ICW Tugs May 2017* C

 . .  but first, I know I missed lots of excitement in the sixth boro this morning.  If anyone got photos, I’d love to share them here for folks who don’t do FB.  Now let’s head a few years back and down on the Chesapeake in Baltimore. . . 

Sea Crescent . .  .  I believe she’s a 1981 Stevens Towing vessel, currently in Narragansett Bay.  I took this photo near Annapolis.

The 1970 Capt. Henry Knott operates for Vulcan Marine Services. She’s currently in norfolk. 

In the foreground, it’s the 1975 Indian Dawn, formerly Sea Star at Spentonbush-Red Star in the sixth boro. My notes fail me on the tug beyond the scow. 

Now inside Baltimore, it’s Bridget McAllister. The 2006 tug was built as Leo for Foss and worked at one time under that name for Constellation Maritime, as seen here. 

Also in Baltimore it’s the 1966 YTB now known as Timothy McAllister. Like Ellen and Steven McAllister, she brings 4000 horses to the job. 

 

Harriet Moran is a 1978 Jakobson tugboat that was heavily modified in the 1990s.

James R. Moran is a 2004 Washburn & Doughty tractor, rated at 5000 hp. John W. Brown is one of the last remaining Liberty ships, off the ways in Baltimore in 1942.  In that link, you see her in the sixth boro in 2016.

Rounding out the Moran fleet I saw in 2017, it’s April Moran and Z-One. They are from 2006 and 1996, respectively, and both rated at 5100 hp. I first ran into Z-One in San Juan, here. 

Now out of Baltimore and headed for the C & D Canal, I ran into the 1981 Skiffs Creek Towing vessel Justin, with a loaded barge. 

All photos, WVD. 

ICW Tugs May 2017* B

Norfolk and its estuary constitute a major US seaport, so let’s linger here for this post.  I’ve been there three times, and only once was it clear.

Besides military docks, it has a number of terminals.  for this latter, here‘s a schedule;  Notice it shows CMA CGM Marco Polo arriving here at 1300 on May 23. 

Clayton W. Moran is a 2016 launched 6000 hp tugboat, just a bit newer than the four 6000s in the sixth boro.

Compared with the sixth boro, notice that you see many of the same companies working in Norfolk, and many of the same vessels, including container ships tugboats.  Choptank is a 2006 Louisiana-built Vane 4200 hp boat.

The sixth boro has quite a Norfolk tugs fleet, but I suspect Ellie J, 1968 and 1800 hp, has never called up here.

I can’t tell you much about Dauntless II.

Emily Anne McAllister is a 2003 4650 hp tugboat.

Gold Coast is a 1967 1000 hp tugboat that has worn Dann Marine colors since 2005.

Captain Mac is a Corman Marine Construction tug built in 1980 and rated at 700 hp.

Steven McAllister is one of a dozen or so McAllister converted YTBs.  Built in 1963 and significantly repowered in 2007, she brings 4000 hp to ship assists.  She’s pretty much identical to Ellen McAllister.

Elizabeth Ann is part of the Norfolk Dredging fleet;  she’s from 1982 and is rated at 3000 hp.

Ocean Endeavor is from 1966, 1000 hp, and has left saltwater for Milwaukee, where she’s now Ruth Lucille.

Paradise Creek (1981) once worked in the sixth boro as Caspian Sea and before that (and before my time) was here as Sea Tiger.  Currently, it has been sold out of the Vane fleet and is known as Emmy Lou.

Maxwell Paul Moran is a 6000 hp, likely quite similar to Clayton W above.

All photos, WVD.

 

ICW Tugs May 2017* A

I’ve traveled the ICW from Charleston SC to NYC, some parts several times.  This is a “revisit”  focusing solely on tugboats. I’ll start in Charleston with Elizabeth Turecamo in the fog.

Recycling comments on the boats below from Georgetown SC, by George Schneider:  “The little one shows the name Laura , which has one of two possible origins: A 45-foot tug by the Equitable Equipment Company of Louisiana, or a 45-foot Army dredge tender of Army Design 320, mirroring the Equitable design. I’m guessing she’s ON 1060493, originally the Army ST 2051, then the Army Corps Fort  Brooke , and now owned by Sampit Towing of Charleston SC.”

And by William Lafferty: “I’m thinking the larger tug is Susan Richards, built in 1909 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation at Quincy, Massachusetts, as the Gen. R. H. Jackson for the Army Quartermaster Corps and stationed at Jacksonville, Florida, later named Fort Sumter and Three Bros. It’s owned by Richards Marine Towing at McClennanville, South Carolina, and has been a fixture at Charleston for decades, originally run by White Stack Towing there.”

Thx George and William.

Crossing the border north to North Carolina, my next stop is Southport, where Sea Oak was working on a dredge project.

And after that, it’s Wilmington and Cape Henry.

The next batch is from Morehead City NC.  Atlantic Dawn was working on a dredging project there.

Na Hoku was there also, formerly a K-Sea boat. She currently works out of Jacksonville.

Liz Alma was too.  

Morehead City is the deep water export center for potash, mined farther north in Aurora.  Grace Moran then waited at the dock.  Is she still around?

Beaufort Belle, then PSC Phosphate, is now Norfolk tug.  Has she been repainted?

Peter G. Turecamo appears still to be working in Morehead City.

Clearly marked here in Norfolk are Miss Willa, Nancy McAllister, and McAllister Sisters.  Second from the left might be Steven Eileen McAllister.

Jack T. Moran was just a year old back ion 2017.

Thunder is one of a trio of Robbins Maritime small tugs with meteorological names:  Thunder, Lightning, and Storm.

Camie  is also a Robbins Maritime boat.

Anne Jarrett is another Norfolk Tug vessel.  It resembles a Vane tug, and at least two former Vane boats are now with Norfolk Tugs:  ex-Patapsco and Sassafras.

All photos, WVD.  The * denotes that most but not all photos were taken in May 2017.  It’s high time I take another trip along the ICW to see what has changed.  And we still have more from Norfolk to the sixth boro.

 

Other Peoples Photos 74

Some time ago, I posted photos of small craft including one not-so-small Florida Bay Coaster (FBC).  Since then, I learned that the FBC is called SAILS and operated for many sea miles by a gentleman named Jay Wigginton, whose blog you can read here.

Many thanks to Jay for sharing a set of photos from his most recent northbound trip, including Army tug ST-911 Enduring Freedom on the ICW, actually the Alligator River,

a tug and barge on that waterway,

some ship encounters,

 

this one in the C&D Canal,

 

 

And finally,  his other boat.

Many thanks to Jay for passing these along.

 

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 6

Actually, only part of this leg is through the ICW, or another way to say this is that from Cape May to NYC you need to be in the ocean.  For a map that shows this, click here. This leg takes us from Baltimore to New York City, which in this case is not the end of the trip.  More on that later.

Below, Key’s Anthem is Baltimore’s new Inner Harbor water taxi, the first vessel of 10, one that’s all local vernacular . . . a Hooper’s Island drake tail.

Tiwai Point prepares to discharge a load of sugar, from Colombia, I think . . .

Bridget McAllister (and other McAllister boats) waits at the dock.

We head out past Natty Boh and Brooklyn . . . ,

Vane’s Carlyn,

and Justin with an unidentified load.

Was it Justin that towed Tamaroa out to the reef site last week?

At the Chesapeake side of the C & D Canal, it’s Dann Ocean’s home base, with (l to r) First Coast, Diamond Coast, New England Coast, Sea Coast, and Gold Coast.  By the way, Gallatin called this the Delaware & Chesapeake Canal and estimated it as 22 miles long with 18 locks.  The current Chesapeake & Delaware is 14 miles long and all water is at sea level, i.e., no locks.  Here’s the history.

Defender (I think) steams inbound for Pennsauken with Cape Cod tailing a Crowley barge.  Depending on which barge this was, capacity is 400–500 teus.

Gulf Venture/Carrier anchors off Salem . . .

And then morning brings a jagged island up out from the deeps and we

line up some towers . . . while Le Grand Bleu waits in Gravesend Bay.

Note the unusual wake and splash pattern on Jonathan C.‘s stern?

And an unfamiliar Kirby vessel– Mount St. Elias–moves DBL 77 upriver.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 4

Here’s the reference on Gallatin’s 1808 report proposing the ICW.

This post focuses on the in-port stay in Norfolk, starting with Thunder and

showing her in context with Storm and Squall.

Since we’re starting with small tugs, check out Beverlee B at work and

light.

Hoss is a sister of the sixth boro Patricia, here light and

here at work.

To close out, it’s Ann Jarrett,

Maxwell Paul Moran and Clayton W Moran, 

Emily Ann McAllister,

and a whole slew of boats I’ll get back to later, here leaving the East branch of the Elizabeth river.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, in Norfolk.

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 3

Leg 3 took us from Beaufort NC to the Elizabeth River, Norfolk.

Again, when I’m back, I’ll catch up on identifying in words what you can identify yourself.

 

Morehead City is a deepwater port.

 

 

After some rough weather spent in port, the shrimp fleet heads back to work . . . parade style.

Yup . . . I like it.

The long bridge at the top end of NC.

I can’t wait to play with night images I took as we approached Norfolk.  Just enough water vapor in the air traced the line of the spot light as we confirmed location buoy by buoy . . . 0300.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 2

Leg 2 runs from Georgetown to Beaufort NC.

We did from Southport to near Wrightsville Beach in Gallatin’s ICW, past this bucolic campsite and

surf camp.  See the surfer’s legs lower left?

We headed into Beaufort/Morehead City passing this sailboat outbound.

Fun!

That’s bulker Aurora in the offing.

And a banker horse and a Great Lakes Reggie G (Booster No. 4) . . .

 

It’s was Derby Day and these equine could not care less. Bravo independence!

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

 

Ports along the ICW

This post is a direct follow-up to one I did a week ago, documenting the 270-nm trip from Kings Point NY to Norfolk aboard USMMA Sailing Foundation vessel Tortuga.  This post documents the second and final leg of the trip to Tortuga‘s winter berth in New Bern NC, a 179-nm trip from Norfolk.

Let’s start here.  Departure time on day 1 is 1100 h. If you think the navy vessel in dry dock looks familiar, well . . . it visited the sixth boro in May 2012, and I toured the ship DDG 57 USS Mitscher at that time here.

A USN presence is pervasive along the Elizabeth river portion of the ICW, but the Norfolk Naval Ship is

technically in Portsmouth. The vessel above is AS 41 USS McKee. 

Click here and here for info on the Elizabeth River, technically a tidal estuary.  Click on the map below to get interactivity.

Here McLean Contracting Co. tug Fort Macon works on the replacement of the Steel Bridge in Chesapeake VA.

I was surprised to learn there’s a lock in the ICW, the Great Bridge Lock.  I was even more surprised to learn the USACE contracts the operation and maintenance of the lock to a company called US Facilities.

I must read more about the ICW, but in WW2 it proved a safe route for commerce when enemy submarines preyed on vessels offshore.

Paradise Creek pushes oil along the ICW today; when I started this blog,  it was a regular workhorse in the sixth boro of NYC.

The color of ICW water is determined by natural tannins.

The ICW is composed of wide open bays and sounds–which have narrow channels-as well as narrow cuts.   Here Evelyn Doris of the ICM fleet pushes a covered barge–soybeans, I’ll wager–northbound, possibly to Norfolk.

Ahead is the US Rte 64 Bridge over the Alligator River, a swing bridge.

Note the proximity of the photo above to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tannins in the Alligator River water create this color.

North Carolina today protects a lot of its coastal wetlands. Hunting is permitted, and in fact, VHF radio picked up a lot of communication with folks hunting in there.

Parts of the ICW flow through cuts like the Alligator-Pungo Canal.

This moment of arrival in Belhaven meant a lot to me, because just around the point in the center of the photo is the hospital where I was born. I hadn’t known it, but Belhaven also considers itself the birthplace of the ICW.

Departure time on day 3 was 0600, Jupiter and Venus were higher in the sky than the rising sun.

Aurora Mine looms over the Pamlico river. Potash export happens through Beaufort,  documented on tugster here and here a few years back.

See the mine area on the south side of the Pamlico River below.

Hunting abounds here.

Note the spelling. 

Belhaven used to support a fishing fleet.  I’ve no idea how the size of the fleet and market in Hobucken has fluctuated over the years.

Day 3, early afternoon we depart the Neuse River for the Trent by passing through the Cunningham Drawbridge.

Tortuga is docked here for winter.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Again many thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.