Retro Sixth Boro 4

OK, if old songs make for “classic rock,” then old photos of tugboats could be called classic roll or pitch, yaw, or some such.

Let’s start with one from March 2008 . . .  American Patriot over NW of Shooters Island as seen from the Port Elizabeth shoreline.  I’ve no idea why she was here and have never seen her again.

Given recycling of names, check out Dean Reinauer of June 2008 over by Gracie Mansion.

Same time period, here’s the Curtis Reinauer of that era.

Labrador Sea . . . she’s the first boat in this post that’s still around here.

Emma M. Roehrig  has changed colors twice since 2008 and has not been in the sixth boro for at least five years, maybe longer.

Great Gull still around back then.  She’s gone down to Panama.

And finally, June 2008 saw the transition from the Roehrig fleet into the K-Sea one.  Note the new name on the nearer tug although the colors were still Roehrig.  Aegean Sea had been Francis E. Roehrig.  The farther tug had been Vivian L. Roehrig, renamed Caribbean Sea under K-Sea, and now still works in the boro as Emily Ann.   Did Aegean NOT have a mast?

All photos from a decade ago by Will Van Dorp.

 

Ice 2

Note:  Bowsprite has updated her blog with her fotos radio transcripts AND scooped everyone by including fotos here of  the recovered plane headed across to the Jersey side on the Weeks barge!  Way to go, bowsprite!

Ice:  cold, paralyzing, abrasive, noisy.  Foto of Francis E. Roehrig (now Aegean Sea) and fuel barge DBL-29 icebound in Rockaway Inlet.  Compliments of Jed.

Weeks tugs Thomas and Alexandria move lift barge 533 into position above A320 N106US yesterday morning.  Foto compliments of the indefatigeable bowspite.

Earlier foto of Weeks tugs and barge mentioned above moving past the Statue toward the North River.  For more of bowsprite’s photostream, click here.

Moose boat attempting unsucessfully to enter North Cove across the ice pack.  Obviously these are smaller than icebergs classified as “growlers,” but is there a technical name for these other than “chunks”?

Some of the government boats on the scene yesterday with Jersey city in the background.

Yeah, I used to ice fish and dreamed of driving ice bridges, but this pix make me want to move to the southern hemisphere for a season.  Meanwhile, my mind might contemplate a character-building winter swim, but the flesh … well… just gets goose bumps.

Speaking of geese, a strange image I couldn’t photograph yesterday afternoon involved a set of four helicopters high and distant over Jersey City in the vicinity of the flight path for Newark International, AND occupying the same apparent airspace, a flock of dozens of geese flying south in V-formation.  Escort them from the area, those  . . .  avian non grata…  it suggested.

Although it may be too late to see anything, Amy over at Newyorkology mentions that some of yesterday’s salvage activities could be viewed via the Liberty State Park’s webcam #3.  See link here.

Transitioning

Seasons transition like spring into summer, moons wane and wax, and fleets change hands and trigger renaming . . . sort of like Nieuw Amsterdam overwritten with New York or Spitzer signs hastily replaced by Paterson ones at state projects. The paint’s probably dried on most of these boats. The ex-Heidi rumored to become Siberian Sea had served the Queen M2.

Annabelle was here in April, and the great Emma . . . don’t know what’ll become of her.

To better grasp her size, see the four crewmen. Maybe make her Atlantic Sea.

Brandon possibly turns into Solomon Sea.

Brandon again . . .

Vivian transitions to Caribbean Sea, with Meredith C (not spelled Sea) Reinauer in the background.

and Francis becomes Aegean Sea.

I’ve read on a discussion board that only a few sea names remain, but NOAA would disagree even without straying into fiction. All fotos . . . Will Van Dorp unless otherwise attributed.

Unrelated . . . altho this  is an unfortunate transitioning story, check out Mage’s UrbanArchology blogpost here.

Sand Barges

Count the sand barges . . .

 

 

That’s how much 2400 hp can push.

 

 

Does it get better than on such a sweet midsummer’s eve?

 

The crewman below leaning on the h-bitt, does he wonder how lucky he is? Is his job as sweet as it seems to me?  A century ago flat-bottomed schooners would beach on an ebb, crew would set gangplanks to the sand and trot out wheelbarrows and shovels, fill the hold as possible before the next flood took them back off.  What’ll sand folk do a century from now?

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Barges

Vancouver has its log booms, but New York has trains of barges,

six barges on the hawser here, headed for the Buttermilk, passing the Brooklyn-Battery Tunel ventilator off Governor’s Island and

 

towed by Francis E. Roehrig

 

Barker Boys tows another batch.

 

Here’s a closeup of Barker Boys, another day.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.