Retro Sixth Boro 55

As remnants of  Hurricane Nicole pass through the sixth boro, we might have a look back to details of aftermath of Sandy exactly 10 years ago, like this undecked pier over on the NJ side of the Arthur Kill, across from Howland Hook. 

USCGC Spencer came up for the cleanup, as did

then-USCGC Gallatin, now NNS Okpabana. 

NASA’s Enterprise saw some damage as well, leading to installation of a more robust pavilion. 

McAllister Sisters assisted ACL Atlantic Concert past the damage to the park shoreline just west of St. George while  

National Guard units staged in the then parking lot area. 

And I have to digress here to rant about a shoreside issue:  hundreds of millions have been spent in preparing this area for the ill-fated “NY Wheel,”  and in the process transformed what had been a simple but pleasant park into a wasteland behind an unsightly green wall and guarded chain link.  Hey mister mayor and mister SI boro president, clean it up and reopen it for the public.  The “wheeler-dealers” and the NYC EDC did more damage here–and allowed it to fester–than Sandy.  Is the small wheel next?

APL Cyprine, then flagged US and carrying USMC vehicles, has gone to Alang flying the flag of Comoros. Ditto ACL Atlantic Concert, shown up the column. 

Patrick Sky was still working back then, and Happy Delta brought in one of the first loads of NYC sanitation cranes. 

That year, by November 9–the date of this photo–we’d already had a dusting of cold, white stuff here. 

Cashman’s TSHD Atchafalaya was in the boro.  She’s still afloat in Florida. 

On black Friday 2012, the high point of my day was seeing Atlantic Salvor return to the boro with Witte 1407 carrying segments of what is visible today as

the antenna atop WTC 1. 

All photos, any opinions and all errors, WVD. 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 54

This month I’ve done one retro October 2012 post on the Chesapeake schooner race . . . and am doing this one at the end of the month rather than the beginning, for reasons that will soon be apparent.

On the 31st a decade ago, I made my way down to Front Street Staten Island to see what the big storm had wrought.  It was too shocked to take more photos.

John B. Caddell, waiting to make her way to new owners in Africa, had been surged ashore, to her stormy aftermath, and then to her demise.

The Upper Bay had an eerie emptiness that

looked like this on AIS.

Barbara, a friend on Rockaway took this aftermath photo of what had looked like

this only hours before.  Note the boardwalk supports above with what they had supported below.

I’d been on the highway getting home hours before Sandy hit. I documented months of aftermath of stormy Sandy  in various areas around the sixth boro, but the post that follows up on John B. Caddell a week later can be seen here.

And since this retrospective post has focused on a weather event, October 20, 2012 saw fog as dense as anything we saw last week here.  Somewhere in that water vapor is a small-town-sized population aboard Celebrity Summit;  click on the latter link for more photos of Summit‘s passage.

All photos, WVD, taken in October 2012.

Stormy Aftermath 18 Months

Near the upper left corner is JFK airport and the barrier beach along the bottom is the city of Long Beach, NY. The map makes clear how much of the debris swept off the barrier beach called Long Beach  went into low lying marshes waiting to float off again at any higher tide and clutter the waterways through the green areas, the marshes of southwestern Long Island . . . not far from sixth boro waters.

Here’s where the landing craft from yesterday’s post plays a role.  The vessel is now called Spartina, ex-Beach Comber, Eleanor S, and 56CM 751x,  one of 15 identical landing craft built in Marinette in 1977.

 

The beauty of a landing craft is its shallow draft . . . .

Note the debris piled near the waterway . . . by the marsh ‘uns. When the landing cart arrives for removal, it does need some water, but not that much and not a dock.

If you have waders or are willing to get your feet wet,

or if you pick the right spot in the waterway at the right tide . . .

you can haul away what you would not want floating in the channel.

Other workboats in the delta include survey boats looking for sunken boats and cars, and

various and sundy other equipment moved by the tiniest of tugs.

Can anyone identify this vessel CW 12?  I haven’t been able to yet.

Many thanks to Josh Horton of Horton Dredge & Dock for the ride along.   I first met Josh at the Greenport workboat festival here and  here almost seven years ago.

Here are some other Sandy Aftermath posts.

Whatzit 20

Here was 19.

I just got off a long day on the water, and am too tired

to tell much.  Check out the logo and

study the details in distance here.

Story soon.  All photos today by Will Van Dorp.

 

Replenished Rockaway

Aug 31.  A late summer day at the beach, where a new “towel drying rack” has been adopted and a bumper crop

of sand awaits the erosion of winter, perhaps?  All photos here taken by Barbara Barnard.

Sept 1.  A tug (Trevor?) moves a crane barge to where the “drying rack”/piping needs to be fished out for transport to the next job.

Sept 13.  The remaining pipe on the beach, no longer serving to dry swimmers’ towels, awaits dismantling and

allows for closer inspection.

This Rockaway series was of course motivated by Hurricane Sandy and the photos of Rockaway by my friend Barbara in the past 12 months.  Barbara, many thanks.   Here was my Nemo to Flag Day post, which started with a mystery house.

And now it looks like the Nola “make it right” rebuilding plan is coming to the Rockaways.  Click here for the design for “resilient house.”    Here’s an earlier article.

Click here for a project/business entirely created by the devastation of trees during the storm.  It’s not maritime, water,  or even specifically landthreshold related, but is quite interesting.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 11

Here and here are previous posts on a Rockaway Beach replenishment dredging operation that has now ended.   Sea Wolf is still local, but the vessel on the horizon (“atop” the red buoy) has now moved to southern NJ.  Remember, for most fotos, doubleclick enlarges.

Weeks’ Trevor was assisting in this project.

Also assisting was George W.

But here’s the powerhouse, the dredge.  Let’s take a tour.

In spite of about 16,000 total horsepower, C. R. McCaskill is not self-propelled.  To see what towed the dredge to the south, see the foto at the end of this post.    All that power moves the cutterhead on the submerged arm (called a “ladder”) that extends to the sand at the bottom of the Channel here.  At the top end of the ladder are two huge pumps (you could stand inside the pump housing) that suck the sand and whatever else off the bottom and send it as a slurry to a point on the beach some miles away.  Click here for a pdf that shows the beautiful (ok . . . roll your eyes) virgin red cutterhead with green teeth.    Each tooth weighs around 35 pounds!

Here inside the dredge are some interesting astounding facts about the machine.

See the sand colored building on the horizon off the stern of McCaskill?  That’s the area around 105th St. Rockaway Beach where the sand is headed through piping powered by this vessel.  The first few fotos in this post were taken at that beach.  There’ll be another Rockaway post soon.

Candace towed C. R. McCaskill south.  I missed her when she was in town, but John Skelson caught her here.  Click on the foto to see John’s complete shot.  Many thanks to John for use of that shot from his Flickr page.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except for the one shared by John Skelson.  For more info on each of the Weeks tugs, click here.  More McCaskill tomorrow.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 9

Here’s a followup on the Rockaway sand pumping, and there’s gold in those sands, over $36 million worth.   Notice the dredging/pumping vessel upper right.

This was the fountain this morning.

Once the slurry exits the mouth, water flows back into the ocean and sand is pushed up the beach.

This repurposed container is project headquarters.

The top foto comes thanks to Barbara Barnard;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 8

I’m back, with lots of gallivanting to catch up, but first . .  a whole lotta fotos from this morning in the sixth boro.  Any ideas what’s going on here?  What is that gray blur in the center of the foto and why are the gulls so frenzied?  Be forewarned . . . this post has so many twists/turns . . . it’s divided into parts, even though I took all these fotos in the span of less than an hour.

Part 1

Answer:  It’s how over three million cubic yards of sand is being added to Rockaway Beach . .  at least for a while.  Here’s what the NY Daily News says about it.  Here’s an article and video from Dredging Today.

And here . . . off in the Rockaway Inlet are the machines mining and pumping the sand, seen closer up in this recent  tugster post.

Part 2.  Notice  the piping coming from the stern of McCaskill.

I could not resist wondering about these birds whose name rhymes with “lovers.”

Part 3.  Follow this sweep of fotos as I turn to the left.

An Atlantic City billboard on Far Rockaway?  Is a mixed up sense of geography part of Sandy’s legacy?  I keep turning left.

A Potemkin village and that’s an A  Train station to the right?

See the silvery cars of the A train?  It’s a Boardwalk Empire set in the wasteland of eastern Rockaway Beach . . . . I was hoping to buy some of that food at those prices!

Of course, I had to look behind.

I half expected to find some Aral Sea boats back here too.

Part 4.  Once back on the boardwalk, I saw this fishing boat about a quarter mile from shore.  I’m guessing it’s unrelated to the sand piping and pumping, but   . . . who knows.

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Groin Yanking 2

I happened to be down near the Rockaways aka Lenape “rack-a-wak-e” yesterday and stopped by for another look.  The orange loader to the right has a mouthful of yanked groins.  In the background, note the surfers.

I wouldn’t surf or swim or kayak here even without a sign.  Rockaway is expansive enough to go elsewhere.

But I found the answer to my lingering question . . . who is doing the yanking . . .

It’s Platinum Marine Services.

I still failed to notice the name of this workboat, but

I have more posts coming from NYC’s Copacabana and Ipanema rolled into one.  And notice how the grass is growing in between the old supports for the boardwalk?  Compare with the second and third fotos here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Stormy Aftermath 7 Months 7 Days

Sandy pushed this 1941 vessel ashore on Staten Island late last October.  The registered owner was from another continent and possibly no longer alive due to unrelated circumstances.  The city took charge and the sheriff’s auction happened today.

Viewing and inspection happened from this vantage point.  Sheriffs offered binoculars, though none with x-ray capability.

Before the auction began, a tanker at least four times greater in length passed northbound in the Arthur Kill.

Auctioneer Dennis Alestra welcomed the crowd to the auction, indicating where the bidding would take place.

Members of the sheriff’s department outnumbered all other attendees combined. Carolina Salguero, director of PortSide NewYork, has a similar tanker, Mary A. Whalen, now possibly the last of this class of coastal tanker in the United States and certainly the only tanker serving as a center for cultural and educational events.

One bidder and one bid . . . and the tanker is SOLD for $25,000  to Donjon Marine.  Total elapsed time of the bidding:  about one minute.  Here shipshooter Jonathan Atkin witnesses the signing of papers.

I’ve always enjoyed seeing her.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.