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With digressions behind us, let’s resume the journey. In part 4 we descended from the level of the Mohawk at Rome NY into Lake Ontario, approximately 248.’ Canadian pilot boat Mrs C meets us not far from the entrance to the Welland Canal at Port Weller, so named for the lead engineer in building of the first iteration of the Welland Canal.
Below lock W1, Alouette Spirit tied at a dock. The mover is Wilf Seymour, a Canadian-flagged former Moran-owned Texas-built tug I’ve met on most trips here since 2015. I’ve seen her on locations between Lake Huron and the St Lawrence just up from Quebec City. Click here to see her being loaded with ingots.
ITB Presque Isle occupied the Port Weller Dry Docks.
So that you can get a sense of how ungainly this ITB looks out of the notch, I’m sharing this photo thanks to Jeff Thoreson of Erie Shipping News. Usually she’s in the notch and considered a 1000-footer.
Exiting lock W1 was China-built Algoma Mariner, whose bow shows the effect of operating in ice.
Notice how narrow the Welland is here, with less than 100′ between Grande Mariner and Algoma Mariner.
For more info on the Welland, click here.
I drove through Port Colborne–at the 571′ level of Lake Erie–a few years ago, but seeing the names of the shops here, I’d love to stop by and wander. I’m not fanatical about pies, but Jay the Pie Guy sounds too tasty to pass up. Check him out on FB.
Four months ago, I posted photos from Clayton NY on the dead ship tow of the former traversier aka ferry Camille Marcoux. Here’s what she looks like now after the
skilled carving tools of the workers at Marine Recycling Corp in Port Colborne.
See the scrapping in the upper right side of the photo, here the pilot steps off and we enter Lake Erie, turning to port for Buffalo.
After an hour-and-a-half run, the grain elevators of Buffalo welcome us. Seeing the blue G, I can already imagine the smell of the Cheerios plant.
Near the entrance to the Buffalo River, I spot NYPA’s Joncaire II tied up near the merry-go-round. I’d love to see her at work managing the ice boom. I don’t see Daniel on the bow, but I believe the full name is Daniel Joncaire II. ??
Over in Silo City, two older Great Lakes tugs–Washington and Vermont— await between jobs. Of course, they still work. The combined age of those two tug is 195 years. YEARS!!
Silo City may not sound all that exciting, especially for folks who know farms, but this complex made Buffalo and forged a link with another boom city . . . . the six boros of NYC. I like the quote here that it was grain elevators and the nexus of the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal that led Buffalo to surpass London, Rotterdam, and Crimea as then the #1 grain handling port in the world. I also recently learned about the influence the grain elevator form had on modern architecture a la Gropius.
Check out this Gropius design.
A few years ago, I’d never consider exploring Buffalo, and I have so many other photos that I might revisit the city on tugster, but for now, I suggest you go there too and
stop at Buffalo Harbor Museum, Pierce Arrow Museum, and Swannie’s, for starters. I started from Erie Basin and walked to all of these in the same day.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
This is the third of three digressions before getting on with the account of my trip west.
The saga of SS Binghamton started in 1904,
and I last saw it from land on January 6, 2017, when demolition was said to have started. Demolition had started but defined as “asbestos abatement” by the alien looking figures clustered near the tender and the stack.
As a relative newcomer in the sixth boro, I first set foot on the ferry in 2011, when some thought a chance still existed to save her or parts of her. I’ve also been holding off doing this post in hopes that more photos of the demolition process would surface. I hope I can still do another post if such photos emerge. I would have been there, but I was on my trip west.
The next two photos I took on July 16 from the water, the last it turns out.
Paul Strubeck took the photo below as he passed by about 10 days later when the stack had just been removed . . . as in a decapitation.
Only a few days later, Glenn Raymo took the next two shots from the Walkway over the Hudson, rubble going up the river.
Here’s a TV commercial once intended to attract patrons to the now gone restaurant.
Thanks to Paul and Glenn, more of whose work is available here.
This is the second of three digressions I’m making from the GWA series, and what a digression it is.
How can one postpone posting these photos of the largest ever single unit transported by barge down the Hudson! And with outstanding photos like these. By the way, the first two, by Glenn Raymo are available to purchase here.
I post about this cargo, which has been covered extensively on FB, because not everyone enters the labyrinth called FB.
Two of the same tugs made the high profile tow to Rochester via the Erie Canal earlier this year as seen here.
When this tow entered the Kills, many hours later, the passed the salt pile, where Brian DeForest took these shots.
Click on the photo below to read the banner, part of which says “union built in the USA.”
Hats off to all involved. Many thanks to Glenn and Brian for photos I couldn’t chase.
Click here for more prints by Glenn.
Previous photos of Mister Jim here, CMT Otter here, and Helen Laraway here.
Here was the first post with this title, from almost 9 years ago! But for the first image of Cheyenne, I can go back to February 2007 here.
Anyhow, less than a half hour after leaving the dock in Port Newark, she rounds the bend near Shooters Island,
departs the modified Bayonne Bridge,
exits the KVK for the Upper Bay and North River . . .
and a half day later, shows up in Poughkeepsie, as recorded by Jeff Anzevino and
Glenn Raymo.
Jeff and Glenn, thanks. Uncredited by Will Van Dorp.
And Cheyenne, tugboat of the year but not present then at the 2015 Tugboat Roundup in Waterford . . . she’ll be there this year on her way to a new home a good 1000 nm to the west. Here and here are my photos from 2015, which already seems long ago. I’ll miss the Roundup this year because I’ll be eastbound on the waterways from Chicago, but there’s a chance we’ll pass Cheyenne on the way!!
Is she the last Bushey tug to leave the sixth boro? If so, it’s a transition in an era or something . . . .
Safe travels and long life in the fresh waters out west.
Many thanks to William Lafferty, who has things to teach me about research. He sent along this Agfa black&white photo version of
this photo below that I put up a few days ago . . . Here’s what he writes: ” the mystery vessel at Milwaukee is the Leona B., built by and for the Advance Boiler and Tank Company (founded in 1919 and still with us, although located in West Allis now). I believe Advance still owns the property on Jones Island where you saw it. It was used for welding repairs at Milwaukee and nearby harbors. The image shows it while still afloat and operating, a mere forty years ago. I believe it was purchased to be converted to a tug to shuttle coal barges in Milwaukee harbor, but proved unsuitable for whatever reason for the conversion. The firm bought the Hannah tug Mary Page Hannah (third of that name) and renamed it Leona B. for the coal shuttle.
When I research Jones Island, I learned of a new (to me) ethnic group who settled here as a fishing village: Kashubians. Here’s something of Kashubians from an extraordinary obituary for a son of the island . . .
In my fishing tug post the other day, here was a photo of Islander. William writes: “Attached is a photograph (Agfachrome!) I took of the Islander in 1992 at Sheboygan while it was still working. It appears to have been ridden hard and put away wet quite a few times. The Islander, launched 16 November 1936 and took off for Washington Island two days later where it fished for Albert Goodmander, was a product of the Sturgeon Bay Boat Works, earlier called the Palmer Johnson yard. It had a 45-bhp Kahlenberg (and maybe still does).”
Looking at Islander 1992 and 2017, it’s hard to imagine the type of sport luxury yachts they produce today (in the Netherlands!)
One could spend lots of hours looking at and for the siblings (like Bascobel, which saw its end of the graveyard featured in Graves of Arthur Kill in Rossville) of John Purves, product of the shipyard in Elizabeth NJ across from Howland Hook. William writes: “The regal John Purves thirty-eight years ago at the Bultema dock (now Andrie) at Muskegon. It was named for Captain John Roen‘s right hand man, and every owner afterwards kept the name out of respect for Mr. Purves, a Sturgeon Bay boy.” Here’s more on Roen.
Finally, once more . . . I’m looking for more images of the McAllister boat below. ” M. L. Edwards was built at Chicago in 1923 as a 60-foot steel steam-powered coastal freighter for upper Lake Michigan service, and served for McAllister for about forever. ”
Credit for photos as attributed.
Thanks a lot, William.
First, thanks to Joseph Chomicz . . . it’s Rebel and Dolphin over by the Philadelphia Navy Yard . . .
Quo vadis, Rebel?
And the second batch comes from Ingrid Staats with likely the most unusual backstory ever on this blog . . . Ingrid took the photos from a room in New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where her healthy baby was born. She writes, “We had an amazing view of the East River and for four days as Mom & babe recuperated. I amused myself by capturing as many tugs as possible.” Congratulations to all and here they are:
Sea Lion above moving recyclables and and Evelyn Cutler pushing petroleum product.
TJ and Catherine Miller . . . and is TJ really doing all the work here?
And finally . . . Navigator light and Gulf Enterprise pushing a petroleum barge westbound.
Many thanks to Joseph and Ingrid for these photos. And I’m happy to hear that one of the next generation of tugboat watchers has been born.
Again, these photos come via Jan van der Doe from Vianen at the Merwedekanaal, and taken by Huug Pieterse from Arkel and Leo Schuitemaker from Klundert. By the way, Klundert became a city in 1357!
Noorderlight dates from 1941. I’m not sure which small tug she’s towing.
Wiepke, 1946.
Zuiderzee, 1930.
Maartje Anna, 1923.
Finally, for now, Noorman, 1939.
Many thanks to Jan. I’m working on catching up. All these photos–today’s and yesterday’s–were taken in the second half of May.
These photos come via Jan van der Doe from Vianen at the Merwedekanaal, and taken by Huug Pieterse from Arkel and Leo Schuitemaker from Klundert. By the way, Klundert became a city in 1357!
I’m making an attempt at matching these up with some basic info. So Storm dates from 1909 and David from 1947.
Harmonie is 1919,
Jan, 1917; and
Guardian is 1926.
Elizabeth . .. I don’t know.
I have many, many more photos from Jan to catch up on, and will try to do so. What always amazes me is how many restored tugboats/yachts there are in the Netherlands.
and they skip the sixth boro…. They were in New London some years back and here too . . ., but 2017 has gone from Charleston to Bermuda, and from there to Boston, Quebec City and Halifax . . . All these photos come compliments of Sean McQuilken…
And in order, it’s Libertad, who once long ago in 1969 called at South Street Seaport, here (and scroll) to deliver some original spars for Wavertree ,
Oosterschelde, the 99-year-old,
Alexander von Humboldt II, (the oldster of this set, albeit one with a major reinvention),
El Galeon, whom I first saw in San Juan,
Lynx,
When and If, who traveled the Erie Canal a few years back to get worked on on Seneca Lake, all great ships . . . Maybe one of these years, Wavertree and Peking will join in the fun . . . just maybe… And Peking has its share of adventure awaiting it this summer, with loading anticipated now early in the second week of July.
But I won’t be in Boston, because this weekend is also the mermaid’s conclave . . . and I head to the heartland and off the grid right after that . . .
Again, many thanks to Sean for these photos.
Really random means just that . . . so that’s start with this one, Tutahaco, YTM-524, which has recently been hauled out of the water between Daytona and St Augustine. Michael Schmidt took these photos back last winter.
She worked for a time in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The next two photos come from Allan and Sally Seymour, whose twotugstravelin’ blog was mentioned in yesterday’s post. Kathleen Turecamo (1968) is a staple these days in the Port of Albany.
A bit farther north on the Hudson in Troy is the footprint of NYS Marine Highway Transportation Company. Pictured here from r to l are Margot, Benjamin Elliot, and Betty D; built in 1958, 1960, and 1980, respectively.
The next photo is from Kyle Stubbs, who writes “the original JOVI is still around. The simple answer is yes, and she’s quite a ways from the Sixth Boro, now taking up residence in San Diego in the service of Pacific Tugboat Service as the JAG. I’ve attached an image of her I took this past September.” Kyle sent the photo along in response to a question about Lil Rip I’d posted here some years back.
George Schneider picks up the Lil Rip‘s origins question here and sends along his own photo of Jag, to wit ”
I was very suspicious of the story she was made from part of a Liberty Ship, since hacking up something like that just to make a push boat didn’t make sense. But somewhere along the lines, I realized the LIL RIP was registered at 54 feet long. I found a Liberty Ship was 57 feet wide, so that’s perfect, considering they had to cut away some of the “stern” for the propellers, so the registered length would be a few feet shorter than overall.
That gave me a reason to believe the reputed origins of the boat were true. It makes even more sense, because if you realize the scrap yards generally had no drydocks or slipways, they’d cut a ship like that down to the tank tops while it was afloat, then somehow had to dispose of the double bottoms. Sometimes they just took them out and sank them since it took so much extra effort to clean and cut them up. But in New Jersey, whose coastline is inland, they probably had to cut them apart and lift them ashore, and voile! What a perfect hull to build a pushboat on!
So I’m wondering if anybody has added more to the comments on that day’s page. If anybody has ever seen her “on the hard,” they might have measured her across the deck, and if that measures a perfect 57 feet in length, I’d say that’s pretty close to proof. I looked up the liberty ships sold for scrap 1961-64, and none were scrapped in Elizabeth NJ, nor were any scrapped by her owner.
But several deceptive things are at play here: 1) A ship sold for scrap was not legally reused for anything, so the title to something made out of the pieces couldn’t reflect the original vessel. 2) If the ship wasn’t sold for scrap, was “Sold for Non-Transportation Use’ which was also sometimes authorized, she might not have been included in the list of vessels scrapped, and 3) Vessels were often bought by distant companies, then found the vessel couldn’t practically be towed to their scrapyard, were sold or contracted to other companies for scrapping.
As for the question of the original JOVI (283905), she kept her name long after the JOVI II, working for various East Coast companies, but then made her way out here to San Diego, where she now works. She has worked as TUG JAG, then KODAK, and now simply JAG. I’ve attached, unfortunately, the best and only digital photo I’ve taken of her. You can reproduce this any way you’d like.”
Now I’m wondering about Logan and Mate. Logan shows in the NOAA registry as built in 1974 and formerly called Kodak, Jag, and Guppy. Mate doesn’t show.
Sarah D (1975) worked for White Stack, Turecamo, and Moran (each bought out the previous company) before coming to NYS Marine Highway.
And finally, once again out and about in the sixth boro, it’s W. O. Decker, the 1930 wood-hulled tugboat of South Street Seaport Museum.
Click here for some of the dozens of posts I’ve included Decker in.
The last three photos are by Will Van Dorp; thanks to Michael, Allan, Sally, Kyle, and George for the other photos.
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