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I hope you all enjoy looking at these retro posts as much as I do putting them together. I’m seeing that 2010 was the year I started to gallivant extensively, so the division for July 2010 retrospective is part a is for local, and part b will be for away.
Count the boats in the photo below! Greenland Sea is prominent, but in the distance, find a Staten Island ferry, QM2, Susan (?) Miller, a dredge operation where I see Rae, and a Reinauer tug (Ruth?) beyond that! Greenland Sea is now on the hard in Houma LA, the SI ferries run regularly but with fewer passengers due to the covid catastophes, QM2 is in Southampton, the Miller boats are still busy, Rae is kept in reserve for special projects designed for a 46′ tug, navigation dredging is over for now, and the Reinauer tugs have proliferated and keep busy.
Navigation dredging has created deeper channels, and the Bayonne Bridge has been raised. Miss Gill is now in Jacksonville FL, and GL 55, the dumper scow, is wherever work may require her.
The formerly-yellow submarine is located at the entrance to Coney Island Creek, a place I’ve not been to in almost a decade.
I never did identify the wrecks at the mouth of said Creek, which seemed then to have an abundance of blue-clawed crabs.
Jane A. Bouchard languishes along with the rest of the fleet, and Cape Cod, with one of the intra-port SSS barges here, has moved to Philly, last I knew.
Barbara McAllister pushes B. No. 262 with an assist from Ron G. Barbara has not been in the sixth boro in quite a while, the 262 is laid up, and Ron G has been sold south.
Cape Race arrives here in Atlantic Basin, with a much-changed lower Manhattan skyline. The former fishing trawler/now expedition yacht is currently on the Elbe, south of Hamburg.
Margot still “keeps on pushing,” although I’ve not seen her down in the sixth boro of late.
And here, Patty Nolan passes a wreck–I’ve not yet identified it . . . maybe you have–inside Sommerville Basin in coastal Queens. Patty Nolan has been on the hard a few years.
And here’s a photo taken exactly a decade ago today . . . an unnamed houseboat being towed from Peekskill to Queens, not a view you see every day. It’s Patty Nolan towing with gatelines. Here and here she tows other houseboats.
All photos, WVD, who wishes everyone health and patience in this difficult time. Also, these “retro sixth boro” posts take us back only one decade. It’d be great to locate more photos of identifiable locations going back 50 or so years, the fifth dimension of time photos.
Actually, only part of this leg is through the ICW, or another way to say this is that from Cape May to NYC you need to be in the ocean. For a map that shows this, click here. This leg takes us from Baltimore to New York City, which in this case is not the end of the trip. More on that later.
Below, Key’s Anthem is Baltimore’s new Inner Harbor water taxi, the first vessel of 10, one that’s all local vernacular . . . a Hooper’s Island drake tail.
Tiwai Point prepares to discharge a load of sugar, from Colombia, I think . . .
Bridget McAllister (and other McAllister boats) waits at the dock.
We head out past Natty Boh and Brooklyn . . . ,
Vane’s Carlyn,
and Justin with an unidentified load.
Was it Justin that towed Tamaroa out to the reef site last week?
At the Chesapeake side of the C & D Canal, it’s Dann Ocean’s home base, with (l to r) First Coast, Diamond Coast, New England Coast, Sea Coast, and Gold Coast. By the way, Gallatin called this the Delaware & Chesapeake Canal and estimated it as 22 miles long with 18 locks. The current Chesapeake & Delaware is 14 miles long and all water is at sea level, i.e., no locks. Here’s the history.
Defender (I think) steams inbound for Pennsauken with Cape Cod tailing a Crowley barge. Depending on which barge this was, capacity is 400–500 teus.
Gulf Venture/Carrier anchors off Salem . . .
And then morning brings a jagged island up out from the deeps and we
line up some towers . . . while Le Grand Bleu waits in Gravesend Bay.
Note the unusual wake and splash pattern on Jonathan C.‘s stern?
And an unfamiliar Kirby vessel– Mount St. Elias–moves DBL 77 upriver.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
If there’s a shortage of any kind of stuff these days, there seems to be a dire scarcity of compassion, tolerance, . . . So it doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe, I’m sure we have common ground in thinking we need
peace on Earth and goodwill towards everyone, especially this year. That’s what I see in these decorations and hear in the music.
From here in NY’s sixth boro on bows and
sterns.
From the south,
the middle,
and the north . . .
and from this card someone sent me . . . have a happy day. And a calm and boring day; let
me explain. Click on the image below to hear a song by Capt. Josh Horton that probably captures the sentiments of crews at sea today.
Here was 2014, and here was 2013. Also, two years ago it thrilled me to share photos I received from the good folks at Hughes Marine to get photos from 1997 —here –of the year the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree came downriver by tug and barge. And more good folks at Cross Sound Ferry sent along photos from 2003, here, when their ferry North Star delivered the tree that year . . . crewed in part by Rockettes!
If you’ve got time today for the background on how NORAD started reporting on Santa movements back at the height (or depth) of the Cold War in 1955, click here. Here’s another version of the same Cold War story.
Thanks to Brendan Matton for the photo of Paul Andrew, Tali Padilla for the photo of Z-One lit up at the San Juan dock, Lisa Kolibabek of Cape Cod and Bonnie Halda for Jupiter both on the Delaware River, and Mike Magnant for the be-snowmanned Toot Toot. Barrel sent me the photo of the red clad beard guy on the green 29. I took the photos at South Street Seaport Museum.
Finally, if you want to squelch the “red elf” mythology, check out the name of this 1963-built bulker AND its status.
Here was my initial Short Sea… post. I love the concept, but I’m not a fan of the label “short sea shipping.” To play with it a bit, given the English language tendency to make it an abbreviation, how about SSS as “seriously smart shipping” or “ship to shore service” or only slightly changed “short seashipping.”
The idea is that containers, once in the megaport, move from there to smaller subports via barge, keeping lots of truck traffic from congesting the roadways AND
saving fuel and money. A new twist could be to put the
trucks/tractors themselves on the barge,
although I’m guessing this is something different. Nevertheless,
huzzah for short sea trucking. Tugs here were Cape Cod (made up with the barge) and Turecamo Girls, assist.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
T . . . teamwork. Not the same idea as teams, which suggests competition. Teamwork . . . only unites all those people invested in the same project, whether they get along or not. Like maintaining buoys marking the channel, benefitting people on the water as well as those on land.
Like USACE Hayward responding to reports of hull-puncturing, wheel-destroying debris afloat in the channels.
Like Capt Log getting fuel where it’s needed and when.
Like Baltic Sea and its entire crew–invisible here–reporting to the next job, as
is true of Comet, its dispatchers, and harbor traffic controllers.
Ditto Huki, if that’s the canoe’s name. I love the outrigger.
As well as Spartan Service
And Morton S. Bouchard IV and Kristin Poling and every other
boat and ship that negotiates passage on 1 or 2. Like Marjorie B McAllister and Cape Cod.
And Meredith C. Reinauer and all the boat crew as well as shore crew, professional and personal.
And Delaware Bay . . . it can dredge away sand and silt to keep the channel clean ONLY because of its talented and dedicated crew and the efforts of hydrographers who determined what invisible amounts of earth was extraneous.
So who works alone? Nobody that I know, not even those who sit in their workspace alone like the crane operator solo in the control cabin hundreds of feet above the hoi polloi; even that solitaire draws a paycheck and follows orders or gives them. And we belong to all kinds of non-competitive teams simultaneously: ones that pay for our daily food, drink, and shelter. Ones that keep us safe in so many contexts. Ones that make us smile and chase away our blahs and blues. Ones that intrigue us and keep us curious. Ones that back us up when we feel vulnerable. Ones that trim us when we get too brazen or sure. Even the ones we don’t get along with; Hudson danced teamwork steps with Juet, even while lowering Henry, young John Hudson, and eight stalwarts overboard to their deaths on the cold waters of Hudson Bay. I could go on, but you get my point. I’m reminded of the point. Teamwork . . . sounds trite . . . but isn’t.
All fotos . . . Will Van Dorp.
Booms. Not jarring bass concussions. Not large Arabian dhows. Not sailing vessel spars. Not what I’d love to see happen and sustain itself in the markets. Nor most of these others.
I mean the yellow “tubes” in this foto lurking in my head since the ubiquitous Bowsprite sent it a few months back. Besides evoking a sense of mystery in me, the foto also suggests a similarity between pollution prevention activities in New York, and small craft net fishing.
Booms are routinely deployed around vessels during petroleum transfer. You may have a hard time seeing them in the foto below, but
they are present, black here around the bulbous bow.
Protection, hard to see, but
there, the bright yellow floaters.
I saw Ken‘s deploying booms within hours of the US Airways plane ditching in the Hudson last week, and as crews readied the barge to receive the salvaged aircraft, one wing still containing fuel, still more booms came in to prevent contamination.
I’d be grateful if someone developed emotional booms to lessen our spillage of contaminating passions when we’re at our least attractive. As in “Run to the ambulance and quickly get a latex boom for around those folks. They’re fighting and might lose it any second.”
All fotos, except Bowsprite’s, by Will Van Dorp.
And thanks to my old friend Dan de Vries, who emailed it last night, here’s some music for today, Inauguration Day for POTUS44. Listen for the less common words written by Woodie.
Update from Pete E of the “Liners list” via Mage, avid, dedicated reader and commenter on this blog: “Once again NY Waterway came to the rescue in NY waters. The first boat to arrive following the US AIR plane’s ditching was Hudson River-class THOMAS JEFFERSON captained by Vince Lombardi. She was on the scene within 2.5 minutes. They rescued 56 passengers from the right wing. I think MOIRA SMITH (not NORA SMITH as reported in Daily News) was second to arrive, but don’t know how many she rescued. Brittany Catanzaro, female captain of GOVERNOR THOMAS KEAN, arrived next and took off 24 victims. According to Alan Warren, NY Waterway had fourteen boats on the scene. If anyone knows the names of the other ferries that participated, I’d appreciate a list for STEAMBOAT BILL. Circle Lines’ new CIRCLE LINE MANHATTAN was commandered and used by the NYPD. She arrived on the scene much later than did the NY Waterway ferries, yet somehow Circle Line seems to be getting the press NY Waterway deserves.” PETE E. Also, see real-time USCG video of the landing and minutes thereafter from Peter Mello’s SeaFever blog here.
Thanks so much, Mage and Peter. What follows is “snow day” post.
Whenever snow “pounds” a region, lots of folks hope to get a snow day. I know I do, although the hyperbole of TV meteorologists makes me immediately nauseous. As a kid I learned that even if we had a snow day relative to school, farm work still needed doing. In fact, some occupations associate “snow day” with a sense that the same old tasks will be just that much harder to do.
I took this series of fotos on my way to work last Friday morning when snow limited visibility to a quarter mile.
The irony of the meteorologese term “snow pounding” is that though collectively snow may significantly impact people from a safety or productivity point of view, the impact of an individual snowflake makes –say– a butterfly landing on your shoulder seem like a tectonic disturbance measured in Richter scale. Does a device exist that can measure the momentum exerted on you by one snowflake landing? Would the force be expressed in micronewtons? nano-butterflys? yocto-fruitflys?
Light tug turned out be be Cape Cod. (Digression: Any guesses on its year of build? other vitals?)
Snow pounding or not and naked eye visibility reduced, work awaited south of Howland Hook.
Maybe for crews, jobs harder to do give greater satisfaction, and
on snow days, decreased visibility screens urban decay, makes river banks seem more pristine, mysterious. And despite instruments that see through the snow, knowing what lies around the bend doesn’t predict what could transpire in moments and months ahead anyhow. Like last Friday morning, who would have guessed about a jet splashing into the river a few hours and a few miles away.
Cape Cod vitals: 1967 vintage, an excellent year (if I judge from my life). Loa/deep draft/wide = 102′ 13′ 28′ HP . . . 4290 and in spite of its name, etc., it spends a lot of time in the six boro.
Related to yesterday’s post, here’s NOAA info on sea ice types to add to comments from Jed and towmasters.
Tomorrow–Columbus Day–I’m launching a new blog called Henry’s Obsession. Henry refers to Mr Hudson, and obsess he did!. For the next year or so, bowsprite and I will use research and imagination to get inside the head of the first European to travel up the river that bears his name. We plan to post twice a month, or “halfmoonthly.” Shouldn’t we celebrate a Hudson Day in September rather than a Columbus Day in October?
Take one container vessel —Saudi Tabuk– northbound in the Buttermilk against an ebbing tide and heading for sea. Bring on Moran tugs Cape Cod (portside of Tabuk) and Kathleen Turecamo.
As they approach the Brooklyn Bridge, Cape Cod drops back to Tabuk‘s stern
Kathleen Turecamo no doubts shoves the bow toward Manhattan and Cape Cod presses the stern to Brooklyn.
Plan continues until the ebb tide assists Kathleen, and Tabuk rotates counterclockwise.
The ebb is unstoppable,
and Tabuk
pivots her 814 feet quite dramatically
leaving no room for error.
Soon Tabuk has steering
outbound toward the Narrows and
bound for the Red Sea
but not for Tabuk, an inland desert city.
Photos, WVD.
On sunny days, crew spend some time between
jobs out on deck, prepping or
conferring or
repairing and more prepping or
maybe singing or
thinking and reflecting or
plotting tactics and strategy but
whatever the goal, it’s just better out on deck this time of year.
Photos, WVD.
OK . . . this is a flip of the “truckable tugs” post. I didn’t coin “truckable tug” but I am trying out the title above.
The truck isn’t really on the tug but on a tug-pushed barge. Tug Little C will appear in a post soon.
I believe this is Susan Miller pushing another truck. Check out the great Millers Launch site. More Millers coming soon too.
The white truck on the dock used to be called an Ottawa; seems they’ve been transformed into Kalmar. At ports like Red Hook, they “feed” the cranes. I think this one wants to die and come back as a Moran tug.
This old truck just wants to grow up and run on salt water, ambiguity intended.
All photos, Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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