Random ULCVs 12

The point of this series–other than the point of this whole blog which is to document commercial happenings in the sixth boro–is to track changes, and changes in size and capacity have clearly happened in the container vessel department. I try to add other info as well.

Yesterday, besides enjoying the cold and snow accumulation, I caught three ULCVs moving through the KVK within the same hour.  Although this did happen, you shouldn’t conclude that ULCVs regularly pass through the KVK at the rate of three per hour. 

Cosco Development was the last of the three, so these are not in chronological order. 

For the stats, the 2011 build had assistance from four tugs;  her dimensions and capacities are as follows:  1200′ x 158′ and 13100 teu.  She departed Busan Korea on November 21 last year, making this the end of a one month, nine-day voyage.

The first ULCV moving yesterday was Ever Far, which had been in port almost exactly 48 hours. 

Her stats are as follows:  1095′ x 158.7, launched 2020 and carrying up to 11850 teu.  After clearing the Ambrose pilot, she headed in the direction of the Panama Canal at an unstoppable and consistent 21 mph, about the same speed I rolled eastward on the Belt Parkway yesterday. 

If you look carefully to the right side of the photo below, you’ll see Cosco Development beyond the trees and following the vessel below, CMA CGM Jules Verne.

Ditto below.  CMA CGM Jules Verne also had a complement of four assist tugs;  it was windy yesterday.

CMA CGM Jules Verne is one of the handful of largest ULCVs–or vessels of any sort– to traffic the sixth boro ever:  1299′ x 177′ and 44′ draft.  the capacity of this 2013 launch is 16,100 teu.  She departed Port Klang Malaysia on December 10, making this the end of a 29-day 4-hour voyage.

All photos, WVD, who hopes you enjoyed seeing these photos and reading these numbers and places.

If you’ve read through to this point, I have a curious story I can not confirm, but it was told to me yesterday by my friend bowsprite, who attributes it to someone she spoke with in a phonecall to the Department of Motor Vehicles.  She had called DMV because she’d not received her replacement for an expired car registration sticker.  The DMV told her not to worry because they would send her a new temporary sticker to print out herself because–here’s the kicker–the DMV was out of official sticker paper because of the supply chain backup.  Wait a minute . . .  does NYS, which has a paper industry of sorts, get its DMV “sticker paper” from abroad?  Of course, i know that many specialty papers exist, and even consumer toilet paper differs from the commercial type.  Ah, the things we’ve learned because of Covid!

Like I said, I can’t confirm the veracity of this story, but don’t you suspect were are truly doomed if we’ve outsourced sticker paper to foreign manufacturers?

 

 

Ever L 2

It’s that day, and although I’d planned something different, there are a lot of these green containers coming through the sixth boro.  Guess which ship?  Unrelated but something else to guess?  What is the emerald isle of the Great Lakes USA?  Answer follows.

Kimberly Turecamo was on port bow the other day, as

 

James D. and

 

Kirby assist along starboard side.

I believe 30 of the L- series have been built.  Click here (and look on the left nav bar) for their green features.

Go to any world shipping lane and you’ll see them.  The photo below was in Gatun Lake.

Their profile is unmistakeable.

I certainly haven’t even taken a photo of everyone I’ve seen in the sixth boro.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s ingesting green things like basil and oregano today.

Here is the first in this series.  Here’s another.  And from 12 years ago here’s an earlier class of Evergreen C-ships.

Emerald Isle of the Great Lakes . . .  it’s in Lake Michigan . . .  Beaver Island!!

 

Babel in the Harbor

What I would like to know is how widely known is “seaspeak,” or SMCP.  Or, how much have seaspeak principles been morphed–voluntarily or by regulation–into common VHF practice?

Most large ships look alike, allowing for differentiation into groups like container ship, tanker, RORO, pure car truck carrier, and then sub-groups with military vessels. Explanation:  physics,  global standards related safety, and the dictates of efficiency.

But within a tank, any of a range of fluids might live;  within a container, a limitless number of goods might be moved.  So it’s not  surprising–given the diverse points of origin of sixth-boro traffic–that a need exists for a simplified but unambiguous standard language.

As to signs of this diversity in shipping?  Check out Al-Mutanabbi.  That’s not “al” short for “Allen” or “Alberto” either.  More on the “al” at the end of this post.  I’d no idea until I looked it up that

Al-Mutanabbi was an Iraqi poet who died more than 1000 years ago.  In the foto above, vessel in the distance is MSC Dartford.

Elixir suggests magic for me, until

I learn that Yang Ming, a Taiwanese company with a history that dates back to the Qing dynasty (the last dynasty before the “republic”),  has a whole set of  container vessels with “e” names like Efficiency and Eminence.  Give me elixir any day.  By the way, that’s Vane’s Sassafras passing port to port.  By the way, sassafras was once a major ingredient of that great elixir called root beer.

Lian Yun Hu . . . I’ve not much clue about, other than that it’s owned or managed by Cosco, conjuring up thoughts of Cosco Busan and Shen Neng 1, of San Francisco and Great Barrier reef notoriety, respectively.

Most watchers of the boro would be clueless here without

a little help elsewhere on the exterior of the ship.

In Hindi, I’m told, “jag PLUS prerana” means “world”  AND “inspiration.”  Now, I wish they put an asterisk there with a translation painted just above the waterline somewhere.  I’d want to know that!

A large number of ships in the harbor are constructed in Korea.  And their names are straight-forward English although generally hangul writing coexists with English.  Tug is Amy C McAllister.

An interesting fact about hangul is that its invention gets credited to a Korean king named Sejong, a Renaissance man on that peninsula a  half-millennium ago.

All of which I use to illustrate my point:  if I didn’t read or understand English, I’d be helpless.  And I’m really just a shore-watcher.  Without an international language, communication on the sea–as in the air–would be worse than garbled.

Finally, here’s a gratuitous shot of Flintereems, from the land of my mother tongue.  Spelling notwithstanding, I believe the “eems” in this Flinter vessel refers to the river whose estuary forms the border between the Dutch and the Germans.  I set Goldman Sachs atop the Flinter  deck to mimic the last Flinter vessel “borg” appearing on this blog here.

All fotos, Will Van Dorp.

For a perspective on some verbal and non-verbal communication in the harbor, check out bowsprite here.

Oh . . . Al the prefix in Arabic means “the.”   You know it from such English words as “algebra, alchemy, algorithm” and –believe it or not–“elixir.”    Here’s more on that.