Thanks to Barrel 13

Barrel comes up with unusual photos . . . and this one below,  Merritt,  shows a side-cast dredge with a draft of less than 5′.

It appears she’s still in use.

 

Here’s the info.

I wish that tree was not obscuring the tug, but the real star here is the ship, an oddity that began life in the last years of the nineteenth century as a battleship, BB-5.   The first in her class was USS Indiana, BB-1. 

After 20 years as a battleship, she was idled for 20 years, at which point she was converted into arcane ship, Crane Ship No. 1, with lifting capacity of 250 tons, a weight more impressive then than now.  It does qualify this as a “second lives” post, though.  Finally, in 1955, she was sold as scrap.

Click here for navsource’s great photo documentation–including the dramatic graving dock view below– of her entire half century career.

Here’s a 1936 derrick boat, with a sign over the stern house that would get my attention.

I’m not sure when she went out of service.

Many thanks to barrel for these glimpses into the archives.

Thanks to Barrel 12

I’ve often posted photos of ROROs and PCTCs, but here’s the old school.  Here’s a Ford ship loading Ford cars from the Chester PA plant.  MV Lake Benbow was one of the first six Ford-owned vessels transporting Ford products around the world.  Click here for her interesting history:  built 1918 for the US Naval Overseas Transport Service (NOTS), purchased by Ford in 1925, which operated it until 1937.  Given the automobiles awaiting loading, maybe 1935 Fords, this photo appears to have been taken near the end of its time as a Ford vessel.

The Chester plant made Fords from 1927 until 1958.  Click here for more photos and info on the Chester plant.  When that plant closed, operations moved to Mahwah NJ, where after some years, the same script was followed. 

Click here for Ford production location photos both vintage and abroad.

Ford was know to have tried to own all aspects of their operation, from the Fordlandia gambit to northern forests and mines, but other companies like US Steel, Bethlehem, fruit companies and petroleum companies did the same.   By the way, now that it’s summer BBQ season, do you know the connection between Ford and Kingsford charcoal?

 

Again, thanks to barrel for these photos.

Thanks to Barrel 11

The sixth boro includes a portion of Raritan Bay, and once there was a USACE dredge called Raritan, built in 1908 in Sparrows Point, as seen below.  She was scrapped in 1956 after having been sold out of the USACE and renamed Sandmate.

The next series shows a life raft of the era being tested off Fort Mifflin back in 1925.

 

To me it looks more like a camel than a life raft.

 

Would this type of life raft ever be used in rough seas?

Thanks to barrel for this glimpse of the past.

Thanks to Barrel 10

Quick post here . . . since barrel has sent me way up into catfish territory with this boat, Tom Stallings.  Although the photo says it was built in 1919 in Charleston WV, the Charles Ward Shipyard records here do not list the boat. The 1929 records of the Chief of Engineers say that Tom Stallings replaced an earlier snag boat called Quapaw, a photo of which I located here.   Although the Tenn-Tom exhibit is off my near-future itineraries for now, there’s a stern-wheeler snag boat saved and open to tours still out there, here. Has anyone been there?

Here’s another oldie that seems to have disintegrated into history, pipeline dredge Gillespie.

 

 

Many thanks to barrel for sending along these yellowed records.

I am in fact in catfish territory for a week, attending to family business.

Thanks to Barrel 9

If I read the nameplate right, this is the number Uno!  According to barrel, it was built by the Corps Design Center.  Was that then in Neponset MA at the Lawley yard?   See June 1943.  Anyone know the details of its loss?

DPC 66 was built in Decatur AL, and later was briefly a Pauline L. Moran before sold to Portugal where she was Mafra or Mafro.

DPC 70 and 71 were also produced in Decatur in 1944.

General Humphreys was a product of the Charles Ward Engineering.  She was sold in 1946 and became Sarah R, but no further info.

Here’s another photo of Mateur, which appeared here about a month ago. At that point, Dan Owen’s comment refreshed my memory of these vessels and the vital “Catfish Navy.”

In spite of all the specific dates and numbers here, I have no clue . . . except that Tulagi appears to be on the namebaord.  The date suggests that the vessel now known as Bloxon would have been here at this time as well.

Tunis was DPC 617, and

Casablanca was DPC 616, both more catfish navy.

Midway Islands was a DPC towboat built for the catfish navy and later picked up by the private sector.    I’m not sure how long she worked for American Commercial Barge Lines.  I can’t find her DPC #.

And let’s end on something contemporary . . . George C. Grugett, near Memphis this very morning.

Many thanks to barrel for giving me something to work on over coffee this morning.

Unrelated but very interesting, a 49′ x 12′ boat is found under a house in Highlands NJ.  But I was appalled that it appears to have been cut up.

 

 

Thanks to Barrel 8

Many thanks to barrel for this continuing series of old USACE vessels.  Chester below was built in the mid-1930s at a yard where this set of vessels was also built.

The above shipyard link says that later she became Elizabeth, but that leads me nowhere.  Anyone help?

Frankford is older . . . 1924, built in the same yard as Wilhelm Baum, 1923.

 

Here’s Escort . . . Wisconsin built.  A 2001 photo of Escort appears at the end of this post:  prepare yourself to gasp.

 

And finally, for the oldie photos today, it’s Woodbury, about which I have no info.

About the Baum . . . I know it sank two years ago, at the dock, and was raised. But since then, no updates.  I took this photo and the next one back in 2008 while spending an enjoyable time at the Michigan Maritime Museum.

 

And here, thanks to John Curdy, is a photo of Escort taken in 2001.  I believe that since 2005, it has been part of a reef near Sea Isle City, NJ.    Has anyone dived on it?

Many thanks to barrel to his archives.  And thanks to John Curdy–with whom I took these photos and more– for his poignant last look–that I know of– at Escort.

For some similar vessels, see tugster posts here and here.

And for a clue where I’ll be tomorrow morning, click here.

 

 

Thanks to Barrel 7

Barrel is the pseudonym (nom de blog?) of a gentleman who worked with the USACE for many years in the Philadelphia area.  Click here for the RTC yard history.

Click here for info on the tugboat Interstate.  Can anyone add any info to that?

According to barrel, the YTB here is functioning as a fender between USACE Comber and another vessel. Comber was built in Pascagoula in 1947. 

Any guesses on the Moran tug here?  It’s standing by after a collision between passenger vessel Santa Rosa and tanker Valchem, whose stack is perched on Santa Rosa‘s bow.

Below is a photo of Valchem sans stack and displaying impact point. Click here for some info on the collision.

Now these next three boats leave me somewhat confused.

Were they sold foreign?  Here’s a reference to a hull #504 and 505 built at Marietta Mfc. in Pt. Pleasant, WV.

 

And the last of the push boats for today, it’s Mateur.  Well, it was called that, before it became push boat Effie Afton and then a restaurant called Jumers.  Is she still there and serving food and fun?  Maybe I need to schedule a gallivant to Rock Island.

So let’s end with a vessel I’m more familiar with . . . Pilot, currently up the Hudson a ways from the sixth boro.

And here’s Pilot, showing her to scale with her workmates.

Many thanks to barrel, who sends me these and other puzzles, stumpers, and conundrums.

Thanks to Barrel 6

Click here for previous photos that come here by way of barrel.  The September 1944 tug Wilmington

is now Kathy Lynn.

Dredge Hoffman was built in 1942 and

retired in 1983 . . . I guess that means scrapped.

Clatsop was launched in 1908, then called

Sandpilot, and was scrapped in 1950, before I was born.

Delano Deland was 1919 built, but was transferred to

the USAT and I’ve found no further trace.  Anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks to barrel, who’s sent me more photos like this, and I’ll get around to posting them.

 

Charleston Shipbuilding 1930

Frying Pan came back to Pier 66 yesterday after several months at Caddell Dry dock, assisted by Dorothy J.  I use this photo with permission from Renee Lutz Stanley.

It turns out that I also recently received a photo and spec sheet from barrel, formerly of the US Army Corps of Engineers.  When I looked up where Liston, the vessel below, was built, I

 

learned that it was being built the same time as the lightship listed as Frying Pan Shoal.  First, it makes me wonder whether a photo exists that shows them both on the ways.  Second, I wondered if there was an error in shipyard site here about the initial name of the lightship, or if there was a time when the word “shoal” got dropped from the name of the vessel.  Third, the shipyard site says that LV115 became a museum in Southport, NC.  Click here and scroll through for a photo I took in Southport five years ago showing where some folks had wanted to build a museum with LV115 as the centerpiece, but it had never happened.

Some years ago, I used to spend a good amount of summer evening time at Frying Pan/Pier66.  If you’ve never been, you should try it once.  Here are some photos I took way back then. I must have many more somewhere.  Pier 66 opens in early May, and I think it’s time to have a large gathering there once again.  Let’s agree on a date and meet there, eh?

Many thanks to Renee and barrel for use of these photos.

But a closing shot, barrel writes:  “USACE TUG LISTON    became ARGUS of Salter Towing in 1970. #561597. At a later date became fishing vessel MR. J.C. now out of documentation.”

Thanks to Barrel 5

Thanks again to Barrel for sending another dredge photo.  These photos send me looking for background.  So here is what I can figure.

Davison (records say Davidson, but I’ll go by what I see in the photo above) was built by Dravo in Wilmington DE in 1945.  She was dispatched to Korea in 1951 because of the extreme tides in Inchon—average range is 29 and extreme range is 36 feet.

Again thanks, Barrel.