Requiem 2

1997.  Taken from QE2 as it overtakes a Moran tug  . . .

 

 

taken some days later as the QE2 returns, passing the Towers at dawn…

while possibly the same Moran tug meets it again.

May 1998.  Bounty arrives.

May 2000.  Morgan Reinauer passes lower Manhattan in the fog.

January 11, 2001.  Peggy Sheridan, now Apex’s  Brooklyn, passes on a cold winter day.

Places, as with people, you never know when you’ll see them the last time.  Steve wrote me once that he passed the Towers on September 2, 2001 on the way to the tugboat race starting line.  He looked at the Towers, but didn’t take out his camera …   because he’d taken so many photos of the Towers before.  I fully understand.  

I can’t say I remember my breakfast that morning or getting onto my LIRR at 05:17 that morning in Seaford, as I always did, with folks I always saw then  . . .

but I’d never see them again, because they worked in that building.

I know it’s the same for folks who’d come on watch a few hours earlier that morning with one set of orders, and then before 0900 were faced with this.

Hat tip to Joel Milton for this account of his day just about 20 years ago.  Workboat has republished in November 2001 account.   From ProfessionalMariner, here are some links.

RIP.

All photos supplied by Steve Munoz.

 

Retro Sixth Boro (and beyond) 35 a

It’s March 1, and that invites a look back to March 2011.

Vinalines Queen  is where I need to start.  Less than two years after I took this photo, the 2005 bulk carrier was lost on a run between Morowali, Indonesia and China with a cargo of nickel ore, with the loss of all hands (22) except one. 

Morowali has 19 nickel smelters.  Nickel ore is considered the most dangerous bulk commodity.  Two other nickel ships were lost in December 2010. Here‘s info about the single survivor of the sinking. 

Assist here is provided by Miriam Moran.

Kongo Star was just off the ways when I took this photo;  and the small tanker (13011 dwt) is still working and currently near Rotterdam, in fact, in the town where my father was born.

Entering the KVK, it’s Ross Sea and Houma, each with a barge. Houma was scrapped a few years ago already.  Ross Sea is currently in Philly.

Heron, here passing CMA CGM Puget, was sold to a Nigerian company in 2012.  The 4404 teu ship dates from 2002 and is currently traveling between Korea and Mexico.

 

Greenland Sea shows her Candies origins.  She may currently be laid up.  Torm Kristina just passed Cape Town, on a run between Asia and South America.  She’s a large handysize crude tanker launched in 1999.

Ron G, now Captain Mark, is docked in Jacksonville.

It was in March 2011 that I first visited Puerto Rico.  In Fajardo, I saw Isla Grande and Cayo Norte.  Both are Blount boats, launched in 1976 and 1995, respectively.   Cayo Norte is still working in Puerto Rico, although I’m not so sure about Isla Grande. 

The 1973 Harvey Gamage is currently near Charleston SC.    Can you recognize the tall ship off her stern?

Of course, it’s Bounty, launched in 1960 and lost over 100 miles SE of Cape Hatteras during Hurricane Sandy.

March 2011 was a busy month.  I’ll post more photos of the month later.

All photos, WVD.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 16

Here for some context is a post with drawings bowsprite did exactly a decade ago … .

I took the photo below of the same setting.

Whole fleets that existed a decade ago are gone.  For example, K-Sea has been subsumed.  Some boats like Maryland are still in the boro,

others are still on the East Coast but in other fleets like this Falcon.

But still others like Coral Sea and

and Baltic Sea have gone to another continent.

Others might be scrapped . . . like Volunteer and

Bismarck Sea.

Others like Adriatic Sea have crossed over to the other side of North America….

Another fleet subsumed under Kirby–as is K-Sea–is Allied.  Here in July 2009, Sea Raven–now scrapped–and another Falcon have rafted up.   Here’s the link to read in this post:  how Sea Raven was built!!

Hornbeck had a fleet in the sixth boro, with their base in Brooklyn at the current Vane base.   I don’t know what Atlantic Service is currently doing, if anything.

Spartan Service has been sold to a Mexican company,

Sandmaster was still sand mining with this rig.  She was since sold to the Caribbean, and according to AIS, now flies the flag of Niger, which to me says she may be scrapped.

Cheyenne was still red back then, and has since changed colors twice, and exchanged salt water for fresh.  She’s also won the International Tugboat Race on the Detroit River for the past two years.

And this Kristin Poling, 1934 built,  still plied her trade, always a treat to see.

All photos from 10 years ago by Will Van Dorp, who is amazed by the amount of equipment change in the sixth boro in the past decade.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 15

It’s that time again . . .  a glance back at exactly a decade ago.  Back in June 2009, the 400th anniversary of the Half Moon going up the Hudson kicked off with a 20th century version of the Half Moon going up the Hudson.  Note the banner hung to the old TZ Bridge along the right side of the photo.   That replica is now in the Netherlands, looking for a new home, and that bridge–parts of it–have become fish structure somewhere off Long Island.

A newish boat in town was Peter F. Gellatly, now Vane’s Long Island.

Bounty–alas her fate–was still an irregular visitor to the sixth boro.  Here she’s made up to Harvey just outboard of Frying Pan.

Brian Nicholas moves a scrap barge out of the East River.

Paul T. Moran made one of her really rare visits to the sixth boro.

Container vessels calling in the ports of NY and NJ had not yet become UL . . .  ultra large versions

Harvey follows Half Moon northbound on the Hudson.

Michigan Service and Erie Service gather near IMTT.

Sisters assists with a tanker, and

here’s more of the River Day procession marking the year of Half Moon the first.

All photos taken in June 2009 by Will Van Dorp.

Puerto Rico 4

Back in the sixth boro USA.  My best “tug” foto comes at the end of this post.  I loved Puerto Rico!  But there were disappointments:  instead of this sportfisherman passing the “devil’s sentry box,”, I’d hope to catch Pilot

and a different Princesa

heading into San Juan harbor, but . . .  enjoy these.

And what I thought was the Crowley dock is, as Les pointed out, the Sea Star pier.  See Sea Star’s El Faro (seventh foto down) from tugster exactly a year ago here.

Being out of my element and not wanting to lose my camera, I snapped these through fences:  Don Alfredo and Sabre Spirit.

Don Alfredo (2003) works for Harbor Bunkering Corp, but i’ve been unable to find any info on

Sabre Spirit.  I know there’s another vessel (yellow trim) beyond Sabre Spirit.

Again, through the fences . . . Megolly Hawk of Black Hawk Shipping.

And that fifth foto down (unidentified schooner) got clearly identified at Pier 4 . . . as Harvey Gamage, a floating high school.

Over toward La Aduana, the pink Customs House (which I did NOT study closely enough) is the Coast Guard pier, and (from right to left) the 85′ Reef Shark and 110′ Key Largo and another 110′ cutter behind here.

You saw Amelia here the other day . . .  here’s the Hood River, OR-built vessel  face on.

And some better fotos of Greenport, NY’s Bounty, showing what some crew do

in port.    Compare the 1960 replica with the original in stats here.

Finally, as promised at the start of this post . . . here’s my best San Juan “tug” foto.  When I return to PR, Harold, I know exactly where I need to go to see the McAllister tugs there.

I have more pics I’ll put on Flickr . . . soon, and I’ve added a few links to the posts I did on the road, if you’re interested in going through them again.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who returns to his paying job manana.

Two Hours of the Hudson 2

I took all but the last two fotos here between 1230 and 230 today at Pier 66, where Elizabeth and I met Rick of Old Salt for lunch.  Good company, tasty grub, wild weather, diverse traffic describe the lunch;  see if you agree.

First Robbins Reef passed southbound,  some swells washing the stem bitt.

Spartan Service pushed oil upriver.  I’ve never previously seen Spartan.  Weehawken cliffs make up the horizon.

Bandersnatch (a sailboat converted to a powerboat?)  of Charleston heads south, a great Lewis Carrollian name for a snarky hybrid.

Lunch over, we were packed up and ready to head out when the skies opened, water washing off the roof atop us like snow past Bounty‘s bountiful figurehead, whose garments then clung to her body.  The bowsprit just beyond Bounty belongs to Bel Espoir 2, of Brest.

Rain reduced visibility to less than a mile at this point.  Notice here as Adirondack powers upriver, the tower at the Hoboken Terminal is barely visible; the menacing point… resembling thunderbolt, is Bounty‘s martingale.  And the crew and passengers huddled in the yellow slickers give the impression of all members of the same religious order, reminiscent of one of my favorite all-time Bowsprite drawings here.  Rain then

tapered off as Dutch ketch Saeftinge, Falcon, , plowed northward.  Imitating Hudson?   Geer is a tiny village less than 20 miles south of Amsterdam.

Falcon moved a light barge on the hip,  southward past the Lincoln Tunnel vent.

Speaking of Bowsprite, here’s a tribute foto, with two visitors–Bel Espoir 2 and Bounty–as backup.  Strangely, I was seeing shadow and still covering my camera from rain as I took this.

By the time Erie Service headed past, the air felt positively (negatively?) tropical.

The next two fotos were taken yesterday.  As the western sky over North Hoboken reddened, I couldn’t resist hauling out my camera.

Cameras are vision-aids for me.  The more I looked, the more what I saw on the French three-masted schooner intrigued me.  Note the “collage” through the glass on the aft end of the cabin.  Would this combination EVER appear on an American vessel?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

By the way, I just got an email from Rick in which he swears he saw an old man in a strange large vessel made of gopher wood and pitch and carrying a lot of animals, pairs male and female,  as he ferried over the Hudson to Hoboken.  I watched what Rick drank at lunch, and he consumed in moderation, so . . .  draw your own conclusions here.

Two Hours of the Hudson

Full disclosure:  I spent an hour yesterday and an hour today in the area between Piers 66 and 90, i.e., Krevey’s and the Passenger Terminal.  If I didn’t say this, you’d wonder why the light looks different.  So any idea what’s happening in this  start  foto?  That is the Hoboken Terminal tower across the river, and those are tools dangling on line lanyards, a really good idea you know if you’ve ever worked over water.  I can’t count the screwdrivers I lost overboard as I worked on planking of a wooden boat some years back until I “discovered” this solution.

Ok, so it’s head rig.  Bent  (did it strike one?) dolphin striker and figurehead . . . which vessel?

The one and only.  Marlon Brando worked here, and so did  . .  uh . .  some racier pirates.

By early August Bounty will start a European tour.  See the schedule here.

 Here Mary Gellatly  maneuvers a bunker barge away from .  . . .

Peace Boat (ex-Starship Oceanic and Big Red Boat 1).

Not unusual, some vestige of its previous lives remains.  Can you make out the previous port of registry?

Nassau.  Below is one of the megayachts  (Can you think of another name for this vast assemblage of floating stuff?) in the sixth boro.  Earlier this week I missed Le Grand Bleu,  although this foto comes from Jed. There are three “tenders” on her starboard side, but have you EVER seen a sailboat, mast stepped!!, as tender on a yacht?

Yesterday I caught Lady Christine.  Readers/commenters compared one of Bart’s recent finds, a similar yacht, to . . .  a small power tool for personal “hedge” trimming?  Can you imagine what such a yacht looks like in the body shop getting re-painted?  If you can’t imagine, check here.

Given all this transient traffic, it’s always therapeutic then to see the venerable McAllister Responder or . . .

keeping its distance over on the other side, Cheyenne.  Use the upper left search box to find many previous fotos of Responder and Cheyenne on this blog.

All fotos . . .  by Will Van Dorp, except Jed’s, for which I am grateful.

Remember . . . I might not post tomorrow because the  Appalachian Trail … or some such . . . beckons.