Mixed Sixth Boro 1

The sixth boro and other harbors have those vessels that seem to hide in plain sight.  Maybe it’s more accurate to say these craft, like the one below,  are visible but their usage might not be so clear.   

Here’s how Annie Moore gets described:  “a utility vessel for the National Park Service designed to transport national and international VIPs to the Statue of Liberty.”   That’s vague and not vague at the same time.  Who are these national and international VIPs, I wonder. 

Here’s more:  “to transport VIPs, official passengers, supplies and equipment to Ellis Island from Battery Park, New York, NY.”    Only Battery Park?  Some contradictions exist in these two pubs.

As many questions as I have with Annie Moore, when HOS Browning came back into port after some days offshore, I have even more.

 I know what the boat does, but I crave specifics.  For HOS Browning, I’d like to know where they went, why that location, what specifically was accomplished with which tools and to what end . . . .

In port, what and who leaves the ship and what and who comes aboard?  Maybe that makes me a landlubber with too much time on my hands . . . .  Who are the crew?

See the name on the bow of the high speed vessel below?  Clearly, it’s not THIS Sea Vixen,  but somewhere in the weapons “kit” carried on Ro8 HMS QE is an enterprise called Project Vixen, involving aerial drones, and named for the de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen carrier-based fleet air-defense fighter.  

Technically, the vessel above and below is a 43′ PTB, a personnel transport boat, and  “the HMS Queen Elizabeth class will each carry four PTBs made by Blyth-based company Alnmaritec. Each 13.1 m (43 ft) long PTB carries 36 passengers and two crew to operate the vessel.”  Find more photos here.

The PTB seemed to be flitting all around the boro, checking out the sights.  Who gets to ride the Sea Vixen and who the larger sixth boro-based PTB, whose name I didn’t catch.

Why those sights?  Had HMS Prince of Wales come to town as planned, it would have had evolved PTBs, such as the one here. 

All photos, any errors, WVD, who’s always looking for novelty.

New Exotics, New Names

I’ve done “new hulls, new names” and “old hulls and old and new names” and “new hulls, lines, and liveries.”  Sorry I could not have come up with more streamlined nomenclature.

But I hope, as always, you enjoy these photos all taken on an ideal last day of summer.  If summer has to end, this is the way to see it . . . no wind, low humidity, and clear skies.  Polar Circle came in two days ago here, and I was too far away and detail was lost in the early afternoon haze, but yesterday I caught her before she returned to the Long Beach anchorage.

I’m guessing she took on supplies here after an almost seven-week voyage from Busan.

She’s big but Cape Wraith tempers that size.

Miss Madeline came in on Prometheus just over a month ago, although she had a different name then.

As I said, yesterday was the perfect time and place to see her close up.

 

Welcome, Miss Madeline and crew.

 

All photos, last day of summer 2022, WVD.

 

Random Sixth Boro 12

It’s hard to beat morning light for drama, as is the case here with QM2 getting assisted by James D. and

Doris Moran into her berth in Red Hook, as I shoot into that light.

Taken only a few minutes later, this photo of FV Eastern Welder dragging the bottom in front of the Weeks yard had me shooting with the rising sun behind me.

Bayonne dry dock is full of business.  Note the formerly Bouchard tug Jordan Rose and Cape Wraith off its bow.  I’m not sure which Miller’s Launch OSV that is.  To the left, that’s Soderman.

Hyundai Speed and Glovis Sirius shift cargo.

More shooting into the light here toward Bay Ridge, where lots is happening.

Torm Louise‘s color just looks cold.

Afrodite has been around the world several times each year since the hoopla of her moving Bakken crude from Albany has subsided.  Note the unidentified formerly Bouchard tugboat to the extreme left.

 

And with the drama of morning light, wild clouds form the backdrop to three tugboats seeing CMA CGM Pegasus out the door on a windy day.

All photos earlier this week, WVD, who feels fortunate to live in a place like this where my drama exists only in photos.