Cast Closeups 1

I’m slowing this down;  yesterday I posted a record-setting 32 fotos, if I counted right.   And I’m making this personal, dedicating this to my wonderful Colombian and Ecuadorian students and to my Indonesian relatives.

Gloria is the official flagship of the Colombia Navy, based in Cartagena.  Yes, we’ve heard too much about some malfeasance there recently.

The population of Colombia is 46 million; the size of the Navy is 35,000.

Here’s view from astern of barques Gloria and Guayas, looking toward Coney Island.

The population of Ecuador is 14 million, and the total personnel of the Navy is a bit over 7200.   The logo on the “sail” between the foremast and mainmast promotes Ecuadorian tourism.  If I had limitless funds and time, I’d go everywhere, but Ecuador includes Amazonian forest, high Andes, the Galapagos, and so much more.

You might know this, but the population of Indonesia is over 240 million, the fourth most populous country, with many cultures and some 700 languages!

Click here for Dewaruci’s itinerary on their round-the-world voyage.

As an archipelago nation made up of more than 18,000 islands, it’s not surprising it has a navy of 150 ships and 74,000 sailors. In the distance, that’s Buchanan 1 moving rock through the archipelago of the sixth boro.

As to my relatives . . . I did have four uncles who fought there against Indonesian independence a half century ago.

I’m eager to see the wood carving closeup;  as a kid, I was scared to visit my grandmother’s house because of a frightful Balinese mask hanging on her wall.

If you have the chance, visit these and other vessels around the sixth boro this weekend.  Click here for further info.  I’ll be working a dock of Staten Island Saturday morning and Brooklyn Sunday and Monday morning.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

When I see foreign mariners, whether on modern cargo vessels or on tall ships, I recall reading that Ho Chi Minh (scroll through to the paragraph “In the USA”) traveled to the US aboard a ship 100 years ago exactly and lived here for a  number of years.    Too bad that story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Unrelated:  Check this list of nations with tall ship/sail training vessels.  It’s interesting to think of which do not . . .

Finally, thanks to all who voted for Peagus and LV-79;  unfortunately they were not in the top four.    We tried.

Random Tugs 91

Whatzit??

It’s the shadow of the gangway as Laura K. sidles in for contact on the vessel with the illustrious name . . . Great Eastern, practically panamax 150 years ago.

And Buchanan 12 sports some

new color design.    Lots of paint seems to be getting applied in the sixth boro this spring.

I’m not sure how long Bouchard boats like Jane A. have borne these colors. Notice Hayward in the distance.

Here’s another shot of Laura K. east and southbound with her usual determination.

Buchanan 10 rounds up some heavy stone scows.

Here Turecamo Girls assists at Great Eastern‘s bow for

some serious rotating.

And finally a foto with a question . . .  what has become of Rae these days?  I took this foto about two years ago.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 89

Meredith C. Reinauer (2003, 7200 hp) and Kristy Ann Reinauer (1962, 2000 hp)

Hunting Creek (2011, 3000 hp) and my first view of her, not that I wouldn’t be able to predict what a Vane tug would look like.

Hunt Girls (1983, 1800 hp)

Coral Coast (1970, 3000 hp)

Buchanan 10, 1967, 1700 hp)

Thomas D. Witte (1961, 3000hp)

Linda G, 1943 and I have no idea how much power she generates, but that’s quite the tow she’s minding.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

February Sleet 2

Bowsprite hears and transcribes memorable quotes from VHF chatter on the sixth boro;  I need to upgrade my radio before I get such plums.  So I’ll listen in using other sources.

That’s a very lonely Bohemia among all those barges.

“I prefer winter … when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.”  Andrew Wyeth

From left to right:  Bluefin, Robert Bouchard, and Brandywine.

“Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do – or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so.”  Stanley Crawford

Miss Callie fishing over by Blue Sapphire.    “Winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.”  Henry David Thoreau

McAllister Responder and Maurania III escort Nordatlantic into Global.  “Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.”    Nice observation from an unknown author

Buchanan 1 departs barges hanging on a mooring near a virtually invisible Bayonne.  “The color of winter is in the imagination.”  Terri Guillemets

HNSE 211 scrap barge, pushed by an bright blue but invisible Crow, heads for export in the hold of a salty bulker.  Over on the Brooklyn side, see the yellow crane of Cove Island.    “In a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.”  Plutarch

OK . . . some humor on the way out:  “I was just thinking, if it is really religion with these nudist colonies, they sure must turn atheists in the wintertime.”  Will Rogers What Will Rogers conjures up is the realization that the mermaid parade 2011 is only about four months away.  Seems soon.  Mardi Gras is over 30 days away.  Seems far.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who enjoys winter as much as summer and all the dozens of other seasons we experience in the sixth boro.

Unrelated:  To see what happens in Essex, MA, when sleet or snow is flying, click here.    Hey, schooners await their appointment with launch.

February Sleet

What happens in the harbor as the sleet flies?  The same stuff that always happens.  Here Barbara C lighters a tanker aptly named Winter.   Off Winter‘s stern, container vessel NordAtlantic arrives, bound for Global.  Doubleclick to enlarge and see these today.

Marion Moran heads for the Buttermilk, apparently between Scott Turecamo with barge New Hampshire and Linda Moran with barge Houston.

Odin pushes Aqua.

Gramma Lee T Moran and Kimberly Turecamo escort bulker Thalassini Axia into Red Hook.  And Miss Callie stays fishing.

Here’s a closer-up of Linda Moran framed by the fossilized cranes over by the Red Hook Ikea.  Click here to see what was replaced by Ikea’s parking lot . . . ok . . . I should just forget about it maybe?

That’s Buchanan 1, over by some empty Buchanan scows.

And the scrap keeps coming out of Newtown Creek, here pushed by Crow.  Can someone identify the tall building with the green pitched roof near the left margin of the foto?

All fotos taken in the sleety drizzle Tuesday  by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 63

Beaufort Sea (ex-Corsair, 1971, 105 loa x 32′) with DBL 101.  Can anyone identify the tallest building on the skyline there?  I can’t.

Emily C. Cheramie (2000, 90′ x 28′  ) with Unloader No. 2.

Despite a stiff tailwind, a Buchanan tug (12?) heads southbound toward Yonkers with six or nine stone scows barely making headway against the flood.

Catherine Turecamo (ex-Gulf Tempest, 1972, 99′ x 30′) approaches while Endeavor (2007, 964′ x 91′) and Ellen McAllister (1966, 102′ x 29′)  recede.  Ellen seems shorter than 102′ . . . although I’m not sure why I think so.  Click here and scroll for a foto of the Bayonne Bridge under construction.  See MOL history here.

Amy C. McAllister (ex-Jane A. Bouchard, 1975, 91′ x 30′)  with B. No. 231 approaching the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

Morgan Reinauer (ex-Exxon Garden State, 1981, 119′ x 34′)  passing an outbound Maersk Denpasar (exactly the same dimensions as MOL Endeavor but launched in 2003).  Denpasar is the capital of the Indonesian province of Bali.

Susan E. Witte (a classic looking from  2004, 55′ x 17′)  strides into the Kills.

Maurania III (also 2004, 101′ x 33′) escorts a tanker while Linda Moran (2008, 116′ x 36′) passes on the far side.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated question:  You will no doubt remember the fiasco of Mobro 4000‘s 6000-mile journey towed by Break of Dawn, built 1982.  Does anyone have a recent foto of Break of Dawn?

Stone Trade

Unrelated to this post, but take 2.5 minutes and enjoy this audio slideshow for an article in the 4/19 New Yorker magazine, a story of a family towing life written by Burkhard Bilger.

For an earlier post on the stone trade almost three years ago, click here.  All today’s fotos come from Jed.  Trident (ex-Delta Trident, Delta Eagle, and Libra built in 1982)  is a new boat in the boro, I believe.  I’m guessing she’s currently a sibling of Eastern Dawn (ex-Delta Mule).

Crushed rock . . . what building project could proceed with it?  A major quarry is located upriver in Clinton Point;  see the last foto here.

Buchanan 12 seems to be dedicated to the

stone trade.

Imagine if all this crushed rock moved exclusively by truck.  Horrors!

All fotos … thanks to Jed.

Unrelated but tall ship opportunity:  PortSide NewYork FreeSail Clipper City 4-12-2010