Retro Sixth Boro 57

All these photos were taken in the second half of January 2013.  This 1973 livestock carrier Falconia was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard getting some work done.  I’d love to see a cargo layout for the vessel.  Also, just back from the foremast, those are large bales of either hay or straw for the livestock.   What would you guess her disposition in second half of January 2023?  Answer follows at the end of this post.

The tanker here is today in the Gulf of Guinea on a run between Gabon and Netherlands.  Kristy Ann Reinauer was scrapped in 2015. 

The green tug Mary Gellatly was transformed into the very busy CMT Mackenzie Rose. 

The behemoth Rebel has become Ken Vinik, awaiting a makeover in the Arthur Kill. 

The name of the hull–we’d spell it “Sovkomflot“–is one you will not see in the sixth boro these days, and it seems the icebreaking tanker is currently

anchored  where it has been for at least the past six months in Murmansk. 

The Penn Maritime Coho has become the Kirby Coho, currently in Savannah. 

Note the ice and snow on the boats above and below;  January a decade ago was frosty!  Barbara McAllister has become Patsy K, which I’ve never seen.  She’s in Panama City FL right now. 

It’s clamming time in the boro, and many of these clam/fish boats come out of this creek in NJ.  More Dutch Girl tomorrow. 

Grey Shark may be a dead ship or even a scrapped one by now, last recorded in the DR. 

And finally, Megan McAllister is alive and well, busy as Charles James.  

All photos from January 2013, WVD.  

And the answer to the question about the current disposition of Falconia:   she’s renamed Dragon and in Midia, Romania on the Black Sea, flying the Togolese flag, and still working, having just arrived in from Libya. For a tour of a much newer and sophisticated purpose-built livestock carrier, click here. More on this category of vessel here, and Dragon specifically on page 49.

For a disturbing report–if you choose to followup here–google Queen Hind livestock carrier, which capsized in Midia in 2019  and resulted in the “lost cargo,” i.e., death 14,000 sheep. 

 

 

 

Falconia

Previously I’ve alluded to growing up on a working dairy farm, and the aging farm boy in me immediately recognizes the bundles there as some quite weathered straw.  Cut the twine holding them together and there’s still some serviceable bedding in there for cows.  But what structure is this?

Can straw and hay be a product of transshipment through the sixth boro . . . transferred by those cranes?  Don’t those cranes look like the ones in the Brooklyn Navy Yard?

Surely this would be the largest hay barn I’ve ever seen.  What’s going on here?

Falconia works in the livestock trade.  Click on the link in the previous sentence to see her itinerary.  Here and here are previous posts I’ve done on this enterprise.  And this particular vessel, I first saw in the Port of Wilmington back in mid-October;  whatever was happening, she entered the sixth boro over a month ago under tow, as captured here by John Watson.

The white-red-blue flag here is the banner of the aptly-named Corral Line.   Search around that link a bit and you’ll find views of the interior of the vessels, scenes I’d love to see.

Falconia is the saltwater version of the Amazonian livestock carriers pictured here . . . fotos 11 and 12.

My uninformed guess is that the 1973 Norway-built  Falconia is here with propulsion issues.  Click here for what may be a fairly new foto of the vessel.

Click here for many fotos of livestock vessels.   Meanwhile, I’ve got to get to the movie Life of Pi, which–if the book is any indication–has scenes of a ship transporting a zoo, unsuccessfully.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp, who still has many fotos from the Mississippi Valley.

More Cargoes 16

Here was 15.

Cargoes of all sorts move through the harbor.  One that has always surprised me is this ore from the Congo in the first half of the 20th century.

Here’s a vessel–certainly empty as it was towed to drydock in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard earlier this week.  I missed it but John Watson caught it.  Any ideas?  I believe I saw it in Wilmington back in mid-October.

It’s Falconia of the Corral Line, adapted to carry things that go “moo” in the night.  Stephanie Dann and Ruby M act like drovers to get Falconia into its own private East River corral.  Having grown up on an upstate NY dairy farm, I’d love to see a Corral Line vessel loaded and at sea;  even better, anchored on a calm night in a comfortable harbor.

Here’s an additional shot of the cargo barged in last week from Canada, powered by the inimitable Atlantic Salvor.  The cargo, if you missed last week’s post, is antenna sections for the World Trade Center.

Look closely at that patch of blue on Stolt Emerald‘s port side.

Although not cargo, it is truly unique application of paint . . . surfing penguins.

And finally, look at the frontmost cargo on Zim Virginia.

Here’s sideview of two Ford tow trucks, ones to be operated by wrecker drivers rather than towing officers.  And that’s Barbara McAllister running alongside.

Many thanks to John Watson for the Falconia fotos.