You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Cuyahoga’ tag.
For your quick peruse today, I offer the inverse of yesterday’s post: I went to my archives and selected the LAST photo of something water-related each month of 2019. So if that photo was a person or an inland structure, I didn’t use it; instead, I went backwards … until I got to the first boat or water photo.
For January, it was Weeks 226 at the artificial island park at Pier 55, the construction rising out of the Hudson, aka Diller Island.
February saw Potomac lightering Maersk Callao.
March brought Capt. Brian and Alex McAllister escorting in an ULCV.
April, and new leaves on the trees, it was CLBoy heading inbound at the Narrows. Right now it’s anchored in an exotic port in Honduras and operating, I believe, as Lake Pearl.
A month later, it happened to be Dace Reinauer inbound at the Narrows, as seen from Bay Ridge.
June it was MV Rip Van Winkle. When I took this, I had no inkling that later this 1980 tour boat based in Kingston NY would be replaced by MV Rip Van Winkle II. I’ve no idea where the 1980 vessel, originally intended to be an offshore supply vessel, is today.
July . . . Carolina Coast was inbound with a sugar barge for the refinery in Yonkers.
Late August late afternoon Cuyahoga,I believe, paralleled us in the southern portion of Lake Huron.
Last photo for September, passing the Jersey City cliffs was FireFighter II.
October, last day, just before rain defeated me, I caught the indomitable Ellen McAllister off to the next job.
November, on a windy day, it was Alerce N, inbound from Cuba. Currently she’s off the west side of Peru.
And finally, a shot from just a few days ago . . . in the shadow under the Bayonne Bridge, the venerable Miriam Moran, who also made last year’s December 31 post. Choosing her here was entirely coincidental on my part.
And that’s it for 2019 and for the second decade of the 21st century. Happy 2020 and decade three everyone. Be safe and satisfied, and be in touch. Oh, and have an adventure now and then, do random good things, and smile unexpectedly many times per day.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who will spend most of tomorrow, day 1 2020, driving towards the coast. Thanks for reading this. Maybe we’ll still be in touch in 2030.
Sam Laud came into the Cuyahoga just as I was about to go on . . . but I did get some pics.
This gull surveyed the maneuvers.
Tell-tale red dust covers the hull.
Note the small motorboat between the two ships . . . at Sam‘s bow, and
the crew boats racing through as soon as they could.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Because of a cold brisk wind, I shot some of these through glass, which is never a good idea. But looking at this set, taken between Belle Isle and Sarnia, illustrate the variety of lakers, all in a context of not a single recreational vessel, something you’d never see in summer.
Select info from the excellent boatnerd site says this: launched in 1943! from American Shipbuilding in Lorain OH, Cuyahoga was sold to Canadian interests in 1995, cargo capacity of 15, 675 tons, 620′ x 60′ and converted from steam to diesel between the 1999 and 2000 seasons. She’s the second oldest Canadian vessel on the Lakes, younger only by a month than Mississagi.
Note the house forward and boom pointing aft.
Tecumseh (641′ x 78′) is also a Lower Lakes Towing Ltd. boat, also built in the US . . . in Seattle at Lockheed Shipbuilding in 1972. Because she has no self-unloader, she discharges her maximum 29,510 tons of cargo using shore gear. For more info, click here at boatyard. [Autocorrect always wants to replace my “boatnerd” with “boatyard.”]
Robert S. Pierson is the last Lower Lakes boat in this post. It too was built in Lorain OH, in 1973 and was sold and registered Canadian in 2008. At 630′ x 68′ she has a capacity of 19,650 tons. Of course,by now you’ve noticed her house is aft with her self-unloader pointing forward. Much more detail can be found here.
Hon. James L. Oberstar was launched in 1959. At 710′ loa, only a handful of boats on the Lakes were longer, including the Edmund Fitzgerald at 729.’ She was lengthened to 806′ between the 1970-71 seasons. A self-unloader was added between the 1980-81 seasons. In 2008, she was repowered, replacing a steam turbine with a diesel. Her cargo capacity is 31,000. Again, much more info can be found here. Notice that in contrast with Cuyahoga above, Oberstar has house forward and self-unloader boom pointing forward.
The white steam is evidence of the emissions scrubbers pioneered on Oberstar in 2016, and now visible on other Interlake Steamship boats like Paul R. Tregurtha and James R. Barker.
CSL Tadoussac, already in winter layup and light here, has the same basic configuration as Oberstar, but is less curvaceous. She was launched in 1969 in Collingwood ON but extensively rebuilt before the 2001 season. Currently she is 730 x 77′ and has cargo capacity of 30,151 tons. Her namesake is an early settlement dating from before Jaques Cartier on the St. Lawrence downstream from Quebec City. Boatnerd has her complex her here. Alice Oldendorff is part of the very diverse CSL fleet.
To round out this post, let me add a tanker. Truth be told, I include this photo here partly because of the dramatic difference in scale between the ship and the tanker truck alongside. I’m not sure what product the trailer tank is there to deliver or receive.
Algoma Hansa was built in Mobile AL in 1998. She entered Canadian waters for the first time in 2013, and for the past few years has worked mainly in Algoma’s domestic fleet. Is it correct to assume the Canadian fleet relies more on tankers for what in the US is transported by large ATBs?
Let’s leave it here. I hope you’ve enjoyed these comparisons as much as I have.
All photos and information interpretation by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for any errors.
Oh, and if the Tugster Tower internet wizards sent you a puzzling 404 error message in lieu of yesterday’s URL, try this: https://tugster.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/late-season-lakers-1/
I’ll delineate a new region here . . . the Greater Strait of Mackinac, 20 of so miles on either side of the bridge.
First we met Michigan with its barge Great Lakes. To see her light and still sporting the AMOCO logo on its stacks, click here and scroll to 6/21. Photos from 11 years ago.
Calumet was crossing under the bridge westbound. Little did I know we’d cross paths again soon. More on that later. Here are previous locations I crossed paths with Calumet.
Then Cuyahoga allowed a great profile view until
we got a 3/4 stern view. Note the steering pole on the bow, like a bowsprit.
The next two were Indiana Harbor and
Mobile Bay.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
To repeat what I said yesterday, this was supposed to be a visit to get photos of tugs and ships in ice. The Cuyahoga may be quite cold, but no ice . . . .
This shot is taken from the Carter Road Bridge looking toward Collision Bend and the bug venues.
Under the Rte 2 Bridge, Alpena awaits her 76th season! She makes me feel young!
In resplendent light last summer late, I caught her heading northbound mid-Lake Huron.
Again, I imagined ice; two weeks earlier and I likely would have seen it.
The yellow of the water makes more vivid the yellow of her hull.
Some crew is maintaining boiler pressure.
And when the season begins, Alpena will back out of this dock on the old river, turn to port and head back to work for her 76th season.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who looks forward to seeing her steaming on the Lakes again this summer.
Previous Cleveland posts on tugster include this and this with laker Buffalo, and this with–among other things–Iowa towing Sea Eagle II up the Cuyahoga. There are others also if you just use the search window.
I missed the ship at first, even though I was looking for it. Then its slow steady movement caught my attention. Behold the bunker carrier Buffalo in Cleveland
steaming upstream without tug assist, although it has thrusters. There’s 68′ beam of this self-unloading bulker winding her way upstream.
See the green-domed clock tower on the ridge? On the photo above it’s just to the left of the bow mast of Buffalo. That’s Westside Market.
See the West Side Market on the map below? And the red line in the river heading its way under the Detroit Avenue bridge? That was my location for these shots. Destination was somewhere near the red circle below. Imagine shoehorning a 634′ ship through here?
And whatever reputation the Cuyahoga had a half century ago, there’s river life stirred up here, as evidenced by the gulls. Anyone know what draws the gulls?
The folks in the apartments on the ridge (along W 25th Street) must have an enviable view of this traffic. Invite me to visit?
Again, what amazes me is the absence of tug assist. And learning to pilot this . . . I’m impressed. See this location in a time-lapse at 11 seconds in this short video. And the outbound leg is done stern wise, as seen at about the 6:00 mark in this video.
Cleveland . . . I’ll be back.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who posted the first of this series here. See a bit more of Buffalo on the Cuyahoga here.
After a seiche sped us from Buffalo to Cleveland through the night, morning found us under the Cleveland Memorial Shoreline Bridge, down where the Cuyahoga flows. Cuyahoga, to most non-Clevelanders of my generation, connotes a many times burning river of the past.
Here’s a reference to that time on a sign inside the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. I never visited Cleveland in the 1960s or ’70s, and without these opportunities to visit now, I’d have imagined it a possible setting for a Philip K. Dickesque dystopia. As a caveat, let me say upfront that I’ve not lived in Cleveland, so this post is based on impressions gleaned from reading and quick visits like this one. But
this has to be the most unexpected postscript to any predictions made in 1972.
Believe it or not, this working Iowa is 102 years young.
All these photos–except the one directly above which I took on July 4, 2016–were taken in a few-hour period of time in late July 2017.
Restoration indeed, and with the collaboration of Cuyahoga River Restoration, cuyahoga arts & culture, and ArcelorMittal.
Yet commerce goes on. It does not have to be “either-or-or.” A 634′ Buffalo weaves through what must be a captain’s nightmare to get to the steel plant under the corkscrew path of the Cuyahoga.
Simultaneously, a 630′ Manitowoc exits the Old River after having taken on a full load of road salt for Milwaukee from the Cargill Salt mines extending far under Lake Erie.
For both watch standers, this has to be an ordeal of concentration.
And a waterway already juggling commercial vessels and recreationalists, trains are another factor; all small vessels lined up as one train after another cross this bridge move expeditiously once the lift rises.
My early 1970s self would never have imagined 2017 Cuyahoga’s mouth, although
Still, I believe the effort is worth it.
All photos and sentiments by a gallivanting Will Van Dorp.
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