Retro Sixth Boro (and beyond) 30

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.

 

Retro 2010 Waterford Tugboat Roundup

Back in 2010, I did four posts about the weekend, which you can see here.  What I did for today’s post was look through the archives and just pick the photos that for a variety of reasons jumped out at me.  A perk is each of the four posts has some video I made.  One of these photos is from 2006.

Again, I’m not listing all the names, but you may know many of these.  In other cases, you can just read the name.  If you plug that name into the search window, you can see what other posts featured that particular vessel.

Below, here the pack that locked through the federal lock together make their way en masse toward the wall in Waterford.

You’ll see a lot of repetition here.

The photo above and most below were taken earlier than the top photo;  here, Chancellor and Decker head southbound for the lock to meet others of the procession beginning in Albany.

 

 

2020 is Decker‘s 90th year.

 

 

 

Nope, it’s not Cheyenne. Alas, Crow became razor blades half a decade back.

Technically, not a tugboat, but Hestia is special.  We may not have a functioning steam powered tug in the US, but we do have steam launches like Hestia, with very logical names.

 

 

You correctly conclude that I was quite smitten by Decker at the roundup back 10 years ago.

 

All photos, WVD.

And Shenandoah was not from 2010. It was 2009.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 7

Here are the previous installments.  Today’s photos all were taken in August–October2008.

Let’s start with part of the line-up for the 2008 tugboat race. If I’m not mistaken, the only boat left standing, as is, in this photo is St. Andrews, fourth from the left.

Escort, a Jakobson boat, is currently laid up.

Sea Raven, an intriguing “composite” vessel, whose hull was composed of two hulls of 1941 hulls, has been scrapped.

She was called Lone Ranger when she was in the sixth boro in 2008, owned by the CEO of Progressive Insurance.  The former oil-platform towing vessel is still on the seas, now as Sea Ranger. 

Ah!  Cheyenne . . . she been on this blog countless times. 

Frances, as she’s called now,  . . . back then I feared she was not long for this world…

Baltic Sea . . .  I’d love to see her now as she works the Gulf of Guinea.

I’ll repeat this photo . . . as a parting tribute shot, and since St Andrews is the only survivor, let me

show her tangling it up with Edith Thornton, with Dorothy Elizabeth watching.

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Thanks to Russell Skeris

The photo below comes via Russell Skeris, who seems to have gotten it from Fred Miller II . . . to keep credits where they belong.  Click here for two previous posts Russell contributed to.  I’m curious where this photo was taken, given the US/Canadian flags on the mast.  And when?  It would have to be 1998 or prior, given the stack.  Anyhow, Russell writes, “It was a nice little surprise to log onto tugster this am and see the pics of the Frances. It put a smile on my wife’s face ( little Fran [the namesake. She misses her mom who passed in 2014. I thought you might like this pic probably from the 70’s that appears to have been taken on Kodachrome film.It was also before the sun visor had gotten all banged up like in many of the pictures that I’ve found . I’m going to send some older black and whites of Frances being launched in 1957 at Jakobsons in Oyster Bay.”

Also, he writes, “The weathervane we had made some years ago for the couple on Fran’s house. She really was surprised when we gave it to her and connected her to her past.

The life ring is a real relic and has hung in the wall in the kitchen for as long as I can remember.”

 

Thanks, Russell.   Sorry it took so long to post this.  I guess it’s good that I go away now and then so that old unused posts finally see the light of day.

Day Peckinpaugh 3

Late October 2011, Day Peckinpaugh and Frances Turecamo float above Lock 3, post-Irene, seen here through the eyes of the master of Tug44.

Here’s Day Peckinpaugh last weekend, nose to nose with Urger, the latter here for shaft work.

It’s unknown when if ever the DP will operate again.  Here and here are previous posts with the Eriemax bulk carrier.

Blount’s two decade old Grande Caribe applies the same design to contemporary passenger cruising.  Notice the popped-down house;  in this post from three years ago, the house is up. I’d love to hear from someone who’s sailed on one of these “small ship adventures.”  Shipboard romance?  What are the stopping off places for adventuring off the mother ship?

And compare the tug Frances Turecamo (1957) in the top foto to her incarnation now.  It’s great to see her back at work.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  Thanks to Jonathan Boulware , interim president of South Street Seaport  Museum, for passing along  this article and video of salvage of Astrid.

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension 6

I’m enjoying this time travel back to the late 70s–early to mid 80s, and I hope you are too.

Foto #1:  Between Yonkers and Hastings, lightship is No. 84, Camden-built 1907, the one that later did bottom duty in Erie Basin, until the Ikea development made it disappear. Can anyone identify the white vessel north of the lightship?

Foto #2.  Today Mathilda rests on the north bank of the Rondout in Kingston, as I photographed her almost exactly five years ago.  I never knew she also crawled out awhile on Pier 94.

Foto #3.  A Moran tug escorts ACL Song through the Newark Bay drawbridge on its way to Port Elizabeth.  Drawbridge and vessel are long gone.  I can’t identify the tug.

Foto #4.  James Turecamo looked like this when she carried Turecamo colors.

Foto #5.  Beside the heavy traffic, do you notice something odd about Empire State V, one of a long list of training vessels assigned to SUNY Maritime?

Foto #6.  Listing perhaps?    On a sandbank near LaGuardia perhaps?  Frances Turecamo holds station to staboard.  I can’t  identify the tug to port.

Foto #7.  Anyone know anything about a sunken lounge/restaurant once known as Drifters I?

All fotos taken by Seth Tane about 30 years ago and used with his permission.