Summer Sail 5

Danmark, a 90-year-old full-rigged ship, is in town again.  She first came here in 1939 for the World’s Fair.

South Street waterfront of Manhattan then was a very different place, as of course was the whole city and world.

I’m not sure where she berthed back then.  A year later, after her homeland was invaded, she stayed in the US (Jacksonville FL for starters) because she had no homeport to return to.  In 1942, she was temporarily commissioned as a USCG vessel.

The brightwork is impeccable, as

is the gilt work.

Rigging like this is dense as a jungle, yet it’s all functional. 

And many of the current crew of Danish cadets, four of whom are mostly hidden but busy in the image below, 

were busy polishing the brass.

I’d love to see how the figurehead is polished. This figurehead has appeared on this blog once before back in 2007.  To see Danmark underway sail-powered, click here.   For a guided tour of the ship, click here. 

Meanwhile, I recently spotted another sailing vessel, one I’d not seen before, S/V Red Sea.  Thanks to Michele McMurrow and Jaap Van Dorp for the identification, although they called it by different names, they were both right.  For some backstory on this well-traveled schooner, click here. 

She’s arrived in the sixth boro from the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan.

 

Some Danmark photos, thanks to Tony A;  all others, WVD.  Enjoy the last day of summer 2022.

 

Other Peoples Photos 103

Thanks to Tony A, behold Patriot Marine’s Mulberry, still in the USAV livery from when she was ST-914. 

Photos are from New Haven, a port I’ve not visited, and with those raked masts . . . that appears to be Amistad along the shore in the distance.

I’ve looked unsuccessfully online for a list of USAV ST-900 series tugboats.  Anyone help?

Also, McCormack Boys has worked locally, ie, in the sixth boro, recently.

Here Boys tows some dredge equipment out of the KVK, as seen from a different angle.

Still another from Tony, Crosby Trojan appears to have done some assist work while in the sixth boro on its way to Maine. Trojan is currently enroute between Maine and Narragansett Bay.

 

I’m not sure which Genesis energy unit she is assisting.

And to close out this post, here’s an extraordinary set: USS Yorktown ( CG-48), a Ticonderoga-class cruiser being towed in the direction of the breakers in Brownsville by Miss Rui, which folks in the sixth boro might recognize as the former Norwegian Sea, and tailed by Annabelle Dorothy Moran, appears to be delayed.  As of this writing, she might be heading back to Philly.

Photos thanks to M’r Polychrome, who just happened to be transiting the area.

Miss Rui had been laid up herself near the Philadelphia Navy yard for some time before being purchased and rehabbed by Smith Maritime Ocean Towing & Salvage.

Many thanks to Tony a and M’r Polychrome for sending along these photos, extraordinary all.

Bafflin’ BigLift Baffin

You might be wondering what that is . . .

so let me bring it closer in increments.  Of course, you may remember similar sights waiting in Gravesend previously, like here. 

What’s different this time is the company carrying the new cranes.  Big Lift . . . you might remember them from the yellow-hulled “Happy . . .” vessels, like the recent Happy Dragon . . . also has two MC-class ships.

BigLift Baffin is currently waiting in the offing for her appointment.  What was baffling for me is their AIS showed Pebble Island as their destination.  The only Pebble Island marine facility I know is in Tennessee.  There’s also a Peebles Island, near where I’ll be on Saturday, but this vessel would never get there either.

Guess her beam?  Answer below.

The vessel was built in China in 2016, but the Liebherr ship to shore (STS) megamax container cranes were built near Killarney, Ireland.

It was still at its anchorage this morning when a Dutch captain passed by outbound and shared these of a vessel from his familiar Amsterdam.

I’m not sure when she’s coming in.

Last two photos from Capt. Van Geenplaats;  the others, WVD. 

BigLift Baffin is 567′ loa x 138′ beam, with 56,500 square feet of cargo area.

 

Other Peoples Photos 102

I’m always so grateful when folks send me photos, especially like all of these.  Tony A catches all kinds of boats I miss, like

Anne-Sofie earlier this month in Albany.  I’m not sure what the cargo in and/or out was, but these SAL vessels get around.   Does anyone know if that “float” center just under the crane hook serves as an outrigger for loading/unloading crane movement?  As of this posting, she’s already in Genoa.

Here’s more from Tony . . . Dimuro Clark had been Turecamo Girls for over half a century and appeared on this blog many times. 

 

I like their logo.

And finally, long-time reader and sometimes contributor, Tommy Bryceland sends these photos of a local boat–which appeared in yesterday’s post–far from homewaters,

with guided missile frigate and ex USS Boone on the hip in Campbeltown Loch in Scotland last week.  Atlantic Salvor towed it there from the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  The ship is expected to be used as a target in an upcoming live fire exercise out in the Atlantic Ocean.  Would the frigate be anchored during such an exercise?  I’m imagining it’s expected to sink upon termination of the firing.

Many thanks to Tony A and Tommy for sharing these photos.

Caitlin and Prometheus’ Cargo

Let me interrupt my “out of the bayou” aka “regular programming” posts to a) announce my return to the sixth boro and b) update you on some exciting cargo that arrived in the sixth boro earlier this week.  For the first 4 photos, I’m grateful to Benjamin Moll, since I had not yet returned here when he took those.

But first, do you remember 20 Barges, the post about a delivery of that many barges on a barge in June 2016?  This is similar. Tradewinds’ Caitlin came into the sixth boro with barge Prometheus, seen below.   Prometheus is a large 300′ x 100′ barge that came to the sixth boro at least once before and reported on here, back in spring 2019.

Two tugs also tagged along as cargo.

 

Eastern Dawn provided the assist.

I took the rest of these photos.  By the way, as of today’s posting, Caitlin and Prometheus are still in town, over by the Weeks yard.

The new vessels will operate for the Haughland Group. More on Haughland tomorrow before I return to my Gulf of Mexico reporting.

Sarah D was assisting over at Weeks yesterday.

 

Many thanks to Ben for sharing his photos. Some previous posts with Ben’s photos can be seen here.

Any errors can be pinned on WVD, who provided the last four photos.

 

Other Watersheds 17B

You know from the previous “other watersheds 17” that this is the Amazon, so look at the color of the water.  If you want to read a scholarly article–albeit an old one–check this one out.   If you want to see satellite photos of the mouth, where this silty freshwater mixes with the ocean, click here. Keep in mind that way upriver, freshwater from the Amazon also fails to initially mix with freshwater from its tributary, the Rio Negro.  The non-mixing phenomenon can also be seen where the Ohio and the Mississippi meet, seen here [scroll].

Recall these photos were taken by my daughter, and I’m glad she took photos like this one below.

One town where she stopped was Mazagão Velho Novo. 

I find the lines on these Amazonian boats quite unusual, although I’m thinking they must be of traditional Portuguese design.

My daughter was studying marketing of forest products, including wood.

Small local farmers brought their crops to market by small boat, so she took photos like these to document what appeared on the docks.

I’m not sure what the bundles of sticks in the foreground were, but bananas are familiar, and these nuts are.

The dark fruits are açaí, a palm fruit.

I wish I’d gone along with her on this trip, because these boats are intriguing.

RORO of an open sort traveled the big river.

As you’d expect, larger cargoes moved on barges pushed by tugs like this,

like Milton Cesar, and then cargo ships travel a thousand miles up the river  to Manaus

necessitating big tugs like Merlim and Excalibur, which curiously list

port of registry as Paranaguá, 2000 miles away as the birds fly.

All photos thanks to my daughter.  Since she speaks Portuguese, maybe she’d be interested in returning there as my guide.  This may be the last post for a while.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 15

At least two other dredging projects are happening in the sixth boro simultaneously.  The one in the Buttermilk Channel  came to my attention because of the following two photos taken by Captain Malcolm of  schooner Pioneer.

Neither this tug–Miss Gloria— nor the dredge were ones I was familiar with. Miss Gloria is a 2003 Rodriguez Brothers tug operated by Marquette, and plenty of other Rodriguez boats work the sixth boro, and Marquette boats have been here before as well, mostly involved in dredging projects.

Malcolm’s photos intrigued me enough that I decided to come out for a night sail on Pioneer;  it had been far too long since I last had done that, especially given Pioneer‘s role in my starting this blog to begin with:  I’d been volunteer crew on the schooner before I started the blog, had taken lots of harbor activity photos, and then created this blog as a means to share those photos. 

Here’s a one-photo digression then for a photo I took more than 16 years ago from another vessel of Pioneer–black hull–and Adirondack sailing together in the Upper Bay at dusk. Although both are schooners, over a century of age and shipbuilding materials development and some very different history separate them.

To return from this digression, the following photos I took of the Great Lakes D & D dredging in the Buttermilk, photos i took after Malcolm suggested I put my feet back on Pioneer‘s deck. More photos of that lovely evening to follow.

I also have not shared photos I took of outstanding GLDD equipment I took in March. Click here for a January 2022 preview. 

Miss Gloria was elsewhere, but Smith Predator, who’s been doing dredge spoils runs the past few weeks, was standing by as a dump scow was being filled. I’d seen Smith Predator on AIS, and with a name like that, it had attracted my attention, but to date, I’d not gotten a good clear photo, only very distant ones.

 

Thanks to Captain Malcolm for the first two photos and the suggestion to come sailing;  all others, WVD.

More photos from the Pioneer sail to follow.

Thanks to Tony A 34

I’ve previously cited the line about eight million stories in the naked city, a reference to a 1948 movie and subsequent TV show.  More on all that at the end of this post, but for now, with the sixth boro added in, I’d double that number . . .  16 million stories in the naked city, considering all six boros.   And thanks to Tony, here are a bunch of stories from the past few days that I’d otherwise have missed entirely.

An Italian destroyer visited the sixth boro, D-554 Caio Duilio.

A Maine purse seiner Ocean Venture came through.  I caught her coming through the boro here two years ago. 

More on Ocean Venture can be found here on pp. 20-23 of March 2021 of National Fisherman.

And there’s more . .  all from the past week, name that tall ship with the flag of República Dominicana?

That’s Weeks James K in the foreground. 

So here it gets confusing;  it appears this DR training ship barquentine is called Cambiaso.  She was acquired from Bulgaria in August 2018.  However, it’s possible that for a short and unrecorded period of time, the same barquentine carried the name Maria Trinidad Sanchez.  What happened?  Was that simply a delivery name, or am I still showing effects of my time in the heat with the alligators while the robots attempted a coup?

That being said, along with a DR training ship, there was also another DR naval vessel.  Do her lines look familiar?

Vintage?  Where launched?

Today she’s known as DR’s Almirante Didiez Burgos.  But at launch in Duluth in 1943, she was USCGC Buttonwood, a WW2 veteran and now flagship of the DR Navy.  She reminds me of USCGC Bramble, which I saw way back when on the St. Clair River. After an epic journey from Michigan to Mississippi for refitting by a private individual, she might now be scrapped.

All photos by Tony A and shared with WVD, who feels privileged by this collaboration. 

I also think, given the reference to Naked City, that moving pictures producers should revisit the concept of a Route 66 series, incorporating Charles Kuralt’s influences.   Want the season 1 episode 1 of Route 66?  Click on the image below and prepare to go back in time for good or ill!  It’s disturbing watching.  Season 1 episode 1 provides some backstory about how a “broke” Manhattan kid came to be driving a 1960 Corvette.  Hint:  Hells Kitchen, the East River, barges, and bankruptcy are all involved.  A luminary of the series was screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, a name I should have known earlier. 

And to give equal time to Charles Kuralt, watch this 8-minute segment on wooden replica vessel building in Wisconsin.  Watch highlights as the boat builder, Ferd Nimphius, works on his 113th build.

 

 

Earth-on-Water Day 3

Since I’m not yet out of the bayou, and since Mage–who might need some cheering up– requested it, here are more photos from the currently ongoing flower parade on the waterways of Westland, a section of the province of South Holland in the low country aka Netherlands. 

Hey . . . they brought out the king, or as the Dutch would say . . . the “koning van rock n roll.”

Since this blog is called tugster, and should NYS Canals do such a parade for the 200th anniversary of DeWitt Clinton’s trip, THIS is a role to play for small tugs, whether private of NYS owned. 

In Westland, even local professionals get involved. 

How about another shot of a small tow boat.  By the way, is that a cheater tug with an excavator in the background of some of these photos?

I’m not even sure who might have sponsored some of these “floats,” but they do make me proud of my Dutch heritage with its attention of aesthetics and tolerance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have another push boat in the mix. 

 

And let’s end with a string of floats towed by Walrus, another small tugboat.

Thanks to Jan for sharing these, to Mage for requesting more yesterday, to my friends at NYS Canals for paying attention, and to you all for reading.

Every day that passes, I’m closer to a lot of things, including getting out of the hot bayou near Avery Island. Click here because I know you know Avery Island.

 

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Earth-on-Water Day 2

If you hop on a plane today, you might still catch the last two days of this flower parade in the land and specific region of my father;  my mother grew up farther east on the Rhine. Here’s an English version of what’s going on;  Westland is a region connected by waterways, not a town.  Here’s a map, and here’s info on the boats. I’m going to send this blogpost to my friends at the NYS Canals, because I think the integrated boat/bike/camping event is a worthy model for Canals to study.  

With my limited WiFi, I post these for you to enjoy.   Let’s start, of course, with a prime mover, a small tugboat mentioned in an earlier post comments as an opduwer.

I’m guessing this float was sponsored by an automobile dealer who sells US vehicles. 

The range of themes surprises me. Note another small tugboat.

 

I love this one.  

Actually, I love them all. 

And given my current long stay in the bayou, I had to include this.

I have a few dozen more photos, if you indicate interest in seeing more. 

Many thanks to Jan van der Doe for sending these along, more photos of a summer festival in another place, maybe not entirely different than the mermaid parade, which I missed last weekend.  Imagine if NYS coordinated a people’s event of this magnitude in 2025 to fete the 200th anniversary of the year DeWitt Clinton made the 10-day journey from Buffalo to NYC to unite the fresh and salt waters.