Meeting the Fleet 2015

Here’s the fleet arrival extravaganza from three years ago.  And here are installments 1  2 and 3 of the arrival of a special vessel of the LPD set.

I got my spot early, and had some surprises . . . like this medium endurance cutter heading OUT to meet the fleet.

WMEC 905 Spencer

There were also these four yard patrol craft doing the same,

Training vessels from Annapolis

YP 705

and this tropical architecture (!!?) under the palm-tree grove over by Fort Wadsworth.  What’s going on?  It’s Cuba at the Narrows.  

Just before 10 a.m. the fleet was in sight coming up the Ambrose.

The YPs 704, 705, 707, and 708 led the fleet in,

DDG-55 Stout the first larger vessel in,

followed by DDG-52 Barry and

foreground vessel is former WPB-82362 Point Brown, now  Lady B

LPD-17 San Antonio.

Here’s a schedule of events for the public and the fleet this week.

Enjoy your stay, all.

 

Half Hour of the Narrows

Here was 30 minutes from another vantage point.  Yesterday I left for work early and had a half hour or so to kill from Fort Wadsworth.  Seeing Ital Laguna and CMA CGM Matisse leaving together convinced me to stop there.    Meanwhile a larger and

smaller fishing boat arrive.  I recognize this boat, although I don’t know its name.  See it the last foot here.

First Coast moves in from somewhere beyond Norton’s Point.

Rays now rake across the top of the manifold on Freja Nordica as it enters the Narrows and

passes an outbound Franklin Reinauer.

Recognize the profile?

It’s Ellen.   I’ve no horse that shakes harness bells to suggest I move along, but I know I have –if no promises to keep–then . .  work to do, appointments to meet.

All fotos by Will Van Drop.

 

Perspective

I thought I’d used this title before, but I was thinking about this one, backgrounds.  The idea here is similar.

From this angle, can you identify this vessel?

It’s a shipshape Pegasus!

From the same perspective, Justine McAllister and Franklin Reinauer leaving the KVK for the AK.

Ditto equally shipshape Mary Turecamo, from a perspective such that the visor practically obscures the house windows.

What’s the tale of three wakes . . . one recent and the others less so?

This is a good view of how a model bow fits snugly in the notch.

Where’s this and what’s this?  Although it looks like a building being overrun by tropical flora and fauna,

this might generate a different set of associations.

This was taken from the same  vantage point but with the camera pointed a bit higher yet, and it makes all the difference.

It’s OSC Vision entering the Upper Bay last weekend, giving new meaning to the term “shipshape.”  And the fauna here could be called landscaping goats . . . . or “scapegoats,” for short.

Two ships . . .  well, at least until you examine the farther one more closely.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who did this earlier goat homage here.

Eagle 3

We’ll get to Eagle, but first . . . I encountered this sight as I lined up today’s shots.  What IS that and where?

Anyhow, I heard Eagle‘s initial “under way” around 11:30.

John Watson monitored from his POV . .  .

I envied her leaving Manhattan’s oven temperatures and hazy light*.  I believe this ends Eagle‘s summer 2011 patrol marking her 75th anniversary.  She started the summer

in Waterford  a month ahead of the tall ships festival there, covered so ably by Capt. Boucher on Nautical Log.

A murder of crows gathered at Fort Wadsworth Lighthouse to pay respects.

I’m still looking for fotos and testimonials about Eagle‘s first trip inbound here in 1946 almost two decades before the Verrazano stood here, when Fort Lafayette languished  where the Brooklynside Tower now stands.

Which brings us back to the goats:  they are civil servants, federal employees . . .  low-budget custodians of crumbling federal infrastructure, New York’s answer to the chickens of Key West or the horses of Vieques.

Who knew?   Certainly not me . .  although they’ve been here awhile, as evidenced by this video.  I’d interpreted signs to “do not feed or pet the goats” as humor.  I’m already thinking now of a sign “do not feed or pet the Congress folks.”  Fill in the blanks with your own verbs for possible prohibitions.

Happy birthday Eagle!  A personal note . . . while taking these fotos I spoke with a passerby who wondered why the USCG maintains an antiquated sailing vessel for officer training.  My answer drew from conversations with a dear friend’s father two decades back who sailed on her in the 1950s . . . he said “The academy seeks not to train technologists but leaders.   Leadership training is what happens on cutter barque Eagle.”  What think you?

Thanks to John for foto #3;  all others by Will Van Dorp, who had to check . . . yes USCG vessel docs show three commercial vessels with goat in the name:  Goat Roper (Alaska) and SeaGoat and SeaGoat III (Louisiana).  Imagine the possibilities for figureheads . .  .

*For a whole different climate, check out Issuma’s view for 8/8 here.

Two tidbits from today’s NYTimes:

What we are learning from the “high n dry” USS Monitor

(thanks to eastriver) . . .  folks on the sixth boro’s low seas