New Hulls, Lines, and Liveries

Flux.  “Everything changes and nothing remains still; and you cannot step twice into the same stream.”  Heraclitus said that, or maybe he did not, but I’ve attributed it to him before.

Click here for the 1966 Charles Burton and the 2010 Charles Burton.  Above and below, that is the one from 2010, but the missing “V” in the nick in the green band suggests a livery change soon.

Over on the KVK, I first thought I was seeing one specialized barge, but

a closer look shows that CMT is getting not just new tugs but also new barges, CMT Y Not 5 and 17.  I hear tell there are more new ones also.

The ship is not new:  Polar Colombia dates from 2017.

But with Polar Colombia and Polar Peru both calling in the sixth boro in the same week,

I read that as a new line or at least new Hamburg-Sud names on their North-South trade?  Polar Colombia has already departed the sixth boro, called and reloaded in Costa Rica, and is heading back north!

Zhong Gu Shan Dong appears to be a new direction.  The ship dates from 2007 and it’s small . . . only 3400 teu, but it is registered in China.

Maybe a Chinese-reading person can translate both the vessel name and the characters on the hull?

But some of the containers are interesting, with Zhong Gu Logistics (upper left corner of the green containers) being something I’ve not noticed before.

Even more interesting to me, nerd of nerds, is what’s on the brightest orange containers . . ..

Alibaba.com!!  I know they are huge, but do they have their own shipping containers now?  Here’s more on Jack Ma‘s  Alibaba Group, including the name origin story, which I’ll quote below.

All photos recently, WVD, who’s always seeking novelty.

Here’s that story:  “One day I was in San Francisco in a coffee shop, and I was thinking Alibaba is a good name. And then a waitress came, and I said do you know about Alibaba? And she said yes. I said what do you know about Alibaba, and she said ‘Open Sesame.’ And I said yes, this is the name! Then I went onto the street and found 30 people and asked them, ‘Do you know Alilbaba’? People from India, people from Germany, people from Tokyo and China… They all knew about Alibaba. Alibaba — open sesame. Alibaba — 40 thieves. Alibaba is not a thief. Alibaba is a kind, smart business person, and he helped the village. So…easy to spell, and global know. Alibaba opens sesame for small- to medium-sized companies. We also registered the name AliMama, in case someone wants to marry us…”  quoted from here.

Thanks to Barrel 4

Since he worked for 35 years on the Delaware, Barrel has a lot of photos from there, including Brooklyn McAllister (1986 and McAllister’s first tractor tug),

Charles Burton (1967 and now painted red, I believe),

Ensign (1977), and

of course, Big Daddy (1954).

 

All photos from Barrel, whom I thank.

Delaware Traffic

I’d seen McFarland before . . . once at the dock stern out and another time anchored in the middle of the night on Delaware Bay, lit up like a parking lot.  I’m so thrilled that I’ll run a series of her . . . .starting with the USACE dredge passing Pac Alnath.

A first sighting for me . . . Charles Burton.

Back to McFarland . . . one of four ocean-going hopper dredges operated by the USACE.  Can you name the other three?

. . . Nanticoke and Peter F. Gellatly, both pushing Vane barges.

Huge turntable on McFarland.

Chief . . . I believe the 1979 built vesel.

From this USACE publication, I like this statistic:  a full load of dredged materials McFarland carries equals the capacity of 310 dump trucks.

Just before sunrise, she steamed by . . . and passed B. Franklin Reinauer in the city of Benjamin Franklin himself.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

The other three dredges are Wheeler, Essayons, and Yaquina.   For comparison info about the four, click here.  For Bert Visser’s directory with fotos of all the large dredgers in the world, click here.

For a post on Delaware River tugs from 2010, click here.  What I’d like to see one of these days is the loading of livestock down in Wilmington.    Currently, Falconia is at the dock;  I saw her from the highway on Friday.

Vane Brothers 2

According to the family history here, they started with schooners and currently, besides oil, they push water and do more.  Monday I caught Susquehanna standing by along the KVK as container vessel Zim Shenzhen hurried for its assignation in Port Elizabeth.

The following four pics come from Jim Demske, who’s worked for Vane for over twenty years as Captain and is now Port Captain in charge of “New Tug Construction.”   Elk River entered service mid-summer 2009, just a little over six months after Sassafras did.

Seabart sends along a link to the 23 August issue of Tugs Towing & Offshore Newsletter with a short piece about the Charles Burton launch:  see page 4/12 of this link.  Charles Burton is sibling to Elk River and Sassafras.

Compare wheelhouse of a Sassafras class with

that of Vane Brothers largest class–Brandywine.  Click on boatnerd’s site here for pics of Brandywine’s first splash in early 2006 at Marinette Marine in cold  Wisconsin.  These folks also built the Molinari class Staten Island ferries.

More Brandywine and its mate Double Skin 141 here, loa 480′ and capacity of 145,000 barrels, also built in Wisconsin.

Jeff Anzevino took the next two fotos, Potomac of the Patapsco class, operating in the icy

Hudson north of Poughkeepsie.

Like the lead foto, I took this one.  In this case,  Patapsco thrusts forward and divides Hudson water in the Great North River race in 2007.  Beyond Patapsco are Lucy Reinauer and Nathan E. Stewart.  The two cruise ships mostly visible are Norwegian Spirit and Norwegian Dawn.

Again, special thanks to Jim and Jeff for use of these pictures.