Meanwhile . . . 8000 Miles Away 2

. . . or I could say 12480 kms away.    Here was the previous one in this series.  Remember the port?

Well, in this port recently was this tug named Merlot and the green vessel . . . a large canoe?  And yes, check here for tugs named chardonnay, shiraz,  and pinotage.  Nothing here yet named Ripple or Boone’s Farm . . .  Here’s what Colin wrote about the green vessel:

“That ship ULSTEIN CLEAR is fresh as a daisy, built at ZHEJIANG SHIPBUILDING in China and  delivered 31  MAY 2012.   They also build them in BRAZIL where PETROBRAS ordered six and two have been built there and four will be complete during 2013.  I have read that PETROBRAS have ordered quite a few drilling rigs for their offshore operations.   On one of the ULSTEIN ships they have a crane mounted for wind farm operations.  It lifts 5000 tons so very effectively.  It will be used between England and Ireland.”

Some might consider this design so unusual as to be ugly, but I see this as an extrapolation from a canoe bow . .  or the prow of a Viking ship.

More info about this hull and its advantages for working in heavy sea–reduced motion and fuel efficiency– can be found here.   Great videos and animations.  Note the location of the exhausts.  If you didn’t identify them, they

are the diagonals more visible here.

I don’t believe a vessel with this sort of bow has visited the sixth boro . . .

yet.

All fotos by colin Syndercombe, to whom I am grateful.

. . . and Cape Town

Any guesses what’s driving the tempest here?

gCaptain posted a great story about a pizza delivery . . . and a bone for the the ship’s dog Alley.  What’s this then?  What resolve will Alley summon among its crew?

The crowd awaits, as

Smit Amandla stretches the line nearly to the breaking point for two straight hours.  Imagine the fuel bill for 16,000 hp chrning at load for 120 minutes!  More on Smit Amandla here.   And here.  Her sister ship, Wolraad Woltemade was broken up at Alang just two years ago.  See a foto of her awaiting her fate here.

But inch by inch, and without incident,

the trawler makes for deeper water.

Might the hero here really be Alley?

Once roused from its slumber on Clifton Beach and safely afloat, Eihatsu Maru takes a stroll into the harbor with Ocean Pride.

And as a treat, let’s have a look to see who else is in port today?

Over there, anchored beside  Smit Amandla  . . . this orange vessel . . . no it just can’t be . . . Super Servant 3?!@#@!??    Dockwise is everywhere these days, it seems.

Many many thanks to Colin, who put all his more productive impulses on hold in order to snap these shots and share the story.    Bravo to the towing team, the pizza delivery guys, the crew, and  . . . of course . . . Alley, ship’s mutt.

Time for some of that pizza and tea, Colin?

And two posts in one day . . . I’m not going to make that a rule, but this news couldn’t wait.

Waiting

We spend so much of our lives waiting.  I guess it’s one of those unavoidables, like taxes and death . . . Ineluctable, if you want to be pedantic.   Yesterday, while waiting for high tide, a helicopter dropped in on the beached fishing trawler.  Click here for a bather flashing the crew. . .  hey, if you live on Clifton Beach and want to meet the unexpected visitors, how else do you get their attention?

At high tide this morning, another attempt to pull the trawler off the beach resulted in another parted towing line.

Meanwhile, holding the lead is Port Arthur-built, Cape Town-modified Ocean Pride.  Note the additions to make her beamier.

Here’s the muscle (Smit Amandla, ex-John Ross) that parts the towing lines.

Here crews of tug and supply vessel sort out the towing warp.

And 8000 miles to the northwest, Swan has not yet started loading.  Prepping and waiting is still going on, four days after I took these fotos.

But with a name like Swan and this time of year,

waiting is intended to be productive.

South African fotos by Colin Syndercombe;  sixth boro NYC fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Meanwhile at Clifton Beach

All fotos and info comes with many thanks to Colin.  This is Table Mountain, and the white pall emanating from the upper right in this foto might just be due to the pipe smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate named Van Hunks.   Just might be.  What’s certain is that in the fog yesterday, Eihatsu Maru came ashore.

Clifton Beach is a few miles east and south of the port of Cape Town.  Standing off and maintaining pressure on the wires off Eihatsu Maru‘s stern is supply vessel Ocean Pride, Texas-launched 1954.  Here’s Colin’s description, ” There were two wires coming out of her stern and at quite a distance like half a kilometer  Ocean Pride was keeping the tension on the cables.  . . .”

There were spectators all through Saturday as the tide rose and fell and the

sun began to set.

Part of the crew stays on board;  to leave now would be to sacrifice the vessel to salvors.

Here’s more of Colin’s words, ” Hawser [went from Ocean Pride]  all the way to the tug SMIT AMANDLA (300′  loa x 50′ and 16,000 hp, built Durban 1975) another half K away.   Ocean Pride stood therewith not any strain on the wire for a long time and we all waited for the tide to rise, which it did right on schedule.  Ocean Pride moved out of the way and the tug put a bit of strain on the wire like playing a fish.  Perhaps even for an hour and you could see the wire rising out of the sea and I doubt they used all 16,000 Horse power but kept the strain and in the lights of the tug you could see the turbulence of the prop wash.   It was actually quite exciting. The captain of the Japanese fishing vessel has a nice border collie with him aboard.”

” Then there was an almighty bang followed by the sound of steel wire rope rushing out over steel and then a long splash as the end hit the water.  So that is that till next high tide tomorrow morning.  When I left they were starting to rig another cable and the tug was out of the bay reeling in the towing warp.”

Sunday morning finds the fishing vessel still on the beach;  partial crew still aboard.

Eihatsu is part of a trawler fleet operating off southern Africa.  Here’s a sister vessel, Sumiyoshi Maru No. 10.

Tug is Blue Jay.

Many thanks to Colin for this story and fotos.  More when available.

Unrelated to Clifton Beach . . .  I will be at Pier 25 this afternoon minding the gangplank to Pegasus.   Have you voted today?

Meanwhile in Cape Town

In May 1962 John Kennedy had a party upon turning 45, and most people remember one person who attended.  But there were other entertainers who sang too like this native New Yorker (yes, he is.) and another singer, now largely unknown, whose name appears on that blue banner center below.   If you don’t remember the name, here’s (IMHO) her best song.  She also performed with this neighbor of mine from Queens, NY.   But this vessel?

She might be called Agulhas II, arriving yesterday in her homeport, having come from winter half a world away to the north just in time for winter way down south.  Here’s  her predecessor, once involved in an Oldendorff vessel (no, not this one) in the far far south.

Here she arrives after a month-long journey.   For the complete press release announcing her mission, click here.

Whether Miriam Makeba becomes her unofficial or official name, Agulhas (needles) refers to the true southernmost cape aka point of Africa.

Enseleni is one of the assist tugs. Click here to see her launched  . . .  in a manner I’ve never seen.  Click here to see a wide array of South African tugs.

Here’s a closeup of pilot boat Gannet (1977).

And the answer (correctly supplied in the comment by anonymous [Ann O’Nimes??])  to the figurehead question .  . . Europa it is!    And in a graphic demonstration of the interconnection of the sixth boro to almost everywhere watery, click here and here for fotos of Europa on a recent visit to the US “north coast.”  Has Europa ever been to New York?

Europa, 1911 launched!!  and beautifully preserved.  A reminder to, please, vote for Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Barge, today and every day until May 21.

All fotos here come compliments of Colin Syndercombe, who’s generously serving up the shipping news from the Cape Town waterfront.  Thanks much, Colin.

A final treat from Miriam Makeba . . .  Pata pata.  Fifty years ago she was a popular enough in the US to get major play on top-40 radio

Other People’s Fotos 15

I’m elated when folks tell me they’ve enjoyed visiting tugster over the years.  Well, I’m as thrilled when you send in fotos other places beyond the sixth boro, all accessible ultimately from the the sixth boro.  In fact, the whole world awaits once you’ve gone out the Narrows or through Hall Gate.

’twas a great pleasure to get these fotos from Maureen yesterday, taken yesterday.  I’ll identify the port a bit farther.  Any guesses?  A clue might be the name of the tug:  Emilio Panfido (1969),  and

Carlo (1980).  As to the four dozen classic racers . . . you’ll have to help me identify those.

The port is Venezia aka Venice.  And I’ll need help identifying the tow of the tug as well.  And if you click on not a single link in this post, then at least spend six minutes on this one . .  the veritable painted ship on a painted ocean where work seems like the pleasantest dance to the best music on the planet.  This one’s got an intriguing ambient sound as sound track too.   All Venezia and as they are called in Italian . . . rimorchiatori aka tugs.

And it’s a joy to post Colin Syndercombe’s tugster debut here . . . MV  Kovambo.  It’s a dredge vessel that brings up — are you ready for this —

diamonds!  As in the many carated type.  Click here for info on the vessel and here for info on the enterprise.  Here’s more on marine mining and subsea crawlers.  I have to admit I’ve never understood the appeal of diamonds, but my interest ratchets up a bit learning with this.

Colin’s second ever foto shows New Spirit foreground with a befogged Table Mountain behind.  Look for a detail on the mountain upper right side.

It’s the cable car peering from behind a rip in the “table cloth.”

And thanks to Isaac, does this look long?  How long?

It’s a 1000′ ITB aka integrated tug and barge.”  One thousand!  Here’s a foto of the tug out of the notch.  Technically the barge is 947′ and the tug is 153,’  and  in ITB math, that totals up to an even 1000.’  The gray vessel in the background is Tecumseh, 1973, ex-Sugar Islander, which appeared here in March.

And finally . . . it’s always a delight to share fotos John Watson takes from his perch high above the east end of the KVK.   First, it’s a shockingly container-light Iwaki . . .

and a thought-provoking CSAV Suape.  Just five weeks ago, I got fotos of this vessel Pacific-bound about to exit the Panama Canal.  So what are the ports of call NOT listed here . . .?

Many thanks Maureen, Colin, Isaac, and John.  Info on Emilio Panfido, Netherlands-built can be found here; Carlo, Italian-built here.

Partners in Preservation is a New York program, but there’s no need to live in NY or even North America to vote.  Click on the logo below, register, scroll thru to find “Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Museum Barge,”  and vote once a day through May 21.  Ask your friends to vote too.

Southern Ship 2

I used this title over four years ago here, although in that case, I wrote about a South African vessel in the sixth boro.

I offer this post partly as a study of how ship preservation is happening in another port city on the Atlantic, almost 8000 miles away.  South African Railway and Harbours (SAR & H) had Alwyn Vintcent built in Italy in the late 1950s as part of an order of five.  Find a brief  history here, but basically, she retired in 1983;  from 1991 until 2001 she operated as a steam excursion tug in Cape Town.   Her future then became uncertain.   A farmers group (most of the site is in Afrikaans ) (this one is in English) purchased her in 2010 or 2011 and is now preparing to move her 60+ miles inland for restoration and eventual use on a freshwater reservoir.

To make the trek inland, the superstructure must be cut down to a maximum of 14′ .  Stack goes first.  See more fotos and English text of this prep-to-trek here.

Vessel also needs to be lightened.

Although the road trip is schedule for May 2012, all’s not well until it’s well.  In the mid-1980s, another group attempt to preserve Alwyn’s sister ship J. E. Eaglesham by moving her inland.

The trip was sucessful, but later she was scrapped.   More fotos of that trek are here.

Part of what sent me on this virtual South African foray was learning yesterday from a reader there named Colin that bark Europa was currently in Cape Town preparing to voyage up to St Malo, and berths were still available.   The St. Malo voyage will make stops in Ascension and Azores.   More info on 1911 bark Europa here.

For other historical South African vessels, click here.  A mix of current and historical can be found here.

May is National Preservation Month.

All fotos used with permission.