Kills. Click here (scroll through) to see her as both Banda Sea and Brian Nicholas.
And finally . . . it’s the mystery tug Elbe when it was Maryland Pilot boat Maryland. At its stern is its predecessor, Baltimore. I haven’t found out much about Baltimore. Any help? About Maryland, Capt. Brian Hope–who shared this photo, said this, “In 1985 and MARYLAND was donated to Greenpeace. She was a great boat, but too expensive to operate. She had a crew of 18, plus a chief steward. The crew worked two weeks on and two weeks off, so that, counting the steward, we had a total of 37 crew. When we went ashore that was reduced to about 21 and our fuel, repair and food costs dropped dramatically as well. I am very glad to see that she has been preserved (in Maassluis). She’s a great boat!” Thanks to a generous reader, here’s an article about her sea trials.
When next I post, I hope to share photos Elbe in her restored glory.
Sorry to miss NYC’s fleet week again.
The last milestone was the 1000, but this one, post 1280, goes up exactly four years (well, I’m three days late, actually) after my first ever post. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours of free time educating and entertaining myself, touring other folk through the sixth boro,
interacting with passersby in ports wherever they beckon–ports like the sixth boro,
Baltimore (and many other places …) and more I hope to come. Thanks to all for your tours and advice and feedback.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying this blog more than ever, learning to see, fishing
(sometimes in extreme conditions) for
flights of fancy and
all manner of lore and historical info about the sixth boro and all the waters connected to it.
Like yesterday, I was reading about Alice L. Moran, her marvelous feats, and wondering if she’s still called Amsterdam and working in Bahraini waters. And I was reading about PY-16 USS Zircon (later a pilotboat named New York and previously a Pusey & Jones steam yacht Nakhoda), predecessor of pilotboat New York.
I’ve enjoyed these first 1280 and will be continuing. Meanwhile, here’s another interesting thing I stumbled upon yesterday on page 12 of the Spring 1966 Tow Line magazine. I hope no one is irked by my printing a screen shot here. Enjoy. Letter 1 with request on left and response on right.
Thanks for reading this blog and commenting for four years. The ride goes on.
Photo credits here to Les, Allen, Carolina, and bowsprite. Greets to the guys on SKS Tyne.
Meanwhile, a few words about the MWA Waterfront Conference tomorrow: ”
New York, NY: On Tuesday, November 30, senior officials and representatives from over 14 government agencies will join over 500 waterfront advocates, educators, and planning experts for the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s 2010 Waterfront Conference at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center.
Dozens of agency officials, politicians, and other experts will be on hand to offer their perspectives on the future of the NY-NJ Harbor, including: NYC Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, Bob Martin of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Col. John R. Boulé II of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Capt. Linda Fagan of the US Coast Guard, Peter Davidson of the Empire State Development Corporation, David Bragdon of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability, Adrian Benepe of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Amanda Burden of the NYC Planning Commission, Cas Holloway of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and Seth Pinsky of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.”
Other Watersheds 4 is here. And the most recent appearance of Joan Turecamo on this blog had her parked along the KVK. So where was this?
Many cities have a wide or not so much wide street by this name, but –say in New York–Broadway does not have work boats anchoring it, although maybe in a better parallel universe it would. More on this pier at the end of this post.
Some New Yorkers might also recall John W. Brown, named for a labor organizer and serving as a floating Manhattan high school –focusing on a nautical trades curriculum, of course–from 1946 until 1982. I’d love to hear from alumni of this school. So have you figured out which “other watershed” this is?
Here’s another clue. The watershed feeds into a harbor with large number of massive government ships, like USNS Comfort (T-AH-20 and launched in 1976), which returned from Haiti less than two weeks ago; as well as
some very wet ones like Gov. R. M. McLane, which once served as flagship of government efforts during the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars, when foreign vessels harvested domestic oysters.
Now if you want to know what foreign and domestic mean here, you need to check this link.
One last clue, maybe more of a distractor: Sea Star line’s El Faro was tied up there this weekend.
Bertha offers conviviality here.
OK, you guessed it long ago. But which watershed is it?
More Baltimore soon. Many thanks to Capt. Allen Baker for his hospitality. The link in that previous sentence related to the SS United States aka the Big U, currently one of many vessels in peril.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
So this pier . . . shown in foto 2 above . . . will very very soon no longer be a working pier. Moran is moving out toward the river’s mouth. Change. Improvement? Ha!
Again, I’d love to hear comments on this as well as recollections from alumni of John W. Brown, the high school.
tugster: a waterblog 
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