You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘bowsprite’ tag.
We’re a week out from Christmas Eve and fewer days than that from the solstice, it’s time to complete road photos from two weeks ago already; here was part 1. The French Quarter of New Orleans has a lot of colored neon all year round, but here, juxtaposed with tropical colors of house paint, are some fairly traditional decorations.
But surprises abound: joy on the marquee here marks the Joy Theater, so named and so identified all year round since 1947 when opened by Joy Houck. On next trip, I need to see what’s doing at the Joy. More on the Houck family and specifically Joy’s place in it here.
Down a random street like St. Ann’s, you might see some seasonal lights, but
not all I suspect.
To the west 85 miles or so, Morgan City is the original home of Conrad Industries. We saw the front gate but had no appointment to go any farther. Conrad has launched a long list of vessels since 1948, but the most common to sixth boro readers carry names like Weeks, Vane, and Great Lakes Dock and Dredge.
Morgan City, originally Tiger City, is currently named for shipping magnate Charles Morgan, buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in –you guessed it–Brooklyn. His connection to the city stems from his dredging Atchafalaya Bay. He’s unrelated to Charles W. Morgan, namesake of the whaling vessel seen here at Mystic Seaport.
The formidable gate is the result of the “great wall” surrounding the city, created and improved by the USACE to protect against flooding, particularly floods from snow melts in the Upper midwestern US. I was surprised to learn the Atchafalaya is the fifth largest river in the US ranked by outflow.
The photo above was snapped by bowsprite, sitting [below) on this delightful public dock outside the “great wall” along the east bank of the Atchafalaya River gussied up with a bit of Christmas cheer.
This mural on the southeastern corner building at Front and Freret shows a crossing from another time.
The riverfront had lots to see. Unfortunately, the rig museum and its centerpiece Mr. Charlie are closed, likely forever. It would have been an interesting tour. More on ASME landmark rig Mr. Charlie–the first offshore drilling rig that was fully transportable, submersible and self-sufficient–can be read here.
Since I started this post referring to Christmas displays in New Orleans, I need to end it with the next several photos.
Lots of places have their local takes on Christmas trees, like this one of lobster pots I wrote about nine years ago. Resplendant in flora from the Atchafalaya is Morgan City’s, which I’ve written about previously here. That I believe must be La Christianne, Mama Noel sort to Papa Noël. A cajun version of “… night before Christmas” can be read here, but you need to affect the accent.
Roux-dolf is the lead rein-gator towing the Spirit of Morgan City and its cajun Santa, a gift to the city by native son, Lee Romaire. A full compliment of gators would be called Gaston, Tiboy, Pierr, Alcee, Ninette, Suzette, Celeste and Renee . . . .
All photos, WVD, who welcomes any of your local waterChristmas photos and stories.
For tugster’s “twelve tides of Christmas,” click here. For my idea of a sixth boro container tree, click here.
For some context, Road Fotos 2021 E left off in September here, and I’ve not caught up with road fotos for November. But let’s jump ahead to December, and a trip we could start in New Iberia, about 150 miles west of New Orleans. It was a reconnoitre, a gallivant to investigate what to spend more time on in a subsequent trip. More on that at the end of this post.
New Iberia is a low lying settlement, epicenter for the lift boat fleet. Click here for an image taken after Hurricane Ike.
x
From the raised deck of a lift boat, I had this perspective on a ship yard across the waterway.
Some lift boats are for sale, others–like Jane below–in the yard for inspections, and
and still others are being dismantled, scrapped, like
the one that has these lift motors removed and possibly in triage for either recycling or rehabbing.
Heading by car for open water at Cypremort, we passed this church on stilts. With greater time, I’d love to attend a service here. With more time, Louisiana black bears might be spotted here.
I’d have to be there on a Sunday morning at 0900.
Taking the trip slightly out of order, let me add this moody photo bowsprite took from a low bridge over Bayou Black. A thousand more photos like this would have reduced travel speed to a saunter pace.
Here the intrepid bowsprite is recording the mosses in the trees, maybe collecting some for a multitexture project.
Like I said, I have many more; selecting is tough, like this old tree.
The road and bridge system across this whole Atchafalaya region, half the area of the state, is quite impressive. The rest of these photos are thanks to bowsprite.
I love the higher bridges on these roads when less trafficked because they provide high points, great for taking photos, like this of the GIWW and other waterways of Louisiana looking west and
this, looking east. With an entire other lifetime, I’d love to travel and explore this all the only way possible, by boat.
You may have heard of the disposal of the RORO Golden Ray, the car carrier that capsized outside Brunswick GA; final cutting up is happening here, and over by the cranes, what you’re looking at is slices of the ship at M. A. R. S., Modern American Recycling Services in Bayou Black.
High bridges also facilitate a view of the an industry I’d not known was so visible this area, sugar cane production. In the lower half of the photo, that’s a newly planted cane field.
Swaths of cane of different stages of growth were everywhere.
In the foregound is newly planted, and beyond the machinery, that’s a crop ready to harvest with
large tracked machines like this. To see these machines at work, click here.
In large transports like this, you see the chopped cane
heading for the refinery. This one below–the Enterprise mill— in steamy operation near New Iberia is one of many. Definitely, a return trip would involve seeking permission to see all steps in this process closer up.
Photos by bowsprite when indicated. All others, WVD, who believes that you only halfway smell the daisies on the first time to determine what to spend more time at if and when you return.
I only know this is the 5,050th post because the wordpress dashboard aka diagnostics shows me statistics.
Over 10 years ago, I posted for the 1000th time here. It astonished me then that I had made time for posting one thousand times, and you the audience made time to read/see photos for a thousand times as well. Then together we passed other milestones like 1280. On the 10-year mark, I announced I’d posted 3287 times here. The most recent post marking a milestone was the big 4000 here.
The 5000th post passed unremarked upon back in September, but here we are, eight days from the 15th anniversary of post 0001, with a big 5050, a number of posts that defies my ability to process.
Could I compress the content of 5,050 posts over a 15-year period of time into –say–a half dozen photos to represent this period of time? Or could you chose one photo of the +41,000 photos I’ve posted since November 2006 to be a emblematic of this blog? I can’t imagine how I’d choose, although maybe some of you might. More on compression later.
In my 4000th post I said, “the number doesn’t matter, because the story never ends anyhow. … there’s no one story; not even one person has just one story or even one fixed understanding of a single story, since we –like water– are protean, ever shifting. No matter . . . we pursue nonetheless.”
It’s time to revise that because numbers DO matter; my life, our lives . . . are made up of a finite number of days, a limited number of hours to be productive and alive in.
The past year has been tough, with minor but bedeviling challenges, yet I am blessed with continued health and time. Thanks for reading the blog, showing your ongoing interest in one view of many of New York harbor enterprise and activity involving both regular traffic and transient. Some of you even comment, and your constructive comments add detail and insights germane to New York working harbor, the stuff of this blog. You make this a virtual community. It’s especially satisfying when you send in photos. If I don’t use what you send immediately or at all, it’s because I haven’t figured out when or where to post them.
Finally, thanks to my dear friend bowsprite for creating the 5050 graphic, as she did previous ones. Check out her Etsy site here and order stuff so that she keeps busy with her variegated and quirky compositions that never cease to charm me.
Let me follow up on that compression idea from the first paragraph. I love the 5050 image above because, besides marking this waypoint, it compresses her perception into its chosen rendition: rivets, hull color, draft markings, stains, dings, and all. I say chosen renditions because, face it, the machines and people from the floating world of this blog are made up of countless features and details. There are too many of them to all be rendered. So illustration, photography, fiction or nonfiction prose, even music or any art requires choosing. Bowsprite selects what’s in and what’s out and puts them back together– the regular or the haphazard way– guided by the whims of a free moment. That’s compression aka creativity.
Seriously, bowsprite, I can’t thank you enough.
Related: If you look at the top of the page, you’ll see a new heading, Publications. There you’ll find a representative sampling of my publications in the past decade. Enjoy. I’m traveling again, so I might or might not post tomorrow.
Entirely unrelated: If you’re looking to fill a long half hour watching an Australian kayaking to work rather than driving as a means to better understand land forms, human activity, and water flow, click here for Four-Day Commute to Work by Beau Miles. I hope you enjoy it. For all of his documentaries, click here.
An omen of the future . . . in 2013, Urger was laid up, sans her problematic prop shaft. Here she’s nez-a-nez with Day Peckinpaugh.
Gowanus Bay was looking good.
NYS Marine Highway was well represented,
as always. And following two of the four NYS Marine Highway boats there was Cornell, Frances and Margot‘s senior by the better part of a decade.
If you’ve never attended, trust me when I say the fireworks show is extraordinary! Here from the bulkhead a dozen or so thousand spectators
and a few on solo craft
are captivated by the show.
I can’t tell you much about Iron Chief, except that it has nice brass, a working steam engine, and was for sale in 2012. In that link, you hear it run. Of course, in the distance that’s ex-Atlantic Hunter, now Little Giant.
For me personally, 2013 was my first time to see the Blount Small Ship Adventures vessels head into a lock.
Besides tugboats, you never know what or who you might see.
it’s bowsprite of the blog and the etsy shop on an underwater mission.
Here’s the line up.
All photos, WVD.
I’m rushing December, but I’m eager to get through winter and back to spring. All photos here date from December 2008.
Bowsprite took this from one of her cliff niches: June K (2003) here is moving the Floating Hospital (1974, Blount) up to the Rondout, where she remains. Is she really now called Industria at Sea.
The geography is unchanged, but McAllister Responder (1967) is no longer in the sixth boro, and Sea Venture (1972) is dead and likely scrapped . . . .
Maryland (1962) has become Liz Vinik, after operating with Maryland in the name for more than a handful of companies.
Choptank (2006) is back in the sixth boro and environs. My autocorrect always wants to call this tug Shoptalk. Puzzling. NYK Daedalus (2007) is still at work, just not here. TEN Andromeda is still on the oceans as well, still transporting crude.
Now called Charly and working the Gulf of Guinea, Janice Ann Reinauer (1967) used to be a personal icon in the sixth boro. Note that 1 World Trade does not appear in this photo, as it would today.
Closing this out . . . Margaret Moran (1979 and the 4th boat by that name) passes APL Jade (1995 and likely scrapped by now) in the KVK.
I’m hoping you’re enjoying this glances back a decade as much as I am.
With the exception of the first photo, all these by Will Van Dorp, who alone is responsible for research errors.
Unrelated: Win a trip on a Great Lakes freighter/laker here.
Thanks to tugster readers who snap photos and write tugster editorial offices, I sometimes can include dispatches from far-flung places. Today’s post comes thanks to bowsprite who texted me the other day mentioning a pelican at the North Fork of Long Island.
I had limited wifi at the time, so I expected later to see a photo of a haggard fish-eating semitropical bird blown out of its usual habitat by this summer’s storms. Later but before I could open the photo file, she asked about VIMS, and I could not imagine why.
But here is is . . . a vessel named Pelican looking faintly military and with ghost letters midships “VIMS.”
Click here for a thorough orientation to the boat since its adoption as VIMS flagship in 2003. But according to this, a new vessel was ordered, and here it is (as a rendering) . . .
Here’s more about the shipyard in Matane, QC.
Many thanks to bowsprite, who’s especially buoyant these days, for this photo and news.
Click here for previous posts featuring research vessels.
Agaain, thanks to bowsprite for sending this along.
postscript: Now the vessel goes by Bush Master.
Since I’m off gallivanting in a very cold place, how about some warm five-boros’ tagging, following in the spirit here. Of course, in the sixth boro, meow man rules all tagging, as I paid tribute here three years ago. Photo below I took a few weeks ago in Manhattan. It says what Manhattan can be . . . or NYC for that matter.
Here’s a photo from bowsprite, and no matter how ambitious she is with brushes, she did not paint this. All her photos in this post are from Brooklyn. I apologize I have no Bronx photos, but the Bronx is the unknown boro for me. Anyone help? And Queens . . . is it me or is there no wall art there?
Here’s the other side of dreams . . . heartbreak. Maybe someone more studied in this vernacular can explain the winged disks in her hands. Again, Manhattan and my photo.
Here’s another bowsprite photo of a complex tag, maybe some allusion here to meow man?
This comes from the edge of Little Italy, mine.
Hers, in Brooklyn.
Faded by too much spotlight. Mine.
Staten Island has a different character; I took the next ones just off Bay Street, where NYCArtsCypher.org seems to base itself.
And the images are as diverse as the area is, as polyglot as this city is. Less than 300 yards behind the Tapas place, you’re in the water, in the Bay, in the sixth boro.
I love the lobster there.
Photos by a team.
To close out April, here (and at the end of this post) a photo of Grouper in Lyons a few weeks ago before the Canal was brought up to level and opened for traffic. Thanks to Bob Stopper.
How lucky can some people get!?@#! Bowsprite caught this photo last fall as she was leaving New London harbor. The tugboat is John P. Wronowski.
From Maraki, it’s Heidi eastbound past cow pastures and
fleetmate Rikki S westbound.
How’s this for an unnamed push boat . . . the one that moves
Martha Lewis when needed, and when no longer needed because the skipjack is under sail, just gets hauled up on davits. I guess technically this prime mover is not a tugboat, she is a push boat. Here’s a youtube of Martha Lewis getting trucked away, sans push boat, for repairs. Anyone have updates on her getting into the water this season? Click here (and scroll) for a photo of Silk, the push boat dedicated to skipjack Stanley Norman.
And from my visit to Chelsea Creek last week, here’s another shot of (for me) the unidentified small tug, and
in gloucester, it’s Mikey D with Horizon looking over the stern.
Closing this post out, it’s looking eastbound across Grouper‘s bow. I’ve said it for years and will say it again, I hope some one takes this project on.
Thanks to Bob, bowsprite, and Maraki for these photos of really random aka sundry set of tugboats.
November, port month on tugster, ends here, making this GHP&W 30. Here’s how the month began. One thing I learned putting together this post is that Port Richmond and Mariner’s Harbor appear not to share a border, at least according to the wikipedia map. Between the western edge of Port Richmond and the eastern edge of Mariner’s (the west side of the Bayonne Bridge) is a neighborhood called Elm Park. I’d never heard of it. Also, look at the northeast tip of Port Richmond . . . it’s in the water only and includes the Caddell yard. Furthermore, Port Richmond never seems like much of a port if you see it by road only. Click here for photos of the land portion of Port Richmond. Click on the map to make it interactive.
A google satellite view shows the northernmost margin of land is port-intensive. Click here for many vintage photos of Port Richmond, pre-Bayonne Bridge, back when Port Richmond was a major ferry/rail link.
Although the late fall midday sun backlit these shots, let’s cruise the waterside of Port Richmond, starting at its northeastern point, where the Wavertree (1885) project is ongoing.
Delaware River & Bay Authority’s Delaware is undergoing some major repowering work.
Frying Pan . . . light of the night vessel from up at Pier 66 is having some work done.
In the belly of Frying Pan, where the engine and machinery used to be, a night club sometimes comes to life. Click here for some renderings of the vessel by the elusive bowsprite.
Miss Liberty, built 1954, is nearly finished with this dry-docking. Notice here she is high and dry? Well, just 45 minutes later, she had been
splashed and was being towed to a wharf by Caddell’s own L. W. Caddell (1990).
Continuing to the west, it’s the yards of Reinauer and Moran. From l to r, here, it seems to be Meredith C. Reinauer (2003), Laurie Ann Reinauer (2009), Reinauer Twins (2011), and Dace Reinauer (1968 but JUST repowered). . . and Joan Turecamo with (?) Brendan Turecamo. The McAllister tug between the Reinauer ATBs . . . I’ll guess is Bruce A. Marjorie B. McAllister.
This photo, taken a half hour earlier and before Joan Turecamo (1980) tied up, shows Kimberly Turecamo (1980), the very new and beamy J. R. T. Moran (2015), and Brendan (1975).
On the west side of the Moran yard, it’s Cable Queen (1952). Click here for photos of this cable-layer at work through the years.
And for the last shot of Port Richmond–although this may be straying westward into Elm Park waters, it’s Metropolitan Marine Transportation’s newest Normandy.
All the photos today by Will Van Dorp.
So as I said at the beginning of this post, so ends the “gunk holes, harbors, ports, and wharves” series. However, precedent on this blog makes it really easy to do a Port Richmond 2, 3, 4 . . . . etc. post. also, if any of you feel like contributing a set of photos from a port of gunk hole, no matter how large or obscure, I welcome it. Besides, there’s always then possibility of doing an “upland” version of any port, focusing on land-based businesses serving the work vessels.
And as for December, let me reprint this idea for a December theme:
How about antique/classic workboats, functioning or wrecked. Of course, a definition for that category is impossible. For example, NewYorkBoater says this: ‘The definition of an antique boat according to Antique and Classic Boating Society is a boat built between 1919 and 1942. A classic was built between 1943 and 1975 and the term contemporary, are boats built from 1976 and on.’ Hmm . . . what do you call an old vessel built before 1919 . . . a restoration project? antediluvian?
If you take another transportation sector–automobiles, you get another definition: 25 years old or more. And for the great race, here were the rules for this year: “Vehicle entries must have been manufactured in 1972 or before.” Next year’s cut-off will likely be 1973.
So my flexible definition is . . . photo should have been taken in 1999 or before, by you or of you or a family member, and in the case of a wreck, probably identifiable. Exception . . . it could be a boat built before . . . say . . . 1965.”
Many thanks to all of you who sent along photos, contributed ideas, and commented in November.
This is a pair, but it’s a digression at the start. The left side of the image here is the north side plate glass of the Millennium Hotel on Church Street.
Here’s the same tower from over five miles farther south. But the star here is the blue tug, Atlantic Salvor, which two and a half years ago delivered segments of that antenna atop the WTC. I caught that trip, a return to the sixth boro from greater Montreal here.
Catching Atlantic Salvor here yesterday was thrilling, because a few months back she did her “sixth boro farewell” and sailed to Jamaica for a job.
Bowsprite and I were having an all-too-infrequent pique-nique when this unit arrived from that Jamaica job.
And paired with Atlantic Salvor . . . there’s the Witte 4001 and I think J. P. Boisseau, as well as
Caitlin Ann, at least for the passage through the Kills.
Welcome back, Salvor!
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments