Government Boats 56

I believe this is the first time I post a photo of 1961 FDNY Alfred E. Smith.  She was sold to private owners in 2016. 

Nearer the mainland on Pier 25, Lilac has held this berth since 2011.

USACE Gelberman has been a regular here, as has 

Dobrin.

USACE Driftmaster has worked collecting debris since 1949!  I wonder how plans to replace her are coming along. 

I could not identify this heavily-laden sludge  . . . I mean GUP . . . carrier. 

NYPD’s Cardillo and 

Hansen are two boats of the Harbor Unit, itself a part of NYPD since 1858.  Hansen has been in service since 1994. 

Soderman is the current occupant at Bayonne Drydock & Repair.

Oops!  It’s Alice and Ollis.  Alice Austen usually runs in the wee hours, and Ollis arrived in the boro back in August and will enter service as soon as training is complete. 

x

All photos, WVD.

 

Exotics 18

If you’ve forgotten why I call these exotic, it comes from a bird book I have on the shelf.  Read about it here.

RV Ridley Scott Thomas came into the sixth boro yesterday, arriving here between Driftmaster, 1949–exotic in a different way–and the light, West Bank.

Here’s my question:  where and when was Ridley Thomas built?  Answer follows.  When I saw it, I wondered whether it had just left a shipyard for the first time.

Arriving yesterday after a nine-day trip from Curaçao, she had lots of folks on deck enjoying the beautiful Saturday morning.

Click here for more info on EGS, now a Hong Kong based company, and click here for info on her fleetmates. It turns out that one of her fleetmates is RV Bold Explorer, which some years ago you saw here as an EPA vessel named Bold. How her change of ownership came to be can be extrapolated here.

 

Sloop Puffin squeezes between Driftmaster and the research vessel.  Note the flag on the ridge?  It’s flag day today, and if you’re wondering how that started, click here.  I’m a fan of #6.  There are two US flags in this photo, one at the official site Fort Wadsworth, and another as courtesy flag flying from the mast of Thomas.

As of this writing, she’s still in over in Elizabethport.

 

All photos, WVD.   I’ve no idea why she’s in town, but for more on RV Ridley Thomas, click here.

And the answer to the questions . . . she was built in Singapore in 1981, first carrying the name Western Inlet.

LCTC

I re-learned an acronym  . . . LCTC, or large car and truck carrier.  These included the Wallenius Wilhelmsen orange ROROs with names beginning with T, like Topeka, Tortugas . . .  and so on.  The green ones are HERO type, smaller and more efficient.

She’s 755′ x 106′ and by tomorrow she could be squeezing through the original Panama Canal locks.

 

I wonder if these bow ports see water in rough seas.

 

 

All photos, WVD.

Here’s another LCTC, Torino.

And as to continuing impact of Covid-19 on jobs, here‘s info on an announcement from a few days ago of temporary layoffs of WW employees.  I’m wondering if that includes those ILA folks in port who drive the cars and trucks off these ships.

Vessel Not Under Command

This significant piece of floating dock was westbound in the Kills Sunday morning.   It was called in on VHF and via 911.

Even the ducks were distressed.

 

No rudder, no power, not even a captain.

It was a job for Driftmaster,

and she hauled it away.  This reminds me of junk in the harbor waters . . . .

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Other Peoples Photos 62

I’m always happy to put up others’ photos. Cell phone shots, though, don’t display well on a larger screen.  If you’ve sent a photo that I’ve not yet used, I’m working on it.

First, from Phil Gilson .  .  Driftmaster is retrieving a car that plunged off the fishing pier in Bay Ridge earlier last week.   Driftmaster‘s fleet mate Hayward sometimes gets drawn into such recoveries also, as is shown here.  And from tugster, here’s more fishing of this sort.

These are the folks who locate and investigate below the surface,

although it might be possible to use tools on Hocking as well.

Here’s a repost of a hypothetical map of my neighborhood assuming a sea level rise of 100′.  Here are additional hypothetical, less extreme maps.

And finally, from Glenn Raymo, enjoy these photos of the Science Barge The Judy being moved upriver for winter.

 

Moving the barge is Fred Johannsen, previously appearing on this blog among other times here, when it had, in my opinion, a less attractive paint scheme.

Thanks to  Phil, Jeffrey, and Glenn for use of these photos.

 

People on the Boro 17

Here’s the index.  Here and here are some from far enough back that you can note change on the sixth boro.

Any ideas on the photo below?  I believe that’s Robert Burton in the background?

Here’s the rest of that image.  The two photos come from Bjoern Kils of New York Media Boat, which has the story on their blog here.

This photo comes from Ashley Hutto, and shows what I would deem a risky rowing feat over between the tanker Fidias and unseen a barge landing at Bayonne.

I’ll have more Pacific Link photos tomorrow, but the crewman in yellow jacket and orange hat no doubt circles the globe like some of us circle the town.

Count them . . . three crew members standing watch.

Three fire fighters on M4, one of

four FDNY RIBs out on training.

I didn’t see the crewman at this point, but I heard him banging on metal structure with a crowbar . . . there under the third row back.

there.

Still see him?  I still heard his banging.

Greetings to the Shelby crew pushing scows northbound.

Driftmaster crew make a visual assessment of floating debris.

Way up high there on Torino . . . crew with a white apron, that’s not something you see every day.

Hail to the chef!

Here a crewman contemplates the state of the universe from the afterdeck of Laura K Moran.

Harvesting goes on in the springtime boro.

Crew of Stolt Sapphire pose for pics on the stern of their parcel tanker as the skyline of Manhattan cliffs passes by.

And here’s a good bookend to this post, which could otherwise go on and on.  Best wishes to Team Ocean Valour . . .

All photos unless otherwise attributed by Will Van Dorp.   Thanks to Bjoern and Ashley for their photos.

 

 

Ice 4

Storm Juno was all hyperbole in the five boros . . . not as  harsh as  in eastern Long Island and southern New England, but it was cold the day after.  Nevertheless, Mary Alice and Cheyenne were hard at work,

as was Mister Jim.

The same is true for Barbara McAllister and 

Charles D.

Buchanan 1 was at work.

The government boats were out like Liberty V and

Driftmaster.

Of course, cold means demand for fuel . .  and Matthew Tibbetts was moving it , as

was Crystal Cutler.

Joyce D. Brown was moving the railroad and

Treasure Coast had a barge astern headed south. Anyone know what cargo was/will be in the barge?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who went out to see the sights after the storm.

Government Boats 29

Here was 28.

Click here for a photo of this tug showing its deep belly.  How long has the canal owned her?  Answer follows.

Click here for info on Arkansas-built Gelberman, here photographed yesterday pulling a tree out of the way of navigation.

Driftmaster I believe dates from 1947, making her older than me.   Scroll through here for photos of Driftmaster helping with clean-up post Sandy.

Jersey City fire vessel Joseph Lovero is named for their dispatcher who died in that attack twelve and a half years ago.

343 arrived in the harbor nearly four years ago.  Click here for the welcome ceremony in the harbor when she arrived in April 2010.

T-AKR  316 Pomeroy, named for a Medal of Honor winner who died on a Korean mountain at age 22,  has been dry-docked in Bayonne for about a month now for maintenance.

Click here for more info on the Watson-class.

So we’re back to the beginning.  Governor Roosevelt came to the canal as a steam-powered icebreaker in 1927!  I’d love to see pics of canal traffic from back then.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Sixth Boro Maintenance

Like a galley or head or deck, the harbor itself needs maintenance of the routine as well as the extraordinary sort.  Given the amount of oil that’s found its way into the sixth boro the past two months, the latter sort is going on.  The bird sanctuary mentioned in the first sentence of this link is Shooters Island .  . whose history I spoke of here about a year ago.

A routine removal of silt from shipping channels is performed by the vessel below–Atchafalaya–as well as Padre Island, which I got closeups of here two and a half years ago.

Here’s shipspotting info on Atchafalaya (1980, Minnesota Twin cities along the river built!!) which I’ve yet to catch close enough for many details.   Here’s still another link on Atchafalaya.

Back to a different set of  post-Sandy extraordinary cleanups involve this vessel, with the appropriate name Driftmaster . . . not that it drifts around the sixth boro.  Rather, it collects and either removes or secures large floating materials drifting in the harbor.

These fotos come compliments of bowsprite.  What I believe is going on here is Driftmaster securing floating docks that in the highest of the surge floated right up off the pilings.  I’m not sure where this Driftmaster was built . . .  It may date from 1947.

Ditto here.  This floating dock needs to be locked back into the pilings.  The crane barge here is moved around by 1965 tug Harry McNeal.  In the bottom foto, notice the square holes through which the cylindrical pilings must fit.

All but the first two fotos (mine) were taken by bowsprite, whom I thank.

Specialized

A friend who knows engines and mechanical systems much better than I do once looked into my toolbox and laughed, declaring he could see my farm origins in the scarcity of tools I had there. A farmer values versatility with the basics. He had four specialized sets of socket wrenches to my one, and that was only the start. The harbor certainly values its specialized tools. For example, it has has MV Driftmaster, one of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers craft. Any idea on function?

It’ a skimmer. With a bow shaped like a gaping mouth, it travels around the harbor netting any floating debris that could otherwise puncture a hull, destroy a propeller, or drift out the Narrows to add up on your favorite beach. Debris? Logs, pilings, trees, tires, the list goes on. Once last summer I saw a wooden beam at least 20 feet long with vicious jagged metal brackets that bobbed skyward only once every five seconds.

 

A sister Corps of Engineers vessel is Hayward. With its crane, it has fished even larger debris out of the water. According to this article, landings include helicopters, automobiles, and even whales that have been snared on the the bulbous bows of fast-moving ships, like Alice, trapped there until the ship slowed down near a port.

 

Here Hayward is westbound on KVK pushing a barge loaded with debris from the harbor; notice the derelict boats and lots of wood. Some weeks back I declared my admiration for versatility, in reference to Urger, and I stand by that. However, where would we be without specialists too. More speciality craft later.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.