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.