Random Tugs 407

I caught Gabby (?) trucking the other day.  

Some time later, I caught Gabby returning to her base, as Grace did the same.

Maddie K was southbound in the Upper Bay.

Haggerty Girls was at anchor with RTC 81 as Kristy Ann pushed RTC 80, likely toward the Gate.

Coral Coast pushed Cement Carrier 5300 out of the East River and into the North.

 

Mister T made fast to the flotilla of scows off Bayonne.

 

Earlier T had come out from somewhere.  Note the sea-miler Thomas in the background.

J. Arnold Witte, probably heading into the Kills with her scow,  took the stern of Driftmaster,.

I still register my almost catching J. Arnold several times summer ’23 in Port Colborne.

All photos, any errors, WVD.

 

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I started this series 16 years ago here, and it still satisfies me as a way to represent the never-ending sights of a port like the sixth boro.  Looking back at that link, I cringe at the quality of photos I posted back then, though.

No matter, we move on with Patrice McAllister,

Lincoln Sea, and 

William F. Fallon Jr.

And the list goes on.  I pause for a moment because all of these vessels I’ve now seen in different liveries.  They all have histories here, as does the city behind them.  Click on Lincoln Sea in the tags at the top of this post, and you’ll get photos of Lincoln Sea in contexts going all the way back to November 2006!

Douglas J and Coral Coast  . . . I can’t imagine what my perception would be if I first set foot in the boro today, and only now started to try making sense out of this panoply of work boats of a specific sort.   If I hadn’t started to study this traffic back in 2003, I’m not sure who I’d be in 2023.

Enjoy these few more from a short time sitting by the dock of the bay . . .  Cape Hatteras, 

Dylan Cooper, Laura K Moran, 

B. Franklin Reinauer, and

soon-to-rediscover. . .  Patricia Jean.

All photos, any errors, WVD.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 48B

Let’s go back a decade.  Then MSC Emma was on the west coast of Bayonne leaving town; now she’s on the west coast of Central America, leaving Lazaro Cardenas for Panama.

Above she was assisted by Gramma Lee T [now in Norfolk] and Margaret and setting up for the turn from Newark Bay into the KVK;  here we had almost gotten ahead of the trio of vessels.

A strange trio was in the sky

over the sixth boro. The piggyback rider is still in town, albeit likely to never fly again. More here.

Meanwhile, over in the Arthur Kill, a boring machine was placing charges in holes below the bottom of the waterway and connecting them to the stringy orange signal cord to blast when the time was right for them all to detonate at the same millisecond.  That day I touched some hefty but perfectly safe explosives, inert until the right signal is applied, which sounds like some folks I know.

More on “kraken” the bottom here.

Back then, I was spending a lot of early mornings near Howland Hook waiting for my work to begin, and I caught a Double Skin 37 moving bunkers

and maneuvered by Coral Coast.  Was that mechanical dredge Captain A. J. Fournier in the distance above?

The Joker was then a more sedate Taurus, before joining the hilariously-named over at Hays.

Put Tasman Sea into the picture too.  Is the Tasmanian still laid up in Louisiana?

And it was a great April 2012 day I caught the seldom-seen Patty Nolan

moving a houseboat into the sixth boro.  Patty seems to be preparing for a comeback.

And the 1972 2325 teu Horizon Navigator, here with Samantha Miller alongside,  was still working.  Is the 1972 container ship still intact?

And let’s wind this up with Ellen and Maurania III returning to base after a job.  Ellen is still in the sixth boro, and Maurania III is in the Delaware.

All photos, WVD, April 2012.

Entirely unrelated, check out these Smithsonian photo winners.

 

 

Sixth Boro Details 11

Just photos will appear here today, and I realize I’m contradicting that statement by writing this sentence and the others.  However,  inspiration was failing me, so I decided this post should be not photo-driven, but photo-dominated.  Names are provided in the tags.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday started sunny, but then clouds moved in.

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Saving fuel . .  . Foxy3 has Rae alongside and they’re passing a wall of a hull, or is that a hull of a wall….

Coral Coast is usually on a cement barge, but not now . . . .

Can you name that tugboat?

Let’s do regression, with Foxy3 and Rae approaching that tanker hull.

Double Skin 36 is what Coral Coast is pushing.

Name the tugboat pushing DBL 82?

Notice Foxy3 and Rae and SKS Mersey they’ve just passed?  Progression going on here with Mount St. Elias and

Coral Coast, whereas

the Fox boats are regressing.

 

All photos, WVD.

Unrelated, and a bit late, but do you remember the “green boat” below, AQS Tor?  It  was deck cargo lost off a yacht carrier Eemslift Hendrika abandoned off Norway earlier this month.  Click on the image to see the disposition.  More AQS here.

 

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As you know from some earlier posts, those red morning skies . .  they mark my favorite times.

Here Coral Coast with Cement Transporter 5300 has just departed the dock with Ruby M‘s assistance.

 

Soon afterward, Sapphire Coast arrived with Cement Transporter 1801, and assisted

by Stephen Dann.

Later in the morning, Sarah Ann pushes scow Michelle D.

Durham moves deck barge Arlene, bound for some work in the East River.

Harry McNeal returns with barge 1962 to IMTT to continue the job there.

Nicole Leigh stands by with RTC 135.

Pathfinder delivers empty garbage containers from the railhead to the marine transfer station.

Charles D. returns from Earle.

And finally, departing IMTT,

Genesis Victory gets an assist from Normandy.

All photos, WVD.

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Take a camera and an hour and a half,

hang out at some point along the KVK,

if it’s cold then bring some hand and boot warmers and a thermos with hot tea,

monitor the scan function on your hand held,

and wait.  Soon there’ll be some traffic. Snap away.

Winter is a better time than summer for photos because of the clarity

of the air.

A wise man once told me that New Yorkers don’t really have to travel, because the world

travels past them.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 212

After about 3600 posts and almost 11 years, I’ve concluded my titling is based on a flawed assumption, i.e., nothing is random or generic except such things as our understanding.  Another way of saying that is . . . everything has a specific context.  A better title for this post would be something like tug/barge units between Kingston-Rhinecliff and Bear Mountain Bridges on such/such date with various sceneries related to autumn in the case.  But, I’m not switching so bulky or to re-title everything, so on we go;  life has no first drafts.

Having blabbered all that, I just have to say the Hudson Valley is a beautiful place, and the creations of our work in it serve to complement the natural beauty.

Consider Delaware and DoubleSkin 50.

 

Or Coral Coast and

Cement Transporter 5300.

 

Sarah Ann and Cape Wendy.

And Haggerty Girls with

RTC 107, with birds rounding Bear Mountain . . ..

 

Here’s a closing look.

All photos and sentiments by Will Van Dorp.

 

Other Peoples Photos 57

Thanks to all of you who send me photos.  M & M McMorrow sent this photo taken at Atlantic Highlands just before Christmas.  And yes,

Delta is the best Christmas red. I can’t seem to find a tugboat in the NMFS.NOAA registry called just “Delta.”   Someone help out?

Richie Ryden took these photos just before New Year’s, sending them along with the note “I took these pic’s on 12/28/16 on the Hackensack River between Rt 3 east & west Bridges , It looks like they a are rebuilding the marina there !!! I saw Reliable from Coastline Marine Towing out of Belford NJ  switching barges empty for a full one with old pilings on it ! look at your blog all the time keep up the good work !!!! Happy New Year !!!!”

Happy New Year, Richie!  And I have to admit I can find nothing about previous owners of Reliable also, although the late great John Skelson had a photo of her from a while back sans the upper house here.  Richie’s photos also helped solidify my image of what this vessel looks like compared with another Reliable that languishes up on the Oswego Canal. 

Jed sent me this photo just after the start of 2017 with the note “Happy New Year from Maryland.  Here is your first tug of 2017, the ten-year-old Belgian Union Grizzly that I saw on the Scheldt in 2012.”   Thx Jed.  And since that time, she’s sent a half dozen more photos of European tugboats, which I’ll post soon.

And Tyler Jones must be losing his patience:  he sent me this photo back on November 1, and I still have not put it up.  What I love about this photo, Tyler, is the fog giving the impression that Coral Coast pushing a cement barge upriver at Poughkeepsie  is weightless, floating lazily on the clouds.  Thx much, Tyler.

Jan van der Doe periodically sends me photos from Canadian Lake Ontario ports.  He didn’t identify this boat although I’m wondering if it’s Lac Manitoba, which capsized on the Ottawa River back in June 2015.

In Hamilton harbor, here’s (l to r) Florence M, Tony Mackay, and James A. Hannah.   Hannah is a sister of Bloxom, the cover model for my documentary about the Arthur Kill graveyard and the most intact tugboat in the graveyard on the Arthur Kill.

And finally, on December 12, here are more McKeil boats tied up in Hamilton.

Thanks much M & M, Richie, Jed, Tyler, and Jan.

 

 

Gallivanting to the Rondout

In the drizzle, BBC Alabama awaits cargo in Port of Albany.

Pocomoke transfers cargo,

Brooklyn heads south,

Hudson Valley sentinels keep vigil no matter

how much rain falls,

Doris hangs with Adelaide,

as does Coral Coast with Cement Transporter 5300,

Strider rests from striding,

Union Dede docks at a port that 10 years ago was sleepy,

HR Pike (?) rests on rolling spuds,

Saugerties Light houses B&B guests,

not far from Clermont, home of the father-in-law of the father of steam boating on the Hudson and then the Mississippi,

Comet pushes Eva Leigh Cutler to the north,

 

Spooky‘s colors look subdued in the fall colors, and

two shipyard relatives meet.

 

Will Van Dorp took all these photos in a 12-hour period.