Retro Sixth Boro 47

Wow!  It’s time to flip the calendar to March 2022 already; that means flashing back to March 2012.  A photo of Bow Chain on the KVK seems a good place to start, for reasons apparent at the end of this post.

Since these “retro” posts highlight what’s no more to be seen, this is a good one, Brendan, a 6140 hp tug that now is Cindy Rose.

Sea-land Racer dominates the foreground, but look at the unmistakable Viking farther back.

Yes, I mean this Eklof-KSea-Kirby 4300 hp Viking, dismantled a few years ago already.

This 3900 hp Brendan still works daily in the boro.

Also passing the Sea-land Racer is this 1900 hp Pegasus, when she looked as she had coming from the shipyard without an upper wheelhouse.  Pegasus is still a busy machine in the port.

2012 was the year I decided to see the Panama Canal before the new sections opened.  In the middle ground here between the Miraflores locks and the ridge, you can see the mounds of dirt on the middle distant ground.  Those mounds represent dirt displaced digging the new channels.

In the farther lane, Pacific-bound it’s Nord Snow Queen and nearer . . .  Atlantic Polaris.  And again in the photo below, see the dirt removed to create the new channel.  As of this writing, Atlantic is at the dock in Houston and Nord between the ancient, now-Russian port of Novorossiysk and wherever she will be able to enter port.

See more dirt on the nearer ridge?  And the traffic, like Chiquita Schweiz and now called Schweiz Reefer, it continues night and day

Tugboats–see many of them here–have a greater role in the new Panama Canal channels, replacing the locomotives evident in some of the photos above and below, but they were already plentiful pre-expansion.  Here Veraguas 1 heads Pacificward…

assisting Bow Summer in accompaniment with

locomotives aka mules, once supplied by GE but now sourced elsewhere.  Ever Dynamic, like the Odfjell parcel tankers whose names begin with “bow” [no doubt named for the renowned bowsprite],

are as likely to be seen in any major port as in the sixth boro. Ever Dynamic had been in the sixth boro just a month earlier than here, making me almost feel like it was welcoming me to Panama, which I found a very hospitable place.  Bow Summer as of this writing waits outside a South African port. Ever Dynamic was dismantled in Alang almost exactly two years ago.

All photos, WVD, in March 2010.

Sea-land Racer and Viking have both been dismantled in the past five years, Racer in Alang and Viking in Texas.

 

Fog 11

10 was just over exactly a year ago, and my first “fog” post fotos were taken over six years ago here.    This autumn dawn brought fog and horns . . . horns that could be heard, with echoes, and felt.  Eukor Morning Conductor seemed asleep to shore folk

as Anna L. Miller motored by.

On the KVK, Gage Paul Thornton chugged to an appointment as Bow Summer , which I last saw in springtime Panama, made all lines fast.

Mary Alice towed more Kills bottom out to sea.

Finally, the loudest and deepest horn came into view.

attached to Americas Spirit, a name of a befogged yet moving vessel which I’ll avoid attributing too much symbolic meaning to.

Taurus passes Robbins Reef Light.

And Americas Spirit came closer.

She was so close to this shore observer that two of her crew could be clearly seen on the bridge wing.

Barbara McAllister spun her stern to put the tanker portside to at the dock.  More of these docking fotos tomorrow.

And Hunting Creek also made her way from Brooklynside to Bayonneside.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Panama Details 1

One type of post that has evolved here is Whatzit?   Know what this juxtaposition of hardware and jungle might be?

This might help . . . well-maintained metals and uncontrolled jungle coinciding in this case is two

ships side-by-side nearing their transit of the Canal from north to south.

I have no more understanding what happens within the 10 miles or so of piping that make up the manifold of this parecel tanker than I have of the circuitry inside a computer.

One of the many joys watching traffic at the Miraflores lock was getting new perspective on these vessels.  Just a few weeks back I caught sister ship Bow Chain in the KVK, but from the platforms allowed me, I could not see above deck much.

So here’s a chance for both of us to look into recesses, nooks and crannies.

We can familiarize ourselves with the rules and

codes . . .

Contemplate her high and

low.

If you return to the top foto here, you’ll see the green bow of this vessel–Ever Dynamic–sharing the Miraflores locks with Bow Summer.

One of these days, I’ll do a post on the silver mules, like the one lower left.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

To see the construction and innards of a tanker in fast motion in Philadelphia, click here.

Tying the recent Nola visit and this post together, click here for a tugster post from over five years ago.  S/R Wilmington was one of the first ships I got upclose fotos of;  she was built in Avondale, LA, and has recently been scrapped.  A related vessel currently called Oriental Nicety is also bound for the scrappers; Nicety‘s previous names have been as follows:  Dong Fang Ocean,  Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, and last but not least . . . . Exxon Valdez.