Sixth Boro Diaspora

You might have known that I had the good fortune to gallivant most of last week, and it’s tough to gallivant without recording some images.   I took several hundred photos, and not only of boats and ships.  As with infants, humans in unfamiliar places detect patterns, familiar details.  

Pattern recognition kicked in when I glanced across the Mississippi toward the Algiers side and saw Bouchard colors, although a little digging yielded info that Robert J. Bouchard, name notwithstanding, is now a Centerline Logistics vessel.  I suppose she’ll be painted soon.  Robert J. has worked in the sixth boro, but the most recent time she appeared on this blog was over 12 years ago here.

Dann Ocean colors are also familiar, but the profile is as well.  Rodney is one of several formerly Moran boats dating from class of 1975.  Rodney at one time was Sheila Moran. Of that same class, Moran’s Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen and Moran’s Joan is now Dann Ocean’s Roseada.  There may be others I’m unaware of, like the barge Carolina.

 

“Diaspora” refers to those who depart from a location, and they should be distinguished from the incoming (I’m wondering if there’s a word for them more general than immigrant) .  And as I understand it, Courageous, downbound here a few days ago on the Mississippi, was on its delivery and will be arriving in the sixth boro early this week, maybe today.  I didn’t notice her on AIS, but FB reports her departing Charleston SC for the sixth boro yesterday, Sunday. She’s sister vessel to Commodore, involved in a mishap this past summer.

 

I’d never have guessed that Crescent’s Miriam Walmsley Cooper had a sixth boro connection, but a little digging shows the 1958 boat once worked in the boro as Harry M. Archer M. D., an FDNY  boat. Anyone have a photo of her in FDNY colors?  Was she single screw already then?

 

I saw a pattern in the photo below because another formerly huge Bouchard tug saw transformation in the same drydock, Donna J. Bouchard to Centerline’s Robin Marie.

As it turned out, this was the former Kim M. Bouchard, now to be Lynn M. Rose.  Her eventual appearance will match Susan Rose.

And it appears that next in line for rehab and transformation, Robert J. will become a Centerline vessel as well.

All photos last week, WVD, who is happy to be back in the boros, any of the six.

Gallivants are intended to stimulate change, a path forward for which I’m seeking.  How strange it was then when I exchanged business cards with a Nola gentleman yesterday and his card was in the form of a Tarot card;  it was Death, the Grim Reaper signifying imminent major change in one’s life.  The old has to die for rebirth to be possible, like with plants.

Speaking of change, the calendar year too is about to change and in preparation, I recently created a 2022 calendars, of which 15 are left for sale. I’m expecting the shipment will arrive at Tugster Tower shipping office today. More details later but if you’re interested, email me your interest and your address. Send no money at this time, please, but prices will likely be up a tad because, of course, (fill in the blank here with your favorite scapegoat).

Unrelated:  Grain de Sail is back in the boro, their third time calling here in less than a year.

Other Peoples Photos 91

Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON.  In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy.  Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.

Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses.  Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.

Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine, 

and two more I took in September 2019 in

the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals.  Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist.  Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.

Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold

can be tricky. 

Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island.  Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots. 

Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.

Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . .  sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . .  it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina. 

Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro. 

Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . .  the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.

Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class;  the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind.   If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave. 

Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver.  I have lots more photos that you’ve sent.  If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.

If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working.  This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life.  I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.