Retro Sixth Boro 68 B

Decker‘s still around as Decker, but over beyond her and the covered workbarge is Peking, now living well way up the the Elbe.  

The 2002 Joyce D Brown is now Geri T and operating for Seward Marine.   I’ve not seen her back in the boro since she left in 2022. 

B. Franklin was a year old when I took this;  she’s still active in the Reinauer livery.

The nearer boat, 2004 Patapsco, has gone through name changes, but is currently working out of the boro as Poling-Cutler’s Marilyn George. Following Patapsco is Brooklyn, a 2000 tugboat that has seen a long list of names, currently Charlotte V.  Here was possibly her first appearance on this blog as Inland Sea.

I believe Susan E. Witte was scrapped in 2016, after a short 12-year life.  Anyone know the story?

APT’s Diane B was fairly new in the boro when I took this photo on a cold December 2013 day.  She’s still busy, particularly in the heating months.

Pushing RTC 27, Zachery Reinauer is a 1971 Matton product.  I’ve not seen her working in about five years now. 

Miriam Moran worked then, and she works now, all the time, or so it seems to me.  She’s worked the boro for almost a half century now and almost seems timeless . . . . of course those are my personal impressions.

Resolute still works for McAllister but mostly in ports on the Sound.  I’m not sure she still has the lush fibrous fending she sports here.   APL Pearl, carrying boxes and more than one military vehicle, was scrapped in 2016.

And finally, Bluefin was technically already a Kirby boat in late 2013, but was still sporting Penn Maritime livery.  I’m not sure where she’s working at the moment. 

All photos, any errors, WVD, who’s back in the boro for a few days.  It seems we had a lot of snowy days back in December 2013.

 

 

Sixth Boro Details 12

Here are previous posts in the series.

Look closely at the image of William F. Fallon Jr. below;  something is unusual there.

Note that Bluefin below is juxtaposed with the Whale on shore. The Whale might be an interesting location to visit someday.

Bayonne Drydock has Schuylkill high and dry and Go Discovery along the bulkhead.

Hull design and bridge configuration are unusual.  Who designed this vessel?

Big rocks

await some jetty project, I suppose.  Anyone know where?

See the difference in ladder configuration between Charleston and

Jacksonville?  Both boats are Elizabeth Anne class boats, so why the difference in ladders?

Since 2014, October has been breast cancer awareness month, a tradition begun by Moran. 

Other companies like Kirby and Bouchard joined in previous years as well. 

 

This year so far, Stasinos is the only other company I’ve seen mark awareness of the disease this year.  Have I missed anyone?

Finally, getting back to the Fallon photo that led off this post.  Fallon is a pin boat, and yet, she’s attached to the barge Long Island with push gear.  Does this combination really operate this way?  I’m just curious.

All photos and questions, any errors, WVD.

 

Any Number of Tugboats

All the photos in this post I took over a two-hour period Friday.  I post this in part in response to the question raised by a commenter recently, how many tugboats operate in the sixth boro, aka the waters around NYC.

They pass one at a time,

you see them in twos . . . . and that might be a third with the crane barge off the Battery in the distance,

a trio might be assisting a single ULCV,

foreshortening might collapse four into a single shot, and

if you look across the repair and docking yard, you might see five tugs plus one science boat.

And finally for now, move the huge box ship away, and six of more are revealed.

This is the sixth boro, folks, one of the busiest ports in the US.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Hail to the New 2

Whether you’re working or not, January 1 is a transition, a bridge between years.  And that brings me to the handsome bridges below.  The nearest is a rail bridge.  Can you identify the location?

Here you can see parts of all four bridges.  Answer follows, but I’m thinking to float and paddle through here in 2019.

I went out briefly this morning to see who was moving.  Crystal Cutler was the first I saw . . .  at least I saw the lights of.

Bluefin, first in the notch and then light a bit later, was the first tugboat I could photograph.

The bridges photo was taken in Harrisburg two days ago.  The broad river is the Susquehanna.  Anyone interested in joining me in a 80+ mile trip down to Havre de Grace in spring?  Has anyone done it?

The nearest bridge is the Philadelphia & Reading RR Bridge.  Visible beyond it–looking upstream– are Market Street Bridge, Walnut Street Bridge, and the M Harvey Taylor Street Bridge with the blue girders.  I’d thought that was the Route 81 bridge, but it is not.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you transition well into 2019.

Really Random Tugs 37

This photo of Godfather should catch someone’s eye, but I’m going to direct that attention then to Paul Johnson’s wonderful site, which if you have an hour to kill, will make that go by in what seems a minute.  Thanks to RG, my brother-in-central-African-1970s-experiences for passing this along.  As to Godfather, she’s by a year or so an older sibling of the boats currently known as Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise.  Currently, she’s called Crosby Enterprise.

Here was a surprise . . . Petrel in the sixth boro.  I haven’t seen her in quite a while, since I’m not in Philly much any more.

 

Here’s a head-on view of HMS Justice.

Thanks to Jed, here are some photos from last year showing the mighty Bluefin.

photo date 6 JUNE 2016

with photos taken in Virginia waters.

photo date 6 JUNE 2016

Jan van der Doe has recently returned from a trip to the Netherlands and sends along photos of these tugboats.  Given the stack logo, I’m guessing this one below is a live aboard, and

Alphecca was built in 1913, converted to diesel in 1959 and you can click here to see and hear the engine running.

Below, it’s FairPlay 23, which has appeared on this blog before.

Unrelated:  A reader wrote to ask this question:  “Could you help me find info about a little tug named the Ali M.  My friend SK owned and operated her out of Bayonne for a while and sold her before his passing many years ago.  I believe he had her at the Atlas Yacht club.  I was curious what ever happened to her.”            I don’t recall ever seeing a tug named Ali M.  Anyone help out here?  Anyone have a photo?

The reader is also looking for any info on the vessels shown below in a painting by his father from the 1990s.  Thanks for any help.

Thanks to RG, Jed, Jan, and Peter for sending these along.  And be careful out there.

Petrel and HMS Justice photos by Will Van Dorp.

Getting Lept . . .

. . . upon.  That’s what happened when I was just minding my own business the other day . . . and a voice calls my name and “Be careful.  I could have thrown you to the fishes,” he said, before showing this photo below.

Getting USNS Red Cloud,  Helen Laraway, Andrea, and Sea Wolf into a single frame had been my aim just seconds before.

No matter.  Here goes Lucy Reinauer pushing RTC 83.

I think Stephen-Scott was headed for a barge out beyond Gulf Service with GM11103.

What I found was Bluefin and

Morgan Reinauer and

Amberjack and

Scott Turecamo with barge New Hampshire.  And more.

And maybe getting kept upon and thrown to the fishes . . . might just work out alright, although watch out for shadowy characters like the lurker over there.

It made me think about a day a mere 100 or so days from now when photographers photographing get photographed themselves.

Happy leap day.

Here’s what I put up last leap year.

All photographs here–except the obvious two–by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 148

See that tug over there?   This photo comes from Asher Peltz, and I’m very grateful . . .

because I was seeing the tow from this angle, quite backlit, but

fascinated nonetheless, given the load

on Marmac 300 . . . parts of the turbine bases for units 3, 4, and 5 of 5.   See the base for unit 1 here.  At the pace the tow is moving, it’s barely to Montauk as of this posting.  By the way, for scale, the tug is 97.7 ‘ loa.

Here’s Stephen B in a logical though unlikely location.

nestled between Manhattan Elite and Celestial.

Dean Reinauer sidled over to my part of the Kills, and I got a good look.  Thanks.

This Dean has been at work for just over two years.  Click here to see–along with some other departed vessels– the previous Dean Reinauer, currently in Nigeria under different ownership.

Bluefin appears to have just been painted, as the lettered Kirby logo has not  been applied.

The last time–I think–Bluefin was on this blog she was still gray.

Here’s Robert Burton in yesterday’s strange pre-rain light and here

at dawn yesterday interestingly backlit though not quite.  A couple of years ago, I caught her down in Morehead City.

All photos taken yesterday.  Thanks to Asher for the lead photo here.

Random Tugs 132

 

Name that tug?  Answer follows.

Kodiak . . . this is a new one for me and a one-off trip for the vessel?

The tug here is

Liberty Service.  And yes, that’s Chesapeake Coast in the distance.

McKinley Sea leads Bluefin in from the anchorage.  I’m not sure why Bluefin is still gray.

This is an impressive lineup in the late fall afternoon light:  the McAllisters Kate, Bruce, Helen, Brothers, Brian .  . and more.

This vessel I truly don’t know.  It’s new in the harbor, and I have a hunch . . . but will keep that to myself.

And the mystery tug at the start of this post was none other than W. O. Decker.  Here’s one of my favorite set of old photos of Decker.  Here are many others.

All photos very recently by Will Van dorp.

Random Tugs 128

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.

Tale of Two Tugboats

The two tugs in question really have nothing to do with each other, although almost all these fotos have been taken in the past month.  Bluefin, launched summer 2009, waits on the hook with Penn No. 80.  Although the colors haven’t caught up, the unit–one of 16 Penn Maritime tugs and 18 heated barges– is now owned by Kirby, in exchange for almost $300 million.

This foto and the others of this unit you can enjoy thanks to bowsprite.  The red tug–Reliant–is about 20 years older than Bluefin.

Each designed for its own purpose, Bluefin is 111 feet, whereas

Reliant . . . 30′.

Coho, launched November 2008, on paper is an identical twin of the 4000 hp Bluefin.  I took this foto in October 2009.

Here’s a foto I took of Reliant over on the west side of Bergen Point a few years back.

Thanks to bowsprite for contributing the fotos of Reliant over at WorldFi ferry terminal.  All others by Will Van Dorp.