Other Peoples Photos 91

Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON.  In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy.  Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.

Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses.  Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.

Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine, 

and two more I took in September 2019 in

the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals.  Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist.  Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.

Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold

can be tricky. 

Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island.  Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots. 

Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.

Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . .  sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . .  it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina. 

Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro. 

Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . .  the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.

Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class;  the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind.   If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave. 

Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver.  I have lots more photos that you’ve sent.  If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.

If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working.  This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life.  I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.

 

Freshwater Ice 1

Almost exactly a year ago, I did a saltwater ice post here, and I’ve done related ones here. So since the article I wrote last year about a huge ore-carrying Great Lakes ATB is out and you can read it here, how about some photos that didn’t make it into the publication.

Above and below, ATB Clyde S Van Enkevort and Erie Trader find themselves a day and a night’s steaming north from Detroit, nearly at the north end of Lake Huron, where the cold air is creating sea smoke.

ATB Olive L. Moore and Menominee (I’d better be right or I’ll hear about it.) wait on the west side of DeTour Reef Light. Mackinac is not quite 50 miles to the west.

At Detour Passage, we depart Lake Huron and enter the St. Marys River.  Sault Ste Marie and Lake Superior are 75 miles up this river.  Ice forms more quickly on the shallower water.

Off the stern we look back at Lake Huron.

Crew prepare the landing gear.  Landing gear, you say?  Hold that question, I say.

On a turn, we meet CSL Assiniboine.

I think we are envied.  Unlike the two previous years, so far this 2020 winter . . . ice is “weak.”

Near Sault Ste Marie, we meet Wilfred Sykes, and the Sugar Island ferry crosses our bow, Sykes‘ stern.

WTGB-101 Katmai Bay is busy assisting in keeping the river open.

Recall I mentioned landing gear? . . .  technically it’s a landing boom, a quick way to get crew onto the lock to assist with the “locking through.”  In the earlier photo, ice was being removed from boom and its line, so that the line would run free but controlled to get the crew safely down the 20 feet or so to the chamber wall.

See the crew walking alongside the barge?  Out ahead, that’s a bay of Lake Superior.

As we head across that bay and ultimately into Superior, we pass Kaye E. Barker, who’s heading downstream for the Soo (or Sault) locks.

All photos by WVD, who’ll post more photos of the trip soon.  And I’d give a big shout-out to the captain and crew of Clyde for their hospitality and help with the article.

I’m still looking for someone who might get a photo of that exotic ship coming into the sixth boro early this month.  But I also still don’t have a firm ETA for that vessel, Decisive.

 

Random Ships Along the St. Lawrence 2

In the narrow channel of the SLSW leading between Lake Ontario and Montreal, you can see salties and lakers fairly close up, as you can in the St. Clair area.

Enjoy these.

A bright day with fluffy but unsettled clouds enhances photos.

 

Most of these boats I’ve seen before, as you can trace by clicking on the tags.

Flevoborg is an exception, as

is Miena Desgagnes, a cargo vessel whose destination can be seen

by its cargo . . .

See the HardRok sign on the truck door?

Ditto this one . . .

 

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who will compose another batch of posts when next I have wifi.

Unrelated, who goes deepest?

Late Season Lakers 1

Ice causes major disruptions, like the ones in Troy NY this morning.

Most of my previous posts featuring lakers were ice-free.  Even ones from a road trip I took specifically to see ice were ice-free.  Alpena had just lost her icy jacket.

Yet, I’m fascinated by navigation through the ice.  These photos give a sense of two weeks ago;  not it’s worse although most of the navigation has ceased here for winter hiatus.  I caught photos of CSL Assiniboine about 50 miles from here last September.  I love the curve she makes here in the icy St Marys River.

The classic Wilfred Sykes makes the turn down bound out of the Soo, where wind turbines catch power on the ridge. I’ve seen her before, but these are the first good photos I’ve gotten.

You can hear Sykes here in this video from almost two years ago, as she becomes the last laker to depart Escanaba with a load of ore.

And finally, for this installment, these shots of Ojibway in the Poe Lock show

what locks in winter look like.

As she heads down bound, she passes USCGC Katmai Bay WTGB-101, the first of the 140′ ice breaker class,

a 40-year-old vessel based in the Soo.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Between the Upper and Lower

“The road goes on forever and the  . . . [journey] never ends . . ..”

Robert Keen’s lyrics are slightly adapted here . . .  The Straits of Mackinac is a tempestuous place with random seeming currents;  note all the shipwreck symbols on the chart below.

Along the way, we pass Federal Mackinac.  I’m not sure what those conical-tipped cylinders are.

Off the stern, White Shoal Light sinks

out of sight . . .

 

Traffic goes on and on.

Here Erie Trader gets

powered by Clyde S. VanEnkvort.

 

Here a 49-foot Buoy Utility Stern Loading vessel leaves the St Ignace port

and heads for the Straits.

Meanwhile, CSL Assiniboine heads for the Straits and

Lake Michigan.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.