Retro Sixth Boro 29

August can be hazy, and it appears that some August days in 2010 were, as below when Colleen McAllister towed dredge spoils scow GL 501 out and Brendan Turecamo (?) moved Bouchard barge B.No. 260 westbound in the Kills.  Colleen has now traveled from sun to ice out to the Great Lakes, where the 1967 4300 hp tug is currently laid up.   Brendan is alive and well and working in the sixth boro.

Kimberly Poling, then in a slightly different livery than now,  pushed Noelle Cutler in the same direction.  Both still work the waters in and out of the sixth boro.

These days I just don’t spend much time near the sixth boro at dusk, but here Aegean Sea pushes a barge northbound in the Upper Bay.  Aegean now works the Massachusetts coast, and I recall she’s made at least one trip back to the Hudson since 2013.

On a jaunt on the lower Delaware, I caught Madeline easing the bow of Delta Ocean into a dock.  The 2008 4200 hp Gladding Hearn tug is still working in the Wilmington DE area. Delta Ocean, a 2010 crude carrier at 157444 dwt, almost qualifies as a VLCC. She’s currently in Singapore.

Madeline is assisted here by Lindsey, the 60′ 1989 Gladding Hearn z-drive boat rated at 2760 hp.

Duty towed a barge downstream near Wilmington.

Recently she has sold to South Puerto Rico Towing and Boat Services, where the 3000 hp tug is now called Nydia P.  I’d love to see her in SPRT mustard and red colors.

I traveled from the sixth boro to Philadelphia as crew on 1901 three-masted barkentine Gazela.  In upper Delaware Bay, we were overtaken by US EPA Bold and Brandywine pushing barge Double Skin 141.  Gazela, like other mostly volunteer-maintained vessels, is quiet now due to covid, but check out their FB page at Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild.   US EPA Bold, now flying the flag of Vanuatu and called Bold Explorer, is southwest of Victoria BC on the Salish Sea. She was built in 1989 as USNS Bold.  Brandywine, a 2006 6000 hp product of Marinette WI, has today just departed Savanna GA.

Getting this photo of the barkentine, and myself if you enlarge it, was a feat of coincidence and almost-instant networking, the story I’ll not tell here.

On a trip inland, I caught Tender #1 pushing an ancient barge through lock E-28B.  I believe Tender #1 is still in service.

From a beach in Coney Island one morning, I caught Edith Thornton towing a barge into Jamaica Bay on very short gatelines.  Edith is a 104′ x 26 1951-built Reading RR tug that passed through many hands.  currently it’s Chassidy, working out of Trinidad and Tobago.

Here’s another version I shot that morning. For even more, click here.

The mighty Brangus assisted dredge Florida.  Back in those days, the channels of the sixth boro were being deepened to allow today’s ULCVs–like CMA CGM T.Jefferson— to serve the sixth boro.  If I’m not mistaken, Brangus has been a GLDD tug since it was built in 1965. Currently she’s in the Elizabeth River in VA.

Here she tends the shear leg portion of a GLDD dredging job.  See the cutterhead to the left of the helmeted crew?

On another hazy day, a light Heron heads for the Kills.  The 1968-built 106′ x 30′ tug rated at 3200 hp was sold to Nigerian interests in 2012.   I’d love to see her in her current livery and context.

Java Sea resurfaced in Seattle as part of the Boyer fleet and now called Kinani H, seen here on tugster just a month ago.    The 110′ x 32′ tug was launched in 1981 as Patriot.

And finally . . . probably the only time I saw her, crewboat Alert.  She appears to be a Reinauer vessel.

All photos, WVD, from August 2010.  If you want to see an unusual tugster post from that month, click here.

For some unusual August 2010 posts, click here.

 

 

Dredging the Bay

Dredging the bay–or any moving water–is futile.  It’s like mowing the lawn or shaving:   grass, hair, silt … each just comes back.  Comparisons could also be made to the efforts of Sisyphus, except money changes hands and deeper and deeper draft vessels venture into otherwise shallower waters.

I’ve fixated on this foto since taking it.  This close up, it’s clear the white helmeted crewman is welding, doing the equivalent of dental work on this toothy tip.  Seeing the dental comparison differently, the tool itself is a drill into the “mouth” of the Hudson.

I can’t look at the dredge head, though, and not think of a sea monster decorating maps produced by the Dutch Golden Age cartographer Abraham Ortelius.  Brangus stands off as the fearsome auger plumbs the depths

deep

and deeper until

the cutter suction head burrows into the bottom, intruding into mire and eons-old rock.

Verifying that the dredge has transformed the bottom satisfactorily requires more than some long-handled mirror.   Sonic sensing and hydrosurvey, not my expertise, I’ll leave for someone else to describe.

I’ve not a clue of the function the smaller barge moved here by Brangus . . . . plays in the whole process.

Meanwhile, a half mile or so farther north, bucket dredge New York sculpts the bottom using different tools.  Since these activities transpire in, arguably, the “mouth” of the Hudson,  another dental allusion could be made . . . excavator:  both dredgers and dentists  use this.

How quickly I wonder would berths and channels become unusable to current harbor traffic if dredging activities ceased?  How come the mainstream media pays no attention to these activities?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  bidding has ended for the dinner with Bowsprite and tugster, but I don’t know the identity of the winning bidder.  Also, tomorrow, rain or shine . . . . mermaids invade Coney Island for a few hours before returning to the deep.  With all this dredging, do you suppose some could be miffed?