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Here are my posts from June 2 and 3 last year. It was the day Maltese Falcon stooped across the bay with all sail set, sending the orange boat in the foreground to flee in panic, as if prey.
Crew on the barge pushed by the McAllister tug to the left clock it at nearly 20 knots before
she douses her sails, at the push of a button and cruises past a Blue Marlin in Day 12 of a prolonger loading.
It took ten more days to have the load secure for departure. A day-by-day report of that loading process is in the “Tale of Two Marlins” link to the left. Since that trip last June, two more Dockwise vessels have taken US equipment over to West Africa. Today, Blue Marlin is anchored off Malta, Maltese Falcon at the dock in Genoa, the former Reinauer tugs work off Nigeria. So far I’ve gotten no response to requests for fotos from Nigeria.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Outbound at 0800 this morning, Swan took a turn past the Statue before leaving. Foto by John Watson, who is himself outbound for a while.
Out of luck I was in guessing the timing, so I got this view as Swan was outbound for the port of Luba, I’m told. Luba is on the island now known as Bioko, which
I once knew as Fernando Po, a rare place in Africa where Spanish is the official language. I hope the Atlantic Salvor folks got some good fotos of Swan headed out.
Yacht Justice (1930) is an outstanding survivor.
I’ve know idea what this trio of military/interdiction go-fast boats are, bt they are turly out-of-the-ordinary.
Also, out-of-the-ordinary for the sixth boro is Dewaruci, in port early for OpSail, arriving here on Wednesday. Dewa Ruci appears to be a character in a wayang puppet story. I’m looking forward to their marching band. Over near the Red Hook side, that’s Pioneer.
And this is the start of leg 2 of the Atlantic Cup race, outbound for Newport this morning.
Over a dozen teams have entered boats.
Possible leader, pending resolution of a protest) at the end of leg 1 (of 3) is this boat.
Oh yes . . . out of focus! !@#@!! And I loved the composition.
And finally . . . these folks are really outbound to a place even less known . . . maybe than Luba.
I love the hammock and banana bunch here. For some fotos of Avatiu, click here. For really outstanding fotos from there, click this one.
Picton Castle stack logo is quite outlandish.
First foto by outbound John Watson. all others by Will Van Dorp.
Any guesses what’s driving the tempest here?
gCaptain posted a great story about a pizza delivery . . . and a bone for the the ship’s dog Alley. What’s this then? What resolve will Alley summon among its crew?
The crowd awaits, as
Smit Amandla stretches the line nearly to the breaking point for two straight hours. Imagine the fuel bill for 16,000 hp chrning at load for 120 minutes! More on Smit Amandla here. And here. Her sister ship, Wolraad Woltemade was broken up at Alang just two years ago. See a foto of her awaiting her fate here.
But inch by inch, and without incident,
the trawler makes for deeper water.
Might the hero here really be Alley?
Once roused from its slumber on Clifton Beach and safely afloat, Eihatsu Maru takes a stroll into the harbor with Ocean Pride.
And as a treat, let’s have a look to see who else is in port today?
Over there, anchored beside Smit Amandla . . . this orange vessel . . . no it just can’t be . . . Super Servant 3?!@#@!?? Dockwise is everywhere these days, it seems.
Many many thanks to Colin, who put all his more productive impulses on hold in order to snap these shots and share the story. Bravo to the towing team, the pizza delivery guys, the crew, and . . . of course . . . Alley, ship’s mutt.
Time for some of that pizza and tea, Colin?
And two posts in one day . . . I’m not going to make that a rule, but this news couldn’t wait.
Note the Crowley props and the orange-clad crew. Doubleclick enlarges image.
Note the huge design difference between Socrates (1966, 3200 hp) and
My question is this: what is the actual weight added to Swan by these five tugs, one barge, and one crewboat? Does the load change the draft of Swan at all, given that she like any vessel is ballasted as needed? And I do not know the answer.
For outatowners, these shots from Bay Ridge show the “west” end of the Verrazano Bridge. Yesterday’s fotos were taken from the bluff more or less just above the white dome of the lighthouse.
And for this foto, I pivoted slightly toward the south, capturing both towers of the Bridge. Entering the Narrows is a ferry and dredger
Terrapin Island, which as recently as two and a half months ago was sucking up silt from Jed’s coast in southern Georgia.
All fotos this morning by Will Van Dorp, who probably has one more installment on Swan. For the title, my apologies to Marcel Proust.
(Note: Doubleclick enlarges.) The title . . . those were the exact words John Watson emailed me last night. If the message had been “hawk is down” . . . or “condor …” it would have alarmed me, but instead I charged my camera so that right after work I could zoom over to Fort Wadsworth for these shots. By one, I found Alert loaded onto barge BFT No. 38, which
was already on Swan. Gabby Miller was present, of course. Lined up on the Brooklyn side was a cast of characters identified as
Cavalier, Pioneer, and Mars . . . in custody of Charles D. McAllister.
The three Crowley tugs glided onto Swan‘s back, extending beyond the hull on
both sides.
For outatowners, that’s Manhattan in the distance looking across most of what’s called the Upper Bay. The Lower Bay is behind me, as is the Verrazano Bridge. On the right is the boro of Brooklyn. The red tugs are Charles D. McAllister and McAllister Sisters Girls.
If you wonder about my shifting POV, the tide turned from ebb to flood during loading, and with it a bank of fog crept in and out, several times.
Next on board . . . Socrates, who in spite of the fog, found
a place midships, starboard.
This left space for
Heron! It’s not quite Noah’s ark, but I’m hoping Bowsprite will find a spare moment to drawing this vessel with its cargo almost as diverse as that of Pi Patel.
Loading completed, Susan Miller glides by. No doubt Swan has already begun to deballast to rise back up, and tomorrow the menagerie onboard Swan will be high and dry. After that, next stop, Nigeria.
I include this foto for outatowners. The vessel farthest left and most distant is Swan; I took it on the ferry about halfway back to Manhattan. Land to the right of King Emerald is Staten Island.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Some related posts include Mighty Servant loaded last December, Blue Marlin loaded a year ago, and Socrates last summer . . seventh foto down.
We spend so much of our lives waiting. I guess it’s one of those unavoidables, like taxes and death . . . Ineluctable, if you want to be pedantic. Yesterday, while waiting for high tide, a helicopter dropped in on the beached fishing trawler. Click here for a bather flashing the crew. . . hey, if you live on Clifton Beach and want to meet the unexpected visitors, how else do you get their attention?
At high tide this morning, another attempt to pull the trawler off the beach resulted in another parted towing line.
Meanwhile, holding the lead is Port Arthur-built, Cape Town-modified Ocean Pride. Note the additions to make her beamier.
Here’s the muscle (Smit Amandla, ex-John Ross) that parts the towing lines.
Here crews of tug and supply vessel sort out the towing warp.
And 8000 miles to the northwest, Swan has not yet started loading. Prepping and waiting is still going on, four days after I took these fotos.
But with a name like Swan and this time of year,
waiting is intended to be productive.
South African fotos by Colin Syndercombe; sixth boro NYC fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Tugster does not strive to be a “shipping news” site, but each time I walk or ride my beat, I DO keep an watchful eye for change, novelty, well . . . new sights. Certainly this was true yesterday: let’s start with the orange vessel to your left. You’ve seen the colors before, but is that a “hole through the stern above deck”?
I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a bit more of Swan in the next few days. And I trust lessons have been learned from last spring’s Blue Marlin saga.
So Beaufort Sea has begun its Kirbyfication. As has Norwegian Sea, but I was too far off to get a good foto.
Resolute‘s foredeck seemed to be carrying a lot more than deckhands yesterday. And is that a movie camera? And what were they all looking at?
How about this unusual equipment on Ellen? Is MOL Earnest that tough a customer?
Iron Eagle is not new to the harbor, but the Conti name is . . . at least to me.
Rosemary Miller? New too. I wonder what has become of Sorenson Miller.
With spring comes the sailing season, and America 2.0 . . . I last saw closeup here last fall.
And one last “newby” I was lucky to catch yesterday was Mark Moran, headed south to . . who knows where? Mark‘s so new that even on Birk and Harold’s excellent site, there’s only a drawing of her.
Followup on lots of these soon. All fotos taken yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
For the news from the Narrows between Detroit (which means “the narrows” in French) and Windsor, click here for Isaac’s site and some great fotos from Wade. The surprise there for me was Zeus, who worked the sixth boro a bit a few years back. Also, there are more shots of DonJon’s huge Great Lakes ATB unit.
Also, of course please vote for tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79. The fact that they’re not in the top few places should NOT be a reason to give up; we have a daily vote until the 21st.
Thomas D. Witte . . . I did nothing to manipulate this image, no liquification, no DAP . . .
Yet another Mighty Servant 1 foto with four movers of the Miller’s Launch fleet. As of this writing, the Mighty is still anchored at the Narrows. Bravo on what appears to have been a flawless loading.
Gustav Schulte passes the loading on a very slow bell, partly because of the tow happening off its port bow also.
I’m not sure what this tow is . . . Sea Lion (?) and a thousand feet tailing it. The tail boat may be Iron Wolf. Can anyone help?
December means fishing on the sixth boro . . . here’s a newcomer for me . . . Mary Virginia (ex-Maazee).
Irish Sea moves a barge into the Bay.
Eagle Baltimore and Liechtenstein swing on the hook.
Crystal Cutler does too.
Shearwater motors out the east end of KVK headed, I believe, for North Cove.
Crystal Marie exits the Narrows.
Happy last day of Fall 2011.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. And this just in . . . as of noon today, Mighty Servant 1 exited the Bay Nigeria-bound. I hope the good folks on Meagan Ann get a foto they will share.
at least from what I could see, Mighty Servant 1 is packed,
all deck space is taken,
cargo is lashed and ready for travel.
Some ride the seas in a limo like the QM2 in the distance, while others
ride the pickup bed . . . or the roof racks, and catch the spray.
Here’s how she looked just eight days ago.
Buon viaggio, whenever it begins. Or maybe rather than Italian, I should use Nigerian pidgin English: Waka fain!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Two and a half decades ago (almost) I was entering New Hampshire from Quebec and was stumped: the US border agent brought his face to about a foot from mine and asked: “How does someone from Massachusetts (my drivers license) and someone from Maine (her drivers license) meet?” I knew he wanted a short, convincing answer, and I thought in paragraphs and chapters even.
This shot immediately reminded me of that experience: how does a tugboat from San Francisco and one from New York end up lashed together, no longer floating,
cradled on the broad back of Mighty Servant? The answer is . . . it’s complicated and it’ll take paragraphs and chapters to relate.
And I certainly don’t know much of the story. What I do know is that at 0902 today, here’s what I saw.
The barges loaded yesterday were still being secured, crew fine tuning as they would a huge
musical instrument. What music would you like the Mighty Servant to play today?
0951 hr . . . Charles D. McAllister and Gabby Miller brought their various powers to bear on the travelers.
Centurion and Hercules have pleasingly different bows.
Note the small boat (Bobby G?) preparing Centurion’s entry.
Even Bohemia comes by.
1047 hr . . . shoehorning is happening on the far side as Albermarle Island passes with a load of Ecuadorian fruit.
From this angle, Mighty Servant thusly loaded reminds me of an ocean going sidewheeler, like SS Savannah.
By 1047, she seemed loaded and I couldn’t tell if
the deballasting aka raising had begun.
More may follow. All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Oh . . . sorry, Johna. I could say I picked her up hitchhiking . . . to spice up the story. The truth is we were coworkers in a publishing company and that led to some fairly spiced up waterborne adventures; we were just returning from a jaunt up the St. Lawrence northeasterly from Quebec City. If you want more on her . . . Diana, a major true love and heartbreak, you’ll have to read My Babylonian Captivity. Diana is not her real name.
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