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Ten years ago, the WTC was incomplete, no supertalls/superskinnies were up, and Taurus was not yet Joker.
Miriam and the archway at Sailors Snug Harbor are all the same, although that dock is gone from there.
The 1969 Barbara McAllister is now Patsy K, operating out of the Gulf coast of Florida.
The 2003 Jane is now Anna Rose, and I’ve seen her in the boro a few times.
Amy Moran is now John Joseph.
Crow was in her last days here, and has been scrapped more than a half decade already.
Charles D. McAllister has now been five and a half decades in service and still working in the sixth boro.
Gage Paul was lost in transit after being sold overseas. Note the seaplane on the East River.
Last I knew, Buchanan 10 was laid up upriver.
In June 2012, I had the opportunity to tour USNS Apache near Norfolk. A few years later, Apache was the vessel credited with locating the black box of El Faro, after its tragic sinking.
Sharing the dock with Apache that day was USNS Grapple.
All photos, ten years ago, WVD, who is currently traveling again, out of tugster tower for an indefinite period of time, getting more indefinite every day. I have re-activated the robots, but we’ll see how reliable they are this time.
If Lyons NY sounds familiar to you, either you have lived near there (like me, 14 years) or you may have read references to the town on this blog, partly because it’s where Grouper has spent its past decade and where it still languishes.
All photos in this post were taken in Lyons NY, and are arranged from west to east. Lyons is home to two locks, the one below is E-28A and the rest of the photos were taken around E-27, right in the village. I’m not sure who the photographer(s) were.
Headed west out at the top of E-28A, an unknown tug (“c a m e r o” is written on the front of the wheelhouse) pushes a classic and well-painted wooden barge Martha Harrington, which is mentioned in a 1956 lawsuit here.
Moving a mile or so to the east, we’re looking eastward as Margaret Feeney heads west into the bottom of E-27. Looking through the open hatch of her barge, I conclude she’s moving scrap.
Now crossing to the opposite side of the canal and looking NW, that’s Margaret Feeney again with a long string of wooden barges. Recall that in previous installments of this series, the tugboats were almost exclusively moving steel tank barges with petroleum cargoes. Anyone recognize the fleet of tan-with-red-lettering delivery trucks on the bank?
These photos show the degree to which the canal–at least here–is behind the town, not what the town and its enterprises fronts upon. Another way of saying that is this: the space between the canal and the buildings is parking lot off the street where more traffic happens. Buildings don’t face the canal; they face the street.
This photo was taken from the Route 14 bridge. As Crow heads west with Hygrade No. 8, it waits for a string of at least a half dozen eastbound barges to clear. I can’t be sure, but there might be another tugboat in the lock and another above it. Hygrade No. 8 was involved in a 1938 lawsuit here.
The photo above and the one below appear to be taken only minutes apart, but from different vantage points. Feeney Girls seems to be clearing out that string of eastbound wooden barges while Crow waits. There is a current Feeney Girls, but that’s not the same boat.
Maybe a friend in the Lyons area can take some photos from the same vantage points to show how much the north bank of the canal near lock E-27 has changed. And maybe someone can help us out with a list of Feeney tugboats over the years.
While I’m asking for research help, here’s another request. I may have a “false memory” moment here, but I recall seeing photos of the many Poling tankers through the years. Tugboatinformation has some, but I thought I once stumbled onto more of them. I have information on some of them, but where would I have seen these photos?
Tugster did a series of Groundhog Day posts some years back, but they referenced the movie. For the rodent reference to today, watch this amusing but informative five-minute documentary.
Many thanks to the Canal Society of New York for permitting me to post these photos.
Tugster gallivants now and then. It turns out that Albert Gayer did the same thing, as evidenced by this very rich photo clearly taken from the Route 104 bridge crossing the Oswego River and Oswego Canal looking north toward Lake Ontario. Remember that the image enlarges when you double click on it.
The only constants–other than the water–are the cement silos to the left and the lighthouse center and above the stern of the barge. Too many towing companies had red livery, so I can’t tell if that tug is a Conners boat, with the mustard yellow stack, or something else?
Other details here, l to r; see the two straight-decker steamers to the left, i.e., the west side of the river. The outside one says Huron Cement on the hull. Along the distant horizon, that’s not land; it’s black smoke blowing to the right along the horizon emanating from a passing laker. Moving to the east side of the river, a ship with a tall mast has a gangway out and people are embarking or debarking. What would that ship be, government boat maybe? See the Mobil flying horse sign at the inlet where the marina is now? Guess that’s long been a fuel dock, and maybe the tug/barge will discharge fuel there? Has there been a lot of fill at the port, or is the land below obscured by that low-slung building?
See the black 1940s automobile on the open dock space, at a point where the tug and barge seem headed? That space is now occupied by a Best Western and Alex‘s. On the extreme right side of the photo below the top window, see the letters “Kni…”? Not many words or businesses in Oswego start that way in English. Today there’s a gym attached to a Clarion (?) hotel there. I love the guy in the hat and trench coat jumping the fence from his boat where a car is parked right around the corner of that building.
Here’s a rafted up set of boats, Sagamore, Cree II, and a barge B. No. 80, which certainly seems like Bouchard nomenclature.
This might be the same scene, slightly different time and vantage point at lock E-8.
Cree II pushes Hygrade No. 26 (or 28?)in westbound.
Cree is a 1938 Bushey boat, pushing Hygrade No. 5, I think. It was later Joan Kehoe.
This Crow is a 1938 build, sister of Cree above and Chancellor. Later Crow was Elsa Carroll, Kerry K. Kehoe, Osceola, and Kerri K. Obviously, This is NOT the Crow that operated for Donjon until about 10 years ago. That Crow’s last ride [May 2014] to the scrapper is here.
Bill Endter was a Morania tug, here
pushing Morania 180 westbound at lock E-14.
Let’s end this post with a Morania tug, I think No. 8.
All photos by Albert Gayer. His archives are one of many treasures maintained by the Canal Society of New York.
Any errors, WVD. Your corrections, additions, and comments are most welcome.
It’s January 31 or -1 February. since it’s a short month, it needs another day. The temperatures where I’ve been have been colder than -1 centigrade. So let’s do it . . . photos from a decade ago, February 2010. See the crewman in the netting dangling over the side of tanker Blue Sapphire? He appears to be touching up paint on the plimsoll marking. I wonder why I didn’t add this to a “people on the boro” series, which started in July 2007 with this. Today, the tanker is northbound along the west coast of Malaysia, and sailing as Marmara Sea. Oh well, stuff changes.
Here’s a fair amount of dense traffic: Norwegian Sea is eastbound, Conrad S westbound, and an Odfjell tanker is tied up at IMTT. Looking at my archives, I have a “dense traffic” series and a “congestion” series that probably should be collapsed into one series. May I’ll do that on a snowy or a rainy day. Dense Traffic goes back to February 2012 here, and Congestion series started in March 2011 here. Norwegian Sea has been renamed Miss Rui and sails for Smith Maritime Ocean Towing and Salvage Company. Conrad S is now Iris Paoay, leaving Davao in southern Philippines.
Cape Bird is getting lightered (or bunkered??) by Elk River and barge DS 32.
This was a congested scene as well; note beyond Cape Bird APL Sardonyx and Eagle Service with Energy 13502. Eagle Service is now Genesis Eagle (which on the radio sounds like Genesis Sea Gull). The 1995 APL Sardonyx is now just Sardonyx and is tied up in Taiwan. Maybe at a scrap yard? The 2003 Cape Bird is now Tornado and tied up in Lagos.
Crow is no more . . . having been turned into scrap like that loaded on the scow she’s pushing here.
Ever Dynamic is inbound under the original Bayonne Bridge, with Laura K assisting on the Bergen Point turn.
Gateway’s Navigator was a regular towing submarine sections between Rhode Island and Virginia.
Here’s Navigator towing Sea Shuttle, which may or may not have something under the shelter on the barge. Navigator is now Protector, out of New Bedford.
Arctic Sunrise was in the sixth boro for a Greenpeace “show the flag” event. Since then, she spent time detained in the Russian Arctic . . . the Pechora Sea. Later released, Dutch authorities took the detention to the World Court, and Russia was fined 5.4 million Euros over the detention.
All photos were taken by WVD back in February 2010.
The 2010 post had a photo from 2009, so let me start this one with one from 2010. This photo made the cover of a NYS Restoration publication devoted to boats, but I lent my copy to someone and it’s never returned. If you know the publication, please let me know.
OK, let’s see one more from 2010, taken from the same bridge, but closer to the bank and less zoomed. Lots of folks come to these Roundups, but the number of working boats that can get there is decreasing because of increasing air draft and the inflexible 112th Street bridge, which also wiped out the viability of Matton shipyard.
The Roundup always begins with a parade, and that used to be always (in my times there) led by Urger.
Cornell and spawn named Augie waited on the wall in Troy.
Buffalo is now in Buffalo, and in less good condition. Here‘s more info on her. She’s 53′ x 16’ and worked for the Barge Canal from 1916 until 1973. Originally steam, she was repowered after WW2. See her engine, a Cooper Bessemer, running here back in 2007.
Wendy B was the show stealer in 2010. She looked good and no one I spoke with knew where she’d come from. She’s a 1940-build by Russel Brothers of Owen Sound ON, originally a steam tug called Lynn B. More info is here but you have to scroll.
8th Sea is a staple of the Roundup, probably has been since the beginning. She was built in 1953 at ST 2050 by American Electric Welding. That makes her a sister to ST 2062, now in the sixth boro as Robbins Reef, seen here if you scroll. Here‘s a tug44 description of tug and captain.
Small can still be salty, especially with this innovative propulsion . . . . Little Toot.
As I said, one of the traditions of the Roundup is that Urger leads the way. Here, above the federal lock, the boats muster. And traditions are important.
The active commercial boats line up at the wall nearest the Hudson River, but when a job needs doing, they head out.
Since the Roundup happens just below lock E-2 of the Erie Canal, the thoroughfare for the Great Loop, it’s not uncommon to see some long distance boats pass by. All I know about Merluza is that it’s the Spanish word for hake.
What happened to 2011 you may ask? Irene happened and the Roundup was cancelled. We’re indebted to tug44 for documenting the damage of that hurricane in the Mohawk Valley.
All photos, unless otherwise attributed, WVD.
Back in 2010, I did four posts about the weekend, which you can see here. What I did for today’s post was look through the archives and just pick the photos that for a variety of reasons jumped out at me. A perk is each of the four posts has some video I made. One of these photos is from 2006.
Again, I’m not listing all the names, but you may know many of these. In other cases, you can just read the name. If you plug that name into the search window, you can see what other posts featured that particular vessel.
Below, here the pack that locked through the federal lock together make their way en masse toward the wall in Waterford.
You’ll see a lot of repetition here.
The photo above and most below were taken earlier than the top photo; here, Chancellor and Decker head southbound for the lock to meet others of the procession beginning in Albany.
2020 is Decker‘s 90th year.
Nope, it’s not Cheyenne. Alas, Crow became razor blades half a decade back.
Technically, not a tugboat, but Hestia is special. We may not have a functioning steam powered tug in the US, but we do have steam launches like Hestia, with very logical names.
You correctly conclude that I was quite smitten by Decker at the roundup back 10 years ago.
All photos, WVD.
And Shenandoah was not from 2010. It was 2009.
All photos today I took in May and early June of 2008. Odin, configured this was in 1982, is now known as Jutte Cenac, after considerable reconfiguration. You’d no longer look twice at her now, as you would back then.
Scotty Sky, the Blount-built tanker launched in 1960, was rendered obsolete on January 1, 2015 by OPA 90, and now calls the Caribbean home.
When I took this photo along the South Brooklyn docks, I had no idea that it was to become the Brookfield Place ferry terminal.
I had no idea until looking this up that Joan McAllister is the current Nathan G.
Juliet Reinauer now works as Big Jake.
For Lettie G Howard, another decade is somewhat insignificant, given that it’s been afloat since 1893. Currently she’s sailing up the St. Lawrence bound for Lake Erie. The NJ shoreline there has changed quite a bit, beginning with the removal of the Hess tanks there around 2014.
Crow was scrapped in 2015. I caught her last ride powered by Emily Ann here (and scroll) in May 2014.
And finally, back in 2008, this living fossil was still hard at work,
gainfully plying the Hudson. This Kristin was scrapped sometime in 2012.
All photos taken in late spring 2008 by Will Van Dorp.
Thanks to Tony A, whose previous contributions can be found here, here’s an insider’s view of a scrap ferrous metal run, starting with a view across the deep “hold” of the scow as it exits the Buttermilk heading for whichever of the sixth boro’s creeks has the product.
Once loaded, the scow is brought ship side.
Note the multiple load marks . . .
As the crane transfers the scrap into the hold of the ship, the tug may move to a safe distance or do another run. By tomorrow, bulker Nichirin will be arriving in Iskenderun, Turkey, 15 miles from the Syrian border and less than 30 from Aleppo.
Photos I’ve taken over the years of scrap metals runs include these of Crow, in blue and
in red.
And here I think it’s Sarah Ann doing a really efficient run.
Thanks to Tony for the top four photos. The bottom three are by Will Van Dorp.
And come to think of it, I wonder if the late great Crow has ended up in Iskenderun also….
You may recall that back in 2014, I often juxtaposed canal&river/rail in photos like the one below.
This post was originally going to feature only photos of the river and canal from the rails, like the one below, but
then I decided to pair photos from the train toward the water with the opposite: photos from the water toward roughly the same land area where the rails lay and the trains speed.
Train shots are difficult because of speed, coatings on the windows, trees and poles along the tracks . . . but I’m quite sure a letter that begins “Dear Amtrak: could you slow down, open windows, and otherwise accommodate the photographers” would not yield a positive response.
I hope you enjoy this attempt on my part. And if you ever have a chance to ride Amtrak along the Hudson, Mohawk, and Lake Champlain . . . sit on the better side of the car; switch sides if necessary.
Here we’re on the Livingstone Avenue Bridge looking south and
here we are south of it, looking north. Yes, that’s Crow, Empire, W. O. Decker, and Grand Erie passing through the open swivel.
Here’s the pedestrian bridge in Amsterdam
as seen from both vantage points.
The 1766 Guy Park Manor from a speeding train and
from the Mohawk River/Erie Canal, where post-Irene repair has been going on since 2011. Here’s a photo taken soon after the unusual weather.
Schoharie Aqueduct from Amtrak,
a slow boat, and
the east bank of Schoharie Creek.
Little Falls onramp to I-90 from rail and
below.
The rail bridge at Lock 19 from the span and
from west of it at Lock 19.
And these all east of Utica I can’t pair, but decided to include here anyhow: a dairy pasture,
a construction yard, and
a truck depot.
Maybe if I write that “Dear Amtrak” letter, I could just ask if the window could be cleaned a bit. If you’re going to try this, take amtrak when the leaves are off the trees.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who embeds this post from “Good Morning Gloucester” to reveal a bit of my past . . . 1988. Scroll all the way through to see a piece of shipwreck “treasure.”
Of course, there are little known gunkholes in the backwaters of the sixth boro where fossils–living and inert–float. This one is off an inlet behind one island and concealed by another, a place easily missed, and if seen, it gives the impression of being off limits by land and too shallow by water, near the deadly bayou of Bloomfield. But with the right conveyance and attitude, it’s feasible if you’re willing to probe. And the fossils have names like . . .
Caitlin Rose. I don’t know much, but built in Savannah GA in 1956? Relentless. She’s before my time here, but I suppose she’s the one built in Port Arthur TX in 1950.
I can’t make out all of the words here.
Ticonderoga is obviously playing possum. Only a month ago she doe-see-doed into the Kills with the ex-Pleon, the blue tug behind her,
a Jakobson from 1953.
Dauntless .. . built in Jakobson & Peterson of Brooklyn in 1936, was once Martha Moran.
From right to left here, Mike Azzolino was built for the USCG at Ira S. Bushey & Sons and commissioned as WYTM-72 Yankton in 1944. Moving to the left, it’s Charles Oxman . . .
was built by Pusey & Jones in 1940 and originally called H. S. Falk., and looked like this below, which explains the unusual wheelhouse today. She seems to have come out of that same search for new direction as David, from a post here a year ago.
The photo above I took from this tribute page.
The small tug off Oxman‘s starboard, i don’t know.
The low slung tug that dominates the photo here is Erica, and beyond here is a Crow.
Someone help me out here?
And as far into this gunkhole as I dared to venture . . . this one is nameless.
Oh the stories that could be told here! I hope someone can and will. Balladeers like Gordon Lightfoot could memorialize these wrecks in a song like “Ghosts of Cape Horn,” which inspired a tugster post here years ago. And looking at the last photo in that old post, I see Wavertree, which leads me to this art- and detail-rich site I don’t recall having seen before.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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