Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension 5

Here is just one of the many posts I’ve done on Janice Ann Reinauer, now working in Nigeria under new ownership.  Here’s a post I did featuring her and siblings about to leave almost exactly two years ago, high and dry on Blue Marlin.   Of course, the skyline in the background shows that here–about 30 years ago–she was getting some attention at the drydock over in Jersey City just north of the Morris Canal.

Here’s a closer-up of the yard tug on the shoreside of the drydock.  Can anyone fill in more info on this fairweather vessel?

Here are two shots looking at what is now a very different Jersey City bank.

Only the lettering Bert Reinauer II offers clues here.  Anyone know the vessel to the left?  Bill Lynch speculates it’s pilot  boat New York (1972), and I’m inclined to think he’s right.

And finally, a repeat foto from yesterday . . . in addition to the identification sent through comments by tugboathunter and jeff s, here’s what Harold’s eureka moment came up with . . . revealing a bit of his process: ” I finally cracked the case on that green unidentifiable tug.  I looked at that photo, got away from it several times after tearing my hair out, and finally went back.  Saying to myself,  ‘That boat looks familiar.  I’ve seen it in the last few years painted a different color.  The Tug Races, that’s it, the Tug Races.’ ”   Interjection:  here’s a post I did in 2007 showing what Harold remembers.

Harold continues: “She was built in 1959 in Norfolk, Va. (yard unknown) as SHRIKE.  She was later renamed SALLY, and then BILL MATHER (that’s where the MATHER comes in from my observation).  I couldn’t make out the name BILL.  She was MONAHAN before becoming LONG SPLICE.  Her owner in 1993, as MONAHAN according to Carl’s records was Monahan Towing Co.  I looked in a 1978 MERCHANT VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES, under BILL MATHER, and found her owners as Tug Leasing Corp., Delaware.  A final look in a MERCHANT VESSELS OF THE UNITED STATES 1965 under SHRIKE shows her owners as Southern Tug Corp.”

Again, all these vintage fotos, which allow this time travel, come compliments of Seth Tane.  Click here for his current endeavors.

Here and here are two posts I’ve done on Harold.

Finally, I’ve written to folks in Nigeria to attempt to get fotos of boats there formerly here . . . still to no effect.  Anyone help?

Hudson River Tugboat Race 1952

The race took place exactly 60 years ago today, and megathanks and superkudos to Harold Tartell for finding fotos of more than half of the boats involved in the race.

Top Class A (over 1250 hp) finisher was Reading Lines Shamokin.

Second was Barbara Moran.

No foto found yet of third place Socony 11, but fourth place was William J. Tracy of  Tracy Towing Line.

Again, no foto of Dauntless #14, but here’s sixth place finisher Russell #17.

Number seven finisher was this Turecamo Girls, painted in “wood.”

And rounding out Class A, here’s Dalzelleader.

In the Class B division (850 to 1250 hp), top boat was Pauline L. Moran.

Number two finisher was Red Star Towing & Transportation‘s Huntington.

In Class C (less than 850 hp), the top finisher was steam vessel Latin American, operating for the Texas Company.

Number two Class C boat was Providence, of the Red Star Towing & Transportation.

Third place Class C finisher was  Ticeline, of Tice Towing Line, Inc.

Unranked Class B boats include Fred B. Dalzell here and

here, as well as

Anne Carrol, a 1910 steamer of Carroll Towing Line also ran.

I’m reposting this image, made available by Paul Strubeck and posted yesterday.   1952 is especially significant for me because it was the year I was born.  It was also the year that

Queen Elizabeth was crowned, nuclear sub Nautilus keel was laid, a B-52 first flew, SS United States first crossed the Atlantic, Ike became President, the word “smog” was coined in reference to London weather, Albert Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace Prize, lots of UFOs buzzed  Washington DC airport, and Werner von Braun published Man Will Conquer Space Soon.

This last entry reminds me of the Mr Armstrong that died a few days ago.  I’ll never forget the July night in 1969 that I, age 17 then, stayed up all night even though it was haying season;  I’d worked in the hay all day July 20, and stayed up much of the night before working again all day on the 21st.  My father thought I was crazy but my mother came downstairs to watch with me a few times during the night.  “What will it change?” she asked in different ways, and I surely had no answer, as excited as I was.

A few days later a farmer nearby told me it was all a hoax.  “Nobody really walked on the moon,” Elmer said.  “It’s all just a movie they made in Hollywood.”

43 years and a month later . . . well, maybe it didn’t change anything related to our travel destinations, but the some of the technology we  live with on earth stems from those efforts.

A final thought:  I recently read a statement by Robert Ballard saying that the NASA budget (I’m not sure which year he was talking about.) for ONE year equals the NOAA budget for 18 years.  As much admiration as I have for Neil Armstrong, maybe the next heroic explorations should involve walking along the bottoms of the oceans.

Harold . . . I hope your family illness will subside so that you can attend the tugboat race this coming weekend.   Thanks again for these archival fotos.

Retrospect

is actually a euphemism for “catching up,” which is all that’s on my plate today.  Like a month ago, I intended to put up a link to a west coast tugboat blog.  So here it is:  fremonttugboat.

Otherwise, this post comes from scrolling back through fotos I’ve taken (and not used, I think) since late spring 2009.  Try it yourself:  Put up your number of images (your fotos, else’s, your drawings, else’s) and comment on their place in your life.  Go back your chosen length of time, et voila, you have your very own retrospective!

Communication:  nothing fancy here as the deck keeps eye on work and skipper while the skipper pokes head out the window to see and hear.  Makes for clear communication, without which we in any endeavor  face peril.

Community:  it takes a strong bond between several rivertowns and watersheds to build a boat.  If I squint, I see this motely corps of volunteers literally carrying Onrust to the water on their shoulders.    Ok, I squint hard.

Comraderie:  Harold and a thousand other folks have acted as comrades in my life, and I am grateful to you all.  Gracias y merci buckets!

Contentment:  or “peace” if you will.  What matters it that this man is sitting where he finds it;  it matters not that he’s across from a huge oil depot and a dredged waterway allowing ingress and egress for dozens of billions of dollars or ducats of goods each year.  Here he is content.  Like someone I know who spent weeks living beside refinery and tolerating it by imagining the hiss and roar emanated from a pristine jungle waterfall.

Charm:  the Hudson River Valley happens to be a place of profound beauty and it mesmerizes me.  But the eye of the beholder generates a portion of that charm.  Open eyes will find it anywhere and in everything.  A resident of this Valley published THAT BOOK on this date in 1851 . Know which one?  Answer at end.

Curiosity:  the sixth boro is a complex place geographically, historically, … you or I could continue this list.  Here, like anywhere, it seems the more you notice, the less time remains to wonder about all the new things.  What is this cove called over just north of Fresh Kills?  Writing on vessels from foreground to back say RTC1, Crow, Relentless, and Cedar Marina.  Does a road lead here?

More curiosity:  What is this vessel that traversed to the north in front of Bowsprite’s cliff this summer?  What cargo did it transport?  What time warp did it emerge from?

Craziness: since writing about faces as prompted by the Robert brothers tome, I’ve had a blast with this.  This one . . . an orange boar (not bore) with tusks in place of dolly partons.  May some craziness–and a sense of humor about it– be evident everywhere.

Constancy:  1965  Near the St. Lawrence Seaway my father took this foto of a 13-year-old who became tugster.  I was already out tracking down info for the yet-to-be blog back then, way before blogs, digital cameras, computers of the wonders we know.  Some stuff doesn’t change.  Shouldn’t disappear.

It’s unrealistic to stop after a half dozen fotos, but . . . discipline is imposed.

My last post fer a while . . .gone fishing for something.  See you in a few with new tales.  Sindbad calls us to muster.   I tried unsuccessfully to find a Gordon Bok video-version of this, but this and this . . . a nice  innocent feel too.

All fotos, except the ones by bowsprite and my father, by Will Van Dorp.

Moby Dick. Thanks, Herman.  And apropos of nothing in particular except nature, see this video.

Allie B Heritage Details

As I post, Allie B steams eastwards 96 hours out of Boston bound for Gilbraltar and Romania.  One site I read recently refers to the type of information that follows as heritage;  other domains might call this previous lives or even aliases.   So, before carrying the Allie B name, the vessel bore these colors as Express Explorer.  Search “consort” and escort” on this blog to find other Express Marine boats.

Identical lines, same steel, different colors . . . she was Janet Graham of Gulfcoast Transit Company.

This was the original vessel–Gulf Inland’s Gulf Whale–launched in 1977 by Quality Equipment, Inc. of Houma, Louisiana.   Right here read vessel names and history of Gulf Inland Towing and other fleets subsumed with it under a different name today.

So here’s my question:  if a crewman with perfect memory who worked on Gulf Whale in –say–1978 walked through Allie B today, what details of the vessel might appear unchanged after 32 years?  What components still remain from the original launch other than steel plate?

All fotos and most info here compliments of Harold E. Tartell.