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In fall 2010, deepening dredging was happening in the sixth boro to prepare for the ULCVs now so commonplace here, after Panama Canal enlargement and Bayonne Bridge raising. These operations afforded me the chance to see a cutterhead close up. The crewman wielding the hammer was trying to loosen a worn tooth. By the way, those teeth weigh 35 pounds each. Teeth . . . dentist?
Then as now, Layla Renee was in the dredge support trade. Right now she’s in Charleston. She was only two years old at the time of the photo.
It looks that way, but W. O. Decker is NOT a dredge tender in this photo. Here five people on Decker are catching the stare of the one dredge worker in work vest.
The entire K-Sea fleet has disappeared. As of 2020, Falcon has become Carol and I’ve not yet seen her latest livery. Houma was scrapped in 2017 in Baltimore.
Here are two of the McAllister tugs involved in easing MSC’s USNS Sisler (T-AKR 311)into Bayonne drydock as then-John P. Brown manages the door. For many more photos of the event, check out “floating the door,” where you also see Allied’s Sea Raven, unlabelled.
I caught Growler at Mystic Seaport that fall. Rumor has it that Growler has returned to the sixth boro under a new name and sans teeth, but is under wraps.
Also in Mystic at that time, 1885 steam/sail vessel Amazon (has nothing to do with Bezos), the 2000 Amistad, and the 1908 steamer Sabino. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Amazon today?
My reason to be in Mystic that October was to work on Pegasus, seen here with Araminta and Cangarda. What works of beauty all three are!
Deborah Quinn here is docked near where Jakobson Shipyard used to be located. I believe that’s her location as of this writing.
Under the old Bayonne bridge, Maurania III assumes position to ease the 1997 Maersk Kokura around Bergen Point. Maurania III is currently in Wilmington NC.
Back a decade ago, Day Peckinpaugh had some good paint on her, and Frances was like a cocoon in Turecamo livery. There’s scuttlebutt of a new lease on life for Day Peckinpaugh.
Let’s end with dredging, as we began. Terrapin Island was one of the regulars in the navigation dredging effort. Terrapin Island is currently in Norfolk.
All photos, October 2010, by WVD.
Big announcement soon.
May 2010 . . . I took my first trip to see the thrills of the southern Arthur Kill, thanks to Bonnie. Back then the hull of Astoria (1925-1967 on the East River Line) was still there. Since then, I believe it’s been removed . . . said to be an eyesore. !@#$?!! Here’s more from that paddling trip. Keansburg Steamboat Company operated it until it ended up here. If I read The Boats We Rode, Roberts & Gillespie, p.13) right, I’m wondering why it spent so many years before being broken up. And why isn’t it listed here?
ABC-1 was hauled out back that month. I know some of you are happy to see what she looks like below the waterline.
OSG Vision was new, and spent some time at the Bayonne shipyard. Here she’s nose-to-nose with Horizon Discovery.
I recall vividly this spectacular spring morning before work . . . Irish Sea went by pushing DBL 103, passing NYK Rigel at Howland Hook. Mornings like that tempted me to skip work.
I’m not sure where this boat is today, but I did manage to get close-ups out of the water here, three and a half years later.
Heather M II here passed NYK Rigel. I’ve never seen Heather M since, I believe, but she has classy lines and a great bow pudding.
Colleen was still in salt water back then. I’m not sure she ever thawed out after a late December transit to Lake Michigan six years later.
Janice Ann, here pushing RTC 28, was still around here. If you want to read about life aboard Janice Ann, I did a review of a book written by one of her captains here.
Niz C. Gisclair was an exotic in town, likely here working on a dredging job. She has a Marquette logo on her stack.
Sorry about the backlighting here, but it’s Allied’s Falcon in the Kills. She has since appeared on this blog as Carolina Coast.
And finally . . . a sad shot of sister ship of Day-Peckinpaugh, launched as Interwaterways 101. The vessel below was launched two months later as Interwaterways 105, and from 1936 until 1976 operated as Michigan. She’s languished in the AK for decades, possibly since 1976. She’s an Eriemax, tailored to the dimensions of the Barge Canal locks, built in Duluth 99 years ago!
Here’s the same vessel on the Erie Canal, date and photographer unknown.
Yup . . . after 18 days of virtual Erie Canal touring, I needed to sneak another Erie Canal pic in here.
All photos except the last one by WVD.
Here for some context is a post with drawings bowsprite did exactly a decade ago … .
I took the photo below of the same setting.
Whole fleets that existed a decade ago are gone. For example, K-Sea has been subsumed. Some boats like Maryland are still in the boro,
others are still on the East Coast but in other fleets like this Falcon.
But still others like Coral Sea and
and Baltic Sea have gone to another continent.
Others might be scrapped . . . like Volunteer and
Bismarck Sea.
Others like Adriatic Sea have crossed over to the other side of North America….
Another fleet subsumed under Kirby–as is K-Sea–is Allied. Here in July 2009, Sea Raven–now scrapped–and another Falcon have rafted up. Here’s the link to read in this post: how Sea Raven was built!!
Hornbeck had a fleet in the sixth boro, with their base in Brooklyn at the current Vane base. I don’t know what Atlantic Service is currently doing, if anything.
Spartan Service has been sold to a Mexican company,
Sandmaster was still sand mining with this rig. She was since sold to the Caribbean, and according to AIS, now flies the flag of Niger, which to me says she may be scrapped.
Cheyenne was still red back then, and has since changed colors twice, and exchanged salt water for fresh. She’s also won the International Tugboat Race on the Detroit River for the past two years.
And this Kristin Poling, 1934 built, still plied her trade, always a treat to see.
All photos from 10 years ago by Will Van Dorp, who is amazed by the amount of equipment change in the sixth boro in the past decade.
March 2009 . . . Stephen Scott here passes Port Ivory, near my old job, pushing RTC 70. I’m still looking for Stephen Scott photo is her new profile, sans upper wheelhouse. Port Ivory was an intriguing place name for me when I first moved here; once a North Shore Branch of the SIRR even had a station there.
Kimberly Poling already had the color scheme, but adding a few more teal stripes to her current appearance is a big improvement.
Lettie passed by once while I scheduled my lunch break. As of today’s posting, Lettie G is in Mobile AL!! If she continues, she could end up back in Lake Erie by way of the great loop. Is that what’s happening? A few months I caught her at the top end of the Welland Canal here.
More Port Ivory area, Specialist was around, then called Specialist II.
So was the huge K-Sea fleet, which included Falcon.
This post should be called “sixth boro and beyond,” since I took this photo of Justine with RTC 120 up near Saugerties. Back then,
was that a red canoe along her portside rail?
Side by side in the Rondout 10 years ago were Hackensack, the 1953 colorful one, and Petersburg, 1954 vintage and still in the general area. Last I knew, Hackensack was in Guyana pushing molasses barges.
And going farther out, it’s Allie B pulling Goliath on a cargo barge Brooklyn Bridge out of Quincy MA, with assistance from Vincent D. Tibbetts Jr and Justice.
Here’s a closer up of Liberty. For the entire reportage on that journey to Mangalia, Romania (!!), click here. Damen operates the crane in their shipyard there, the largest shipyard in the Damen collection.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you enjoy these looks back as much as I do.
One satisfying thing to me about these retro posts is noticing how much the local fleet has changed. All these photos I took in November 2008. Coral Queen was scrapped at least eight or nine years ago. Maersk Donegal has had two name changes since 2008, now know as Santa Priscila, and no longer calls in the sixth boro.
SPT Guardian, still under the same name, is currently operating out of Lome, Togo. Note the NJ State Police boat alongside. I don’t know if they are still using that boat.
ITB Groton is gone as well.
The huge K-Sea fleet in the boro has dispersed. Solomon Sea is now Emily Ann,
Falcon, I believe, is still Falcon but wears Vane livery,
Davis Sea still has the same name but Kirby colors and operates in the Gulf,
and Aegean Sea carries the same name but works for Burnham Associates in my old stomping grounds north of Boston. NYK Diana has moved to the Pacific to the US West Coast.
This Rosemary McAllister has been replaced by another Rosemary McAllister, and has spent only part of one day in the sixth boro.
Stapleton Service takes the prize for the greatest number of name changes, three since 2008. She’s now Michael Miller.
Buchanan 15 has become Dory, although I’ve not seen her in a while.
Coral Queen‘s smaller fleet mate was John B. Caddell, which became a hurricane Sandy victim: grounded, sheriff auctioned, and scrapped.
I made a jaunt upriver aboard the only and only Half Moon–now sold abroad– in November 2008, and saw
Champion Polar but she’s now
–ice bow and all- dead and likely scrapped, as well as
a more intact Bannerman’s Castle.
All photos by Will Van Dorp in November 2008.
Since W. O. Decker may soon be seen albeit briefly in the sixth boro, let’s start with this photo from July 2008, as she chugs past the waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge, thanks to an Icelandic-Danish artist named Olafur Eliasson.
Reinauer had some of the same names as now assigned to different boats here a decade ago but now no more on this side of the Atlantic, like Dean.
Some names have not (yet) been reassigned like John.
Now for some that are still here, though some have different paint and names: Juliet is now Big Jake. Matthew Tibbetts is still all the same, externally at least.
Stena Poseidon–a great name– is now Espada Desgagnes, and Donald C may still be laid up as Mediterranean Sea.
The long-lived, many-named Dorothy Elizabeth has been scrapped.
Rowan M. McAllister is still around, but the Jones Act tanker S/R Wilmington has succumbed to scrappers’ tools in Brownsville TX.
Falcon has left the sixth boro for Philly and Vane, and Grand Orion, as of today, is headed for Belgium.
And finally . . . June K here assisting with Bouchard B. No. 295 . . . she’s still around and hard at work as Sarah Ann.
All photos by Will Van Dorp in July 2008.
When Nigel (last foto)–my parrot–molts, he’s raggedy, would win no beauty contests. Behold a fully fledged Falcon from June 2012 and
from yesterday, a molting one, an Allied boat in the process of becoming a Kirby one while moving a barge between sugar fields down south and a processing plant in Yonkers. The deal is not new, but the manifestation of the change is ongoing.
ATC 1800 is a dry bulk coastal barge built in 1966. Will it molt as well?
All fotos yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
Shuttles and warships and barks come and go, but the work in the boro never quits. Greets to all the crew on Falcon (1970),
Crystal Cutler (2010),
Kimberly Poling (1994),
First Coast (1968) and Grace D,
Mary Turecamo, barge Tennessee, and Explorer of the Seas in the background of several of the shots above,
Cecilia Miller and an unidentified WaterTaxi over by Brooklyn Ferry Landing,
All fotos by will Van Dorp, who will be “on assignment” for a few days.
Meanwhile some ponderables:
Movies to see: Terraferma (maybe Wednesday night) and Beasts of the Southern Wild . . .
A new radio show to create called Boat Talks . . . now that Tom and Ray are parking it . . .
As I hiked along the KVK today, it seemed for a while that half at least the boats were K-Sea white with red and mustard trim. Of course, I’m known for the gift of selective vision. Not all the fotos below were taken today, but the enjoy the fotos.
First sea: Greenland Sea.
Nathan E. Stewart (2) nearer and (I believe) Lincoln Sea (3) farther off at the dock.
Nathan E. passing aframax Eagle Beaumont escorted by Marjorie B. McAllister.
Volunteer (4) on the far side of panamax Sanko Venture.
at the dock in Bayonne last week, and
back on the far side of Sanko Venture today.
Check out the color-coded piping on the barge Columbia. What word do I fail to make out on the hull: looks like S – A – U . . . .
Slinging the barge around today was Baltic Sea (5) .
Sixth sea is Houma . . although it’s not Houma Sea.
And the seventh sea
is Ross Sea, definitely surfing a sloping KVK today. Might it have been camera operator inclination?
So I’ve stopped counting. Tasman Sea.
and in Philadelphia last week, moving The Recycler down the Delaware was Falcon. Recycling what?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Related: Here’s a list of all the seas as well as which ones figured in what different people called the “seven seas.”
Final shot: a color-adjusted (but not Warholized) foto of Davis Sea.
This could be called “How to identify a tug: start by recognizing fleets.” Long neck and short stack . . or vice versa. Bound for the North River are McAllister Responder with tall ringed stack and Norwegian Sea with tall orange-tipped house and mustard stack.
The height of wheelhouse matters not: tall orange-and-black house here–along with the black stack–makes it a Hornbeck, and this case, it’s Gulf Service.
Short red-and-white ringed stack–it’s Ellen McAllister. And the baby-blue stack with DT on it is Dann Ocean Towing’s Comet. By the way, I haven’t seen Dann’s Allie B since her departure for Rumania late last winter. Anyone spot Allie B?
Black stack with a bold M . . it’s Moran. In this case, it’s Miriam Moran, out to rustle up a ship.
In this case, the mustard stacks identify this vessel as a K-Sea . . . .it’s Falcon, with her low stern.
The stack color on Reinauer boats has much the same mustard color–at least in this light–but the addition of the diamond and the red . . . is unmistakeable. In this case, it’s Christian Reinauer.
Most prominent feature of this vessel–foto taken in the drizzle yesterday–is not the stack at all, but the color and superstructure shape. Anyone know?
It’s Cheyenne –or Crow–of course. In this case Cheyenne. Close up of Cheyenne‘s stack soon.
Last one . . . has no stack at all and I’ve run it before. It’s a mystery ship taken by bowsprite about a month ago and we’d love to get an identification. Help? Foto was taken from Lower Manhattan looking toward Jersey City; vessel headed upriver. Aliens . . . discovering the river, perhaps?
All fotos except the mystery ship by Will Van Dorp.
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