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.

Random Tugs 334

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.

 

Random Tugs 302

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.

Random Tugs 247

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.

Random Tugs 171

Continuing with a record of random towing vessels encountered along the “go west” route, let’s pick up with HR Pike, another low air draft tug formerly associated with the GE cleanup.

I’m not sure what the cargo here is, but this vessel lacks any hint of sheer.

Here’s what I believe is a fleet mate of HR Otter . . . Helen Laraway.

See how much has changed about the operation in Coeymans, if my claim of 18 months ago here was correct then.

Otter and Laraway both operate out of the port of Coeymans, a former brickyard that has become a booming hub for staging shipment of construction materials. Pun intended.

I’m guessing that it won’t be long before Otter gets painted to match Pike, its older sibling by one year.

Just north of the port of Coeymans Coral Coast is standing by at the loading facility for the quarries at Ravenna.

 

And in this Hudson River shoreline setting that bears resemblance to a jungle, south of Albany, it’s a USACE spud barge and

pushboat Sentinel II.  Sorry I don’t know any more about its project.

The banks up north of Catskill are magical, as seen here with morning fog and Olana, the Persian palace of Frederic Church.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to get back this way again later this summer.

Really Random Tugs 32

Here were the previous in this series.

The first three photos here come from John “Jed” Jedrlinic, whose previous contributions can be found here.

Coral Coast is a venerable 3000 hp 45-year-old, like some others I know, although they might not see all that horsepower as complimentary.

photo date 8 FEB 2011

Katherine, same horsepower, is nine years newer.

photo date 8 FEB 2011

This Michael S is based in Port Canaveral, where Jed took this photo.

photo date 4 MARCH 2011

Harry Thompson, whose previous contributions include this one, sent this along of Russell 11 (I believe that’s eleven, not two) compliments of his brother.  Does anyone know Russell 11‘s years of service?

And the rest of these come from Barrel, who has sent along many others I will share this month.

Tug Bay Hawk dates from 1942.  Thanks to Birk’s site, here’s some info on her.

Here’s Crowley’s Ensign on the Delaware River, 7200 horsepower.   Here and here are tugster posts of similar Crowley tugs.  In the distance, that looks like a Vane Brothers tug.

Teresa McAllister, 1961,  was most recently on tugster here.

And to close out today’s post, it’s Tenacious, now a 55-year-old freshwater tug.

Many thank to Jed, Harry, and Barrel for these photos.