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Lewis Cobb Jr. sent along these shots of Charles T. Jones passing through Cincinnati some time back. Jones, formerly called Leonard L. Whittington, is currently upbound on the Ohio. In the past month, I’ve been binge-watching inland line haul boats as interpreted by marktwained, a fantastic site on YouTube. After some hours of watching random installments from the good captain, it might feel you’ve almost become marktwained yourself.
Take a close look at the bridge above. What might it remind you of? More info follows. Cincinnati is a fun town to visit from an inland waters commerce perspective. Too long ago I followed the Ohio, not enough of it and not long enough though.
About that bridge, well the metal coating color is called Roebling blue, if that’s enough of a hint. More follows.
CMT Pike is a regular these days in the sixth boro all the way to Troy and beyond, and I mentioned her the other day. More angles better lit can be seen here.
Between 2004 and 2011 CMT Pike was known as Delta Bengal. Later she was HR Pike, running the beer tanks through the Erie Canal and other tasks while still in GE cleanup colors.
George Schneider sent along this image of Delta Bengal, and I think you can in general terms see what modifications were made. Naval architects and metal workers can make dramatic transformations. Here and here are photos of CMT Pike doing what its retractable pilothouse allows it to do.
Many thanks to Lewis and George for sending along these images. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out a way to dovetail your photos into posts.
About that bridge, which I’m not selling, the one in Roebling blue is considered to be a draft of what Roebling soon thereafter constructed over the East River replacing the Fulton ferry.
This photo on FB “historic Erie Canal” group on December 4. It appears to show a westbound vessel approaching Lockport on the Barge Canal, no date given, but the cars appear to be mostly late 1950s models, so it could be from the early 1960s. The Rebel is pushing a barge that looks to be a tank barge lacking a manifold. Maybe it’s a deck barge or a scow. A photo from the bow would be helpful. There’s also a derrick that I thought was along the portside of the barge. All the tanks on The Rebel confused me.
Groupsourcing resulted in this fantastic identification from William Lafferty: “It was a former YSD-11 class seaplane wrecking derrick for the Navy, YSD-28. It was built at the Charleston Navy yard in 1942. It was sold in the early 1961 to King & Doan, Inc., of Georgetown, Delaware, and converted to what we see here. King & Doan was a dredging concern. The tanks hold lubricating oil and fuel for the dredging outfit, I suspect. It was sold in 1971 and went to New Orleans for a couple of owners. Seems to have passed out in the mid-1980s.”
My conclusion then is that this was King & Doan’s trip through the Barge Canal to a dredging operation somewhere on the Great Lakes, maybe a Great Lakes port, possibly in 1961 or 1962. Googling King & Doan, I come up with one of my own photos and more context.
Click on the photos below to get their original source. Photos there include one attributed to frequent tugster-contributor George Schneider.
This last one comes from William Lafferty.
Adding to these connections, George Schneider sent along this photo (scroll) of Raccoon, a USACE debris collector that works in the Bay area. You may recall the the sixth boro has its own USACE debris collector, Driftmaster, launched 1947, a different design that must surely have been influenced byYSDs.
Unrelated to this post, but to OPP 91 (scroll) and tug Thomas (Weeks) in the Netherlands on a RT from/to Ascension Island. A Youtube channel I follow recently added a 17-minute video called “Unloading Stone at Ascension Island.” It tells a different part of a magazine article I did last year here.
If you enjoy “Unloading Stone,” give Joe Franta a like!
Quick, name that boat.
It’s appeared on this blog before.
She appeared here before as Charles Burton, but now . . . meet Helen!
Cape Hatteras (1967) and Eugenie Moran (1966) have recently appeared over by Prall’s Island, regular spot for tugboats being prepared for reefing. I caught Eugenie in Portsmouth NH over a decade ago here.
Now over to the coast 3000 miles away, it’s C-tractor 22. Thanks to JED, I rode out to sea with a previous generation C-tractor here over a decade ago.
Many thanks to Tony A for all but the last photo, which was sent along by George Schneider. Thanks to you both.
And I’ll keep the lights on in tugster tower to keep juicing up the robots.
Thanks to Bjoern of New York Media Boat, it’s . . . LCU 1657. This was last week, March 2022
At first glance I thought it was a landing craft with a large add-on wheelhouse. Later I noticed the landing craft was being pushed by a small tugboat named Pierson. I’m not familiar with this unit. LCU 1657 was built by Defoe Shipbuilding in Bay City MI in the early 1970s.
George Schneider sent me these photos from July 2021 in San Diego of a very similar if not identical vessel. He writes “LCU 1648 was built in 1955 by Marinette Marine in Wisconsin. She is not a commissioned warship, and is considered a ‘boat’ in the Navy hierarchy.”
From August 2021, here’s something unusual. George writes “the remote-controlled prototype Sea Hawk passed us to the South. I was still on the bow [of my vessel], and although she was up-sun, I still got some good, clear shots of her. Then, just to be a nuisance, I called our bridge and asked if they could get the Sea Hawk to turn around and pass down our starboard side for better lighting. The Captain didn’t dignify my call with an answer, but the Navy must have heard me, because that’s exactly what she did. So I got excellent underway shots of her, plus
I got a shot of her boat number, which is slightly different than we thought.”
Since the sixth boro is not usual Navy waters except during Fleet Week, we don’t get such exotic vessels here.
We do see a lot of Vane Brothers vessels in the sixth boro and throughout the East Coast, but in August 2021, Delaware was in . . . LA! She’s currently working in Oakland CA.
Many thanks to Bjoern and George for use of these photos.
I found it hard to move on from the #300 mile marker, so let me offer up another set, with some of your generous contributions.
Thanks to John “Jed” Jedrlinic, two tugboats from Tahiti, Aito Nui and
Aito Nui II. My machine translator tells me the name means “champions of the universe.” Aito Nui, 98′ x 33′, dates from 2001, built in Concarneau, Brittany. Aito Nui II, 94′ x 34′, is a Damen tug built in 2017. Jed took these photos last October in Tahiti.
From George Schneider, “Here’s one of Curtin Maritime’s remarkable tug rebuilds: Sarah C (501167), 65′ x 24′. She was built in 1965 for Pacific Towboat Co. after they’d been aligned with Foss. She came out as Sea Queen, sister to the Martinolich/Foss M class. In 1974 she was fully fossticized and became Mathilda Foss. She was discarded in the mid 1980’s and was picked up by Mogul Ocean Towing (apparently a corporate name for Campbell Towing) who owned her through 2007. It was then that Curtin Maritime picked her up for reconstruction.”
She’s a beauty. Check out the Curtin webpage here, with its great header photo. George took the photo in February 2020 in San Diego.
Kyle Stubbs: “I found David has appeared on your blog once before, in Something Different 21. [Click on that link for an unbelievable transformation.] At that time, you asked for information about David‘s continued existence and later names. I’m surprised that it had not come out of the woodwork that she’s still around under her original name, working on Long Island Sound. When I took these photos at New Haven in 2017, she was working for a construction company from Branford, Connecticut called Blakeslee Arpaia Chapman. Given that her Coast Guard documentation still lists her homeport as Branford, I’m assuming that’s still the case.”
Again, it’s hard to believe it’s the same hull given the radical superstructure changes.
TS Poderoso I took in Niteroi Brasil in 2013. TS Poderoso (name is Portuguese for “powerful”) was built in southern Brasil in 2007 by a company intriguingly named Detroit S. A. Group.
On the same trip I took this photo of Cape Cumbria, built Appledore Shipbuilders Ltd. in Bideford (southwestern UK) in 1977. Technically, it’s not a tugboat, but beside it,
is C Brilhante, a 2008 built tug.
I add this photo because it was taken in Beirut harbor by Godra. Click on the image for fuller info. Thank you, Godra. I’d love to know more about the ports of Lebanon.
Harold Tartell shared this photo years ago, but I never used it until now because I wondered who’d taken it, when, and what the context was. Maybe Capt. Bill VanVoorhis took it? Fannie J is currently working in Haiti as Sisters. She was built in . . . ready for this . . . . 1874!! 1874!!! Here‘s a photo of her as Sisters.
I took this photo on the Chesapeake in October 2012 . . . Norfolk Rebel in the Great Chesapeake Schooner Race. She’s the world’s only tugantine.
This was the Donjon Shipbuilding yard in Erie PA Febuary 2018. From left to right, Dorothy Ann (the world’s largest z-drive tug at 124′ x 44′), Joyce L. VanEnkvort (135′ x 50′), and Elizabeth Anna (54′ x 17′).
Salvage Monarch (98′ x 29′) here was crossing Lake St. Clair. Notice the jetski as her workboat.
And I’ll close this post with Mackenzie Rose, the latest iteration of the 2000-built boat from Fall River MA.
Many thanks to Jed, Kyle, George, Godra, Harold and whoever took that photo. All other photos by WVD. Thanks for continuing to read the blog.
Time to move on to RT 301 soon.
Check out the sailboat.
But look closer. Thanks to George Schneider: “She’s sitting abandoned at Larose LA along Bayou LaFourche. I took the shoreside photo on 8 October 2013, the cross-bayou photo 16 July 2012. When I saw her, the only name visible was OLD COURAGE in lettering on her wheelhouse window. Being undocumented since Moran disposed of her, there’s no “official” name for her, so I’ve used that for her present identity.
Local rumor had it that a man had intended to make a charter sailing boat out of her. The exterior is essentially complete, although crude and problematic. Local lore says his son killed him for spending all “his inheritance” on this project, but I’ve heard that same story for other unsailable vessels down in those parts.
Below decks there are two coves with wooden bunks, but not much else, and the engine room is mostly just gutted and, of course, awash with rain water and jungle by-products.
One can see hints of the lettering of her name around the stern where the new plating has been cut away, but not enough to make sense of it, hence another trip’s expedition inside. This time I brought some snake gear with me to board her, and found her official number on an engine room bulkhead. I didn’t even try to sanitize my clothes after that expedition, since I didn’t have room to pack them anyway. I first saw her there in 2004, and last saw her in 2013. She still shows up in 2019 satellite imagery.”
She’s 103′ x 26′ and built in Port Richmond NY in 1926 as tugboat New York Central #33.
The next two images are credited to Paul Strubeck, and will appear in his book, which I’ll surely tell you about when it’s available.
Going on with Paul’s info: New York Central sold her to Moran Towing in 1945 and renamed Thomas E. Moran. She was repowered with a Cleveland 12-278A diesel electric drive. Around 1980 she was sold and converted to a three-masted schooner to enter the charter trade . . . until she ended up along this creek.
A more successful conversion of tugboat-to-schooner is Empire Sandy, photo here I took in the Welland Canal in August 2018. Here are some photos from before her conversion. Empire Sandy does tours mostly out of Toronto.
Many thanks to George and Paul for these photos and this information.
I’ll let George speak here, starting in the Bay area: “One real treat was University of Alaska’s research vessel Sikuliaq. She’s an NSF vessel, operated by Alaska, but was down here to fill in while the delivery of Sally Ride AGOR-28 was delayed, and perhaps is working for Scripps again. These were the best shots I’ve ever had of her.” A bit more on Sikuliaq: she was built on the Great Lakes at Marinette WI; that was a long delivery. Click here for a rendering, showing her ice-breaking hull.
photo by George Schneider in May 2019
At Half Moon Bay, George writes: “Caleb, IMO 899162 is neglected state, but certainly not fatal if anybody takes an interest in her. Unfortunately, she fits the description of vessels the governments are finding reasons to eliminate before they sink, so she might not be around long. I understand she’s been “ousted” from the harbor several times, now permanently. She was originally the Navy harbor tug Panameta, YT 402. She was reported sunk as a target on 4 Sept 1977, but in 1978 she went up for sale. Western Tug Company picked her up and renamed her Ocean Mariner. I have an opinion that she operated in that time under the name Cindy B. By 1992 she was Caleb for Salmon Bay Barge Lines, who operated her through 2004 as a tug, before she became the classic floating dream for someone.” And that may explain her current sorry state.
“Western Tug Company picked her up and renamed herOcean Mariner.I have an opinion that she operated in that time under the name Cindy B. By 1992 she was Caleb for Salmon Bay Barge Lines, who operated her through 2004 as a tug, before she became the classic floating dream for someone.” And that may explain her current sorry state.
“Robert Gray has been renamed in the past two months. She’s now named Sacajawea. Although built as Robert Gray, this isn’t her first name change. During WWII she served in the Army as LT 666.” [That means she is 110′ loa, built in Lake Washington SY Seattle in 1936. LT 653, the preceding hull number, is Bloxom.] “In the 1950’s she became Don J Miller II for the U. S. Geologic Survey.”
“At the time of the photo below, she was documented as Robert Gray, and classed as a research vessel. She is now classed as passenger vessel Sacajawea, so I imagine the hope is to use her as a charter yacht, although there’s quite a trend towards stationary B&B’s on old classy vessels. Her home port has been changed from Portland to Seattle. That renaming is an interesting one; the captain Robert Gray is credited with finding the mouth of the Columbia River, while one might wonder if the guide Sacajawea knew about it all along.”
Over in Contra Costa, “The noble old Burton tug Pomaika’i has worked for Gulf, East, and West Coast owners first as El Zorro Grande, Helen J. Turecamo, and Manfred Nystrom. Greger is showing his pride in his fleet by having the new name welded onto the hull.”
“In April 2019, I photographed a 70-foot Army Post-war ST, the former ST 2112. She’s previously sailed as Rachelle Brusco and Erica S, both of which names can still be seen on her. Now she’s named Pacific Pilot, and hasn’t yet received the loving care that Greger obviously puts into his vessels.”
And finally, we head to San Diego: “Down in South Bay, Normand Reach was at a better pier for photos. What a monster she is! At 121 meters in length, she’s as big as the drilling rigs I cut my teeth on. Back then, the biggest support craft weren’t half that length, and of course, about 1/10 the tonnage.”
photo by George Schneider March 2019
A big thank you to George for use of these photos from California. I have many,many more.
George sends me lots of photos of ports I’ve not yet visited, and they’re convincing me to expand my horizons and see some new places. More on that later.
Let’s start in San Diego with Bernardine C, aka Bernie, a unique push boat that Curtin Marine built at their own facility in Long Beach, and her certificates show her as “Hull #1”. She was completed in 2015. Note her winch protected under her wheelhouse. She’s registered at 45′ x 22′ x 5′, and powered by two John Deere Tier-3 engines, rated at 1000 HP. Full information on her and other Curtin vessels can be found here.
Next tug along is Contender, belonging to Pacific Tug Boat. She’s a 62′ x 28′ x 8′, built in 1964 (or 69 ?) at some yard in Long Beach, possibly Jones Tug & Barge, and is rated at 1200 HP. George writes: “In her previous life, as Rebel II, she and a similar boat, Tuffy II (now Tommy?), took deck barges to resupply Catalina Island on a twice-daily basis. I never knew them to miss a trip due to rough weather. When another operator took over that franchise in 2016, both tugs were picked up by Pacific Tug Boat.”
Now for some boats George reported on from the Bay area, let’s start with Raccoon, a USACE debris collector that shows a slight resemblance to her origins as a Navy Seaplane Wrecking Derrick. George: “Where there were zones for seaplanes to take off and land, there was a need to get the wreckage of one out of the way quickly if one crashed, so those in the air could land before they ran out of fuel. These vessels, called YSDs, or “Mary Anne’s”, were self-propelled crane vessels to fulfill that need. To see an example of a YSD with an aircraft on its foredeck, click here.”
Of interest, Raccoon has an updated crane and burns a quite innovative fuel made of soybeans.
Here an image of YSD-64 in the Caroline Islands taken on 5 March 1945. On her deck is an Avenger. Click here for another Avenger.
Let’s end with Phyllis T, one of three 50-foot steel push boats built by Inland Boat Co. of Orange Texas in 2001 commissioned by Tudor-Saliba Construction Company for the retrofitting of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. She is operated by Dutra Dredging and still in use.
Many thanks to George for use of these photos from California.
George Schneider regularly sends me photos, comments on posts, and shares lots of info on all manner of vessels. Here was the first installment. I owe it to him to catch up a bit on his photos.
Including ITB Groton in the post yesterday prompts me to start here, with ITB Moku Pahu.
When the sugar transport out of Hawaii ended almost two years ago, the future of this vessel became uncertain. Click here for more info on Hawaii’s agricultural state. She’s currently on a run between Greece and Puerto Rico, ETA mid-next week. I’ve not found a photo of the tug separate from the barge. I was fortunate to catch a photo of another ITB on its own here in 2007 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Falkor, built in Germany in 1981, is a research vessel operating for the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a recently created (2009) research group funded by tech money.
About the blue-hulled beauty in the background, George writes: ” the old yacht ACANIA (230142) was being overhauled. She was built [for Arthur E. Wheeler] by Consolidated in Morris Heights New York in 1930, a steel yacht 137 ft overall. She served in WWII as Q 200 for the Army, then has haunted both coasts under the names DIXONIA, SOUTHERN SEAS, CAMPANIA, WILDCATTER, LIBERTY, AMERICANA, and back to ACANIA. She came to San Diego in 2016 under that name, and apparently has been in a bag here, undergoing restoration, ever since. She’s now named MARIE, and her appearance is breathtaking. I hope to get a better picture of her, but her hull is one big mirror of deep blue paint, with not a single weld or dent line visible, and her superstructure is an equally stunning ivory-colored mirror. She’s always been classy, but now she has the unreality of modern yachts, which look like a model in a display case, and also has been restored to all possible detail of a 1930’s yacht in appearance. I promise a better photo if Its ever possible.”
Another research vessel included here is Bold Horizon.
And rounding out this set is Tussler, which started life in 1944 as an Navy tug. George writes: ” She seems to follow yacht races and regattas in the Southern California area. She’s currently owned by Tussler Maritime LLC, but was built by Everett Pacific Shipyard in 1944 for the U. S. Navy as YTL 424. She worked with them, first as a tug and later as a diving/salvage tender until sold in 1973, at which time she got her current name and was modified into a yacht.”
I always look forward to reading George’s emails, and I thank him here for sharing these photos.
Let’s start with two photos thanks to Ashley Hutto, first one from last year. Remember the HRSG aka “the cyclops” that came down the Hudson? Tomorrow, another is scheduled to start a journey, then heads for Bridgeport.
Mister Jim above and below as platform, as well as Daisy Mae in the distance, will be involved in the transfer. By Tuesday late afternoon, the HRSC is scheduled to be at the GW Bridge, and will overnight near the Statue of Liberty before entering the East River and into the Sound. I’ll miss most of it, since I’ll be in Albany all next week.
No . . . I’m not entering politics.
Another unusual visitor was captured here by Tim Hetrick; Megan Beyel passes Storm King here, towing a barge upriver. The photo effectively shows the scale of Storm King.
OSVs like Megan Beyel are quite rare in the Hudson Valley, but they do appear. Four years ago Michael Lawrence spent some time in and out of the sixth boro working on a pipeline project.
Of course, there is a sixth boro quasi-resident OSV . . . Rana Miller.
Rana‘s frequent mission is transporting Yokohamas, used to fender tankers transferring product offshore.
And from rubber to rubber, here’s a small USN tug moving rendering barrier around. This photo comes from George Schneider, who writes, “Your photo (scroll) represents the smallest of them, the 19-footers, [like this one] one towing fender-style booms (barriers?), but they also work as gate boats for the anti-swimmer booms (barriers?) mentioned. As you can see this one is officially designated 19BB0212, but has the local designation BB4. They adopt some of the jargon from their origins as log broncs (and scroll to Skillful) and call them “Beaver Boats” to differentiate them from the other boats designed to transport or place the light oil pollution booms. This one was built by Chuck’s Boat and Drive Company (“C-Bad”) of Longview, WA, who also built 25-foot version for the Navy. I imagine you’d find them at just about any station where the Navy ties up their ships. At least 12 of the 19-footers and at least 22 of the 25-footers have been built for the Navy, as well as other designs that begin to look more like conventional pushboats as they grow in size. ” Thanks much, George.
Finally, thanks to Steve Munoz, another one of these small tugs, this one spotted near the USS Constitution in Charlestown MA.
Many thanks to Ashley, Tim, George, and Steve for the photos and info. The photos of Rana Miller by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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