No Jokin’ Hell Gate

Hell Gate conjures up strong associations, whether you go with the English derivation or the Dutch one.  I don’t go there enough to get photos. 

But today, Joker brought Weeks 551 through the Gate, and I was there to record it.  

It is truly an ever changing set of turbulences. 

 

 

 

On a run from New London to sixth boro, this job is almost done.

All photos, WVD.

Magothy

Magothy has worked for a decade and a half already, but I caught her on the East River yesterday, first eastbound to pick up barge Double Skin 59, and then

return it westbound through Hell Gate.  I’ve done several dozen posts about names, mostly vessel names, but Hell Gate is certainly one of the mythic names of a section of the sixth boro.  Interestingly, no vessel I know of has been named for this turbulent stretch of the East River.  Magothy itself is a waterway, mostly tidal, that flows into the Chesapeake.  Check out the etymology here.

Magothy pushing a tank barge through Hell Gate was quite the sight.

 

We overtook it

and I got this photo of the Vane unit with the RFK (Triborough) Bridge and the Hell Gate Bridge framing it.

Where we went east of Roosevelt Island, an unusual side to navigate, Magothy took her barge along the west side.  The Lighthouse here is positioned on the split in the channel at the north end of Roosevelt island.  The cupola/lantern of the lighthouse has recently been redone, and it appears some scupture display is just south of it;  maybe it deserves a walk one of these days, along with another visit to Socrates right across that channel.

All photos, WVD, who’s finding that winter chill is a better time for some explorations than summer humidity.

Patrice McAllister 2

The backdrop for Patrice and the barge that wants to go its own way is the Bronx.

It’s under the Hell Gate RR Bridge, and

past the WIWTP, which has its own fleet.

I may have seen GT Bulkmaster before, but this is the first time to “see” it.

It appears to yaw one way and then another . . .

 

They round the bend and head into the narrowing between Roosevelt Island and the UES.

All photos, WVD.

Hell Gate Traffic 1

Hell Gate has to be one of the most storied waterways in the sixth boro.  How could I have mostly ignored it so long?!!

The other day I caught Vinik No. 6 and Liz Vinik westbound  through that section of the East River.   In the background, that’s the Bronx.

An indicator of current is the fact that NYPD boat here is barely making headway.  Current in a tidal strait like the so-called East River is constantly and dramatically changing.  That’s Manhattan in the background.

Nicholas Vinik also passed through the other day, returning from a job.  That NYC DEP GUP headquarters in the background.  The Hell Gate RR Bridge seems in need of some paint.  Referencing this part of Hell Gate, captbbrucato describes it from a captain’s perspective here.

A recent development is the transit of NYC Ferry service through the Gate to the Bronx on the Soundview run.

Wye River heads eastbound to retrieve a barge, meeting

Cape Canaveral and DBL 101 on the way.

Along the shoreline here, that’s Astoria Queens to the left, and Manhattan along the entire distant background.  Most iconic is the spire of the Empire State Building.

State Trooper . . .  I’m assuming that’s a government boat.

That’s it for now.  I hope to return to Hell Gate soon.  All photos, WVD. 

East River Tow

Tech astounds me . . . yesterday morning I got an email from a New Yorker in the UK telling about this event;  tugs are already under way, he said.

I missed the first tug but arrived in time for Liz Vinik, shown here in classic NY context as well as state-of-the-art architecture.

Following Liz was Vinik No. 6., another classic, one I’d not seen in a while.

Both veteran tugs were on the move.

 

Five hours later, and after both my VHF and cell phone had died, leaving me to wait on sheer faith that this was going to happen, the tow appeared into my field of view, westbound at Hell Gate.

TS Empire State IV VI was headed for the yard in dead ship mode.

 

With Liz on the bow and No. 6 alongside, they made their way to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, to GMD, where she would make her way into the graving dock after dark yesterday.

Nicholas tended the stern. Previously she was Maria J. 

 

Had she come around the bend by Hell Gate 15 minutes later, i would have missed this, since I had late afternoon chores waiting.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is grateful to Steve Munoz for that early morning email from the UK.

 

Empire State VI Returns from Hurricane Duty

Here was the previous 2017 return, before the venerable vessel was called out for extraordinary duty in early September assisting in relief efforts after the devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico.

I caught these photos of the classic 565′ steamer–launched in 1962 as SS Oregon–from Roosevelt Island on a rainy blustery morning.

She ran eastward

 

 

 

 

before disappearing around the bend at Hell Gate.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.  Click here for a press release from SUNY Maritime.  For more info, click here to read the workboat.com article.

 

Mariners to Muskegon

That is a long way from the Staten Island base these boats have long used . . .  and how many engine rooms are hot here?

So Katie G and Colleen McAllister danced their way east to get north and way west past the dancing (or leaning) towers of the East River this morning.

Notice you can still see the original Libby Black name in the raised metal of Katie G McAllister, soon to be named something else?

 

Here’s a previous post I did featuring Katie G. remaking a tow at the Battery.

Click here and here for posts featuring Colleen at work.  Here’s one at the dock in Mariners.

 

I’m guessing this voyage will take about three weeks?

Godspeed, and beat the ice!

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Click here for another way to move a tug with a cold engine.  And here–scroll to the 4th photo–to see another way it can be done.  And another.  And I’ll add another post here with alongside towing.

Random Tugs 161

I’ve done posts about the East River, like these, and I’ve done a post at least about canyons, but it’s never struck me as vividly as right now how much this part of the East River is like a canyon.  These too are images of the varied sixth boro.

HMS Liberty pushes east past the cliffs before entering the terrifyingly-named Hell Gate.  Click here for the youtube video that periodically surfaces about a barge grounding in Hell Gate and then skillfully extricated.  Here and here are some discussions of that name . . . originally “beautiful opening.”

Sea Lion pushes a recycling barge up toward the Bronx River, I think, with

Dorothy J alongside, until

she makes the turn in the direction of the Harlem River, where the E. 91st marine transfer station–I think–is being built.  It’s been a long time since I’ve walked around up there.

And finally . . . it’s Mister T pushing scows eastbound and under the 59th Street Bridge.  And the aerial tramway to  . . . the sixth boro’s ski slopes?   Here’s the website for the operator . . . Leitner-Poma.    But I digress.

At the right times of tide, the waterway between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan Island move a lot of cargo.

 

 

All photos this week by Will Van Dorp.

Essex-built Schooner and the Huge Gray Haze

With a tip of the hat  to Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward, the title that came to mind as I shot these, and you’ll see why by the end.  See the road signs up there intended for drivers on the Triboro Bridge?

Rewarding my wait, it’s Jaguar towing Highlander Sea into the Gate,

past the Ward’s Island Footbridge, and

past Archibald Gracie’s cottage on the point. Click here for peers of the 1978 Jaguar.

Westbound the tow came at almost slack water and past

RTC 104 and

the Twins bound for Riverhead.

More on the brick building there with romanesque windows and green roof at the end of this post.

And here, when they were under the Queensboro Bridge,  the title occurred to me . . . having the same syllabication and cadence as the Swift and Ward title.

Now we need a story, one that starts as hundreds could in tiny but huge Essex.  Click here for my previous posts on Essex.

Maybe one about a fishing schooner design turned pilot boat turned yacht turned school turned . . .

fish market and restaurant/bar in the sixth boro.  I hope they sell monkfish.  These photos are compliments of my brother taken in Zwolle at a

pop-up market.

Thanks bro . . .

All other photos here by Will Van Dorp.

So, thanks to identification by Jonathan Steinman, the brick building there is ConEd’s cogeneration plant at East  74th St.  And this is a digression, but 74th Street has long been quite the interesting place.

Really Random Tugs 30

Really random means just that . . . and here are previous posts in the series.

So–thanks to Harry Thompson– let’s start with this assemblage . . . barge Amy B, Evelyn assist on the far side, but prominent is the 1941 Bushey built Jared S–ex-Cheyenne II, Sally Carroll, and Martin J. Kehoe.

The closest I ever got to Jared S was here . . . about a mile in from the mouth of the Genesee River in October 2014.  See the white buoy 20 feet off the bow of the decrepit Spirit of Rochester . . .  that marks the hazard created by the sinking of Jared S.

Also thanks to Harry, here’s a repost of Ocean Queen, cropped slightly tighter than I had two weeks ago . . . but check this link for the particulars.    In that link you learn that she sank after getting rammed near Hell Gate.  Well, thanks to

Robert Silva, here are some photos of Ocean Queen after she was raised.

You can see exactly where a bow struck her.   Thanks, Robert.

I took the photo below last week in Boothbay, Maine, where I checked out the Tugboat Inn.  Of course, I needed to know the story, since the superstructure here looked authentic.  All the info I collected online and from the staff there said the boat was built in 1917–probably in New York–and worked all its life until 1973 in Maine waters as the tugboat Maine.  However, nowhere could I corroborate this.

Thanks to Dave Boone, I received the photos below and learned a different narrative that seems plausible if you carefully compare the photo above with the one below.  The Boothbay pub was once the Richard J. Moran, built at Gibbs Gas Engine in Jacksonville in 1920.  Actually, it was built in Greenport NY in 1917 as Socony 3.  Then it became Maine and still later Richard J. Moran became the name.    Thanks again to Dave Boone for the correction.

But was Richard J.  scrapped in 1950, as these databases say, or did it get renamed Maine at that point and then get transformed into a pub in the early 1970s? To be continued.

The rest of the photos in this post I took last week.

In Rockland on the hard, it’s the mid-1950s Kennebec, and she’s available.

 

Dimensions are 41.9′ x 12.4.’

 

 

Here’s the info, but she might be sold by now.

 

Thanks to Harry, Robert, and Dave for vintage photos.  All other photos by Will Van Dorp.

And if you’re interested in collaboration, I invite your help for November posts.  All month long I hope to feature different ports–harbors–waterways and their workboats, which means not only towing vessels, but also ferries, fish boats, maintenance vessels, even yachts with professional crews.  I’ve been traveling a lot the past few months and have a fairly large backlog of boats from ports–harbors–waterways mostly in New England.  But as a social medium, this blog thrives on collaboration, so no matter which waters are near you,  I’m inviting you to send along photos of workboats from ports I might not get to.  I’d need at least three interesting photos to warrant a focus on a port.  Here are examples I’ve already done that illustrate what I’m thinking to do.