Random Tugs 297

That big “300” is beckoning, so although I had other posts planned . . .  let’s increment closer to that 300.  I’m inviting your participation here so that i can make it the best “non-random” random post.  Random Tugs 001 was here. Random Tugs 100 was more than seven years later, and 200 was about four years after that.

What better way to start than with these two photos of W. O. Decker, taken yesterday by Glenn Raymo.  Yes, that’s the Walkway over the Hudson.  Decker is taking a freshwater cure.

Many previous posts featuring Decker can be seen here.

Kimberly Turecamo assisted an MSC box boat in recently.  A less dynamic photo of Kimberly appeared yesterday.  The founder of MSC, Gianluigi Aponte, is alive and well in Italy.

Sarah D was on this blog recently with a unique tow; usually she pushes vessels like this.   But hey . . . it pays the bills.

Andrea follows a box ship to the NJ portions of the sixth boro.

Reaching back into the archives a bit, here was Honcho in San Juan PR.  I took this photo in March 2013.  She’s been all around.  I’ve forgotten, though, whether she actually worked on the Great Lakes.   I need to find out also what she looks like now that she’s a Moran boat.

Back in April 2012, I caught Bruce A. McAllister bringing in Mars, marked as registered in San Francisco.  Mars went onto a heavy lift ship over to Nigeria.  The photo makes me curious about traveling to Mars.

See the tugboat here?  Name the bridge in the background?

Between Algoma Olympic and CSL Laurentian, it’s Leo A. McArthur, built in Penglai China in 2009. Believe it or not, Penglai was the birthplace and boyhood home of Henry Luce, the magazine guy!

Did you recognize the last two photos as the Detroit River, and the bend between Detroit and Windsor.  The reason I asked about the bridge . . . the Ambassador Bridge is that the owner died yesterday.    Manuel “Matty” Maroun was 93. The 1929-built bridge, as well as the duty-free stores in its vicinity, have been owned by Maroun since 1979.

Many thanks to Glenn for use of the Decker photos.  All others by WVD.

 

 

Thanks to Glenn Raymo 11

White, blue, and red comes in different contexts, and

this one along with the name on the trailboard does give pause.

Glenn Raymo took these photos in Poughkeepsie Sunday, and they were my introduction to an ambitious sailing project.   The best I can tell this project began in Petrozavodsk, a city on the western shore of Lake Onega, in northwest Russia, a few hundred miles east of access to the Baltic at St. Petersburg.  Lake Onega is connected to both the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean via the White Sea Canal. As a person who fancies himself somewhat well-versed in canals, I was ignorant of the White Sea Canal until now:  mostly hand-dug by prisoners of the USSR in the 1930s

Pilgrim is a lodya, a traditional sailing vessel of this area.  Along with the koch, the lodya is an ancient Rusian polar exploration vessel.

If you follow along on the “news” link, you see their step-by-step voyage from Russia.  Exactly two years ago, eg, they had just crossed the Bay of Biscay!   News articles go all the way back to 2006.

To my friends along the Erie Canal, once the waterway is open, keep your eyes peeled.

Many thanks to Glenn Raymo for this catch.  Previous posts with attribution to him can be seen here.

It reminds me of all the memorable vessels that have transited the Erie Canal:  Bounty*, Draken Harold Fairhair, Pinta, Sequoia**,  Hokule’a, Ra, When and If, Amarah Zee, the future Oliver Hazard Perry, Lois McClure . . . I have no doubt left some out.

*I have photos but I’ve not posted them on tugster.   **One of the planned but not realized posted is a review of Capt. Giles M. Kelly‘s book;  any volunteer to write a review?  You’ll get a free book.

And to the crew of Pilgrim,    попутный ветер, друзья мои      I hope I spelled that right.

Names 37

Quick  . ..  name the ship name the ONE vessel  . . .

The first three photos were taken Sunday by Bjoern of the New York Media Boat.

And if you know the tugs in the sixth boro you have a 75% chance of naming all tugs here too . . .   three of the four 6000 hp tugs by Moran.  I’m not first in pointing out how small the tugs look relative to the 1200′ ONE Stork.  I hope you guessed that right.  The tugs are JRT, James D, Jonathan, and then Margaret farther back.

While we’re on names . . .  Glenn Raymo caught this photo  upriver.

Dodo . . . First ONE Stork and then Dodo.

Over by Shooters Island the other day, I caught Amstel Stork, coming from Port Newark and headed upriver herself.

Jonathan and Miriam assist her around Bergen Point, but here’s my point:  two vessels named “stork” in the harbor the same week!!?  What going on?  And with Dutch as my first language, I read this as Ooievaar van Amsted . . . that big bird name being ooievaar in Dutch.

Recently, vessels with the following names have visited the sixth boro:   NYK Blue Jay    Southern Owl   Stena Penguin  …   See what I mean about a trend that has emerged?  A few years back I saw the Eagle fleet, eg in yesterday’s post, and separate from that . . . Asphalt Eagle.  A few years back I saw a Peacock.

Here are some I suppose I’ll never see:  Subsea Seven has some bird vessels, esp  in diving support.

Millennium Falcon….  oh wait, that might not have launched yet . . .   Magic Victoria was here recently, although my photo was too blurry to use here.  Surfer Rosa . . . that name of the many I’ve posted here will stick with me.   As of this morning, Surfer Rosa is westbound in the Med just outside Algerian waters.

Many thanks to Bjoern and Glenn for use of their photos.

 

Scale 11

I took this in April;  I would never have guessed a Corvette was that much lower than an early 1950s (1952?) Pontiac.

Ditto here:  Kristy Ann once rescued a motorboat I happened to be on;  from the motorboat, Kristy Ann looked immense.  Next to . . . Nicole (I think that’s Nicole Leigh Reinauer.  I took the photo more than 10 years ago.), she’s a toy.

Notice the raised lettering on the front of the nearer tug’s wheelhouse?  It says Bear.  Bear was once all red.  Bear, believe it or not, had a fleet mate–Little Bear.  See it here.

Today these tugs are called Elizabeth Anna and Sarah Ann.  Sarah Ann used to be such a brilliant orange you’d never forget it.  Above and below, those photos were taken by Glenn Raymo.

Click here for previous “scale” posts.

Thanks to Glenn for use of his photo;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

 

Canal Reef Express 4c

Hats off to Glenn Raymo for figuring out where to be to catch this tow at first light.

I know it’s fruitless to wonder whether any archive has photos of any previous trip Ward’s Island made on the Hudson.  The only other trip it’s made may have been northbound in the late 1930s.

Hats off to the crews who can do this safely. With the rounded bottom propped up by welded on support beams,

she looks like an animal once living.

Dimensions of the hull are 115’6″ x 38′  x  14′.

 

It’s a job and it’s a melancholy sight too., knowing the next stop on this express route is the bottom of the ocean off Fire Island.

Many thanks to Glenn for catching this.  Previous “canal reef express” posts can be found here.

Infrastructure 3

Here are previous installments and related ones.

Technically, infrastructure could include launch services, without which port activities would slow.

Survey services ensure that channels and depths at docks allow activity without literal impediment.

USACE overlaps with Rogers in some areas.

But more commonly when one thinks of infrastructure, it’s what allows terrestrial activity,

like bridges and their on- and off-ramps.

With all the bridge building and innovation going on the the greater land area around the sixth boro, it’s not surprising to see bridge components arrive this way.   And what travels on the waterways post-demolition isn’t only parts of roadways; here large pieces of scrapped vessel traveled.

New bridge component above, old bridge component below . . .

Without liquid infrastructure, these would not be moving.

Thanks to Glenn Raymo for use of his photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

 

Canal Reef Express 1

By now, many of you have read about the governor’s April 17 decision to use “33 barges of Tappan Zee Bridge recycled materials and 30 vessels” to build reefs at six locations north and south of Long Island.    Well, an expeditious eight days later, the first two vessels were already on the Hudson headed south.  Glenn Raymo and I positioned ourselves to document this first shipment.

Glenn positioned himself at the Walkway, where the tugs/barges were soon after daybreak.

Brian Nicholas led the procession with Witte 1405.  The Canal tender–aka Tender #6–seemed like a toy on the barge.  For photos of some off the tenders, including T6 from four years ago, click here.

Here’s a great shot of the stripped, decapitated, and “environmentally clean”  tender.

Rebecca Ann followed pushing a dump scow.  A source says that Tender #6 dates from the 1920s, and I’d guess that the dump scow vintage is similar.  To put this in context, check out this video of a 1928 Mack dump truck.

If you’ve never been on the Walkway, it’s a repurposed rail bridge with a “walk way.”   To catch the tow on the south side of the walkway, Glenn just stepped about 20 feet and got the next two shots.

 

Four and a half hours later, the day was bright, sun having burnt off the fog, and the tow was approaching Bear Mountain Bridge.  Walkways exist on either side of the Bridge, but one needs to cross three lanes of traffic to get from one side to the other, so I opted to take photos from the upstream side only.

Given the size of Witte 1405 relative to the single tender, I’m wondering why the urgency.  More fodder for the reef could have fit.

 

 

Note the chains used to

open the dump doors.

Many thanks to Glenn for use of his photos.  All other by Will Van Dorp, who’s thinking that if the governor holds to his word, 28 more Erie/Barge Canal vessels will descend the Hudson as part of the Reef Express.

If there exists a need for someone to document the final journey–ie, sixth boro to an actual reef location, I’d gladly step forward.

For interior shots–and more–of Tender #6 not that long ago, click here, thanks to Tug44.

Left Coast (Dropper) Lowerer

About four years ago she arrived  . . . and has been lifting into place this huge structure sometimes described as one of the largest current civil engineering project in the country.  Her original name Left Coast Lifter , a ZPMC product, stuck despite attempts at New Yorkizing it, renaming it I Lift NY or Ichabod Crane.

I saw the size of those blocks recently when I drove across the new bridge for the first time, but being alone in the car . . . obviously, no pics.

But the Lifter has been repurposed now.  I don’t suppose my attempt to rename her now will succeed any better… But how about Downstate Dropper Lowerer, Tappan Zee Deconstructor, Dewey-Driscoll-Wilson Dismantler?

But thankfully, the crane does more than just drop lower the sections for scrap, and I’m often not so thrilled by state or federal decisions, but here’s a good one:  sections of the old bridge will be used to replace compromised infrastructure in the Hudson Valley.  Here’s a story.

And the rest of these photos, thanks to Glenn Raymo, show these sections on their way to re-use, signs and all.

 

 

Many thanks to Glenn for use of these photos.  The top three photos by Will Van Dorp, who has posted about this bridge many times . . .. 

 

Gone!

This is the third of three digressions before getting on with the account of my trip west.

The saga of SS Binghamton started in 1904,

and I last saw it from land on January 6, 2017, when demolition was said to have started.  Demolition had started but defined as “asbestos abatement” by the alien looking figures clustered near the tender and the stack.

As a relative newcomer in the sixth boro, I first set foot on the ferry in 2011, when some thought a chance still existed to save her or parts of her.  I’ve also been holding off doing this post in hopes that more photos of the demolition process would surface.  I hope I can still do another post if such photos emerge.  I would have been there, but I was on my trip west.

The next two photos I took on July 16 from the water, the last it turns out.

 

Paul Strubeck took the photo below as he passed by about 10 days later when the stack had just been removed . . . as in a decapitation.

Only a few days later, Glenn Raymo took the next two shots from the Walkway over the Hudson, rubble going up the river.

 

Here’s a TV commercial once intended to attract patrons to the now gone restaurant.

Thanks to Paul and Glenn, more of whose work is available here.

 

 

CMT and Another Feat

This is the second of three digressions I’m making from the GWA series, and what a digression it is.

How can one postpone posting these photos of the largest ever single unit transported by barge down the Hudson!  And with outstanding photos like these.  By the way, the first two, by Glenn Raymo are available to purchase here.

I post about this cargo, which has been covered extensively on FB, because not everyone enters the labyrinth called FB.

Two of the same tugs made the high profile tow to Rochester via the Erie Canal earlier this year as seen here.

When this tow entered the Kills, many hours later, the passed the salt pile,  where Brian DeForest took these shots.

Click on the photo below to read the banner, part of which says “union built in the USA.”

Hats off to all involved.  Many thanks to Glenn and Brian for photos I couldn’t chase.

Click here for more prints by Glenn.

Previous photos of Mister Jim here, CMT Otter here, and Helen Laraway here.