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Many thanks to Trucker Tim Powell for sending along these photos taken in Superior WI back in May 2008. She was launched in 1944 as ST 7067, later transferred to the USACE. Given the timing, Forney had already changed owners and would soon be painted in Heritage Marine’s gold livery, and renamed Edward H.
She looked quite good in USACE livery.
She’s still ST 707 gray inside.
I believe Forney, now Edward H, has been repowered, so this Enterprise DMG-38 engine is likely no longer in the boat. Does anyone know what she currently has for power, and what became of the Enterprise engine?
It turns out I saw Edward H from the air back in June 2017, although I was unable to identify her (I believe from bottom to top here we have Edward, Helen, and Nels.)
Here’s a similar shot from the other direction. More of this flight I posted here. The pilot had all the skills.
From Ingrid Staats . . . the most famous tugboat, Theodore Two, at least the most famous tugboat that isn’t really a tug boat. Bowsprite caught this famous non-tug here in the sixth boro, a decade ago. Ingrid took these photos in Toronto very recently.
Theodore Two has made quite a few meet-greet stops along its month-long journey from Halifax to Hamilton, salt to fresh water. Notice the bark canoe as tender?
Photos I saw from various Canadian stops (The pandemic prevented her from calling at US stops along the way.) show as many folks coming to meet-greet as used to appear whenever Urger stopped at towns along the Erie Canal.
From eastriver, enter the The Black Belt along the lower Mississippi.
And finally . . . a research question from Eric Wiberg: where is 1945 Bushey tug Chaplain? See text below for more info. Eric has even more info.
Many thanks to Tim, Ingrid, eastriver, and Eric for these photos.
From Eric: “This tug was at the last U-boat attack ever and is believed afloat in US or Bahamas. In May of 1945 a tug named CHAPLAIN crewed by Louis Alfred Coley, Jr. and others was used by U-853 under Oberleutnant zur See Helmut Frömsdorf of Germany as a disguise to hide under and sink the US merchant ship BLACK POINT, off Point Judith, RI, with the loss of 12 US sailors and naval gunners. Because the tug crew carried on towards New York with a light scow, history missed her, until 2018 and Capt. Colley described the events days before his death. Now, a Bahamian / US maritime historian is seeking anyone has any information on this tugboat, completed in Brooklyn NY in early 1945 by Ira S. Bushey & Sons, steam-powered with a Fairbanks-Morse engine of 1,000 horsepower.
Owned by Red Star Companies and Spentonbush Fuel Transport Service; Bushey affiliates. Sold to Farrell Ocean Services, then McKie Marine Co., and Russell Tripp (Bay State Towing Co.), retaining name CHAPLAIN in all three sales. Russell Tripp sold her to Constellation Tug Co. of Beverly and Boston, MA, who renamed her CARINA. She was sold to a company in the Bahamas in 2005 as CARINA. Names: CARINA believed to be in Bahamas 2009-present, owned by Kermitt Waters, Liberty Oil & Gas exploration, Las Vegas, NV and West Palm Beach, FL, aggregate trades Arawak Cay Nassau. Ex-OCEAN KING, Jeffries Point East Boston, Jan. 1951 to July 2004, ex-MARGARET SHERIDAN (New York), Jan. 1946 to Jan. 1951, ex-CHAPLAIN (New York) early 1945- Jan. 1946. Specs: IMO: 5260382, GRT: 179, LOA: 95’ X beam of 25.25’. The author is from Bahamas and has been scouring the waterfronts there since c.2015 to no avail and have contacted Liberty Oil & aggregate traders there to no avail. It is possible she has changed names again. Believed to still be US-flagged, she is probably in northern Bahamas or Caribbean, east Florida or US Gulf.”
She may have been renamed.
For context in this series, IS2 is most explicit, but for fun, check them all here. The photos in this series, all scans of slides, were all taken after the late 1950s.
#1. This is called Hudson raft-up. My questions: Can anyone identify the tug or at least its company? Is that a steam crane on the nearest barge?
#2. Lightship Scotland. Click here for a great story about bypassing the fishing regulations in the vicinity of the Scotland light, named for a 19th century wreck at that location. Some questions: Is that the current Ambrose at South Street Seaport? Which lighthouse/lightship tender would that have been in the New York Bight? What might the smaller USCG vessel be?
#3. USS Saratoga CV-60, launched NY Naval Shipyard in spring 1956, i.e., she was fairly new when this photo was taken. Only two more carriers would be built at New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. After service until 1994, she was decommissioned and plans were made to transform her into a museum, but those plans collapsed and she has been sent to scrap. For photos by Birk Thomas of CV-60 departing for the scrapping, click here.
Many thanks to Ingrid Staats for allowing me to publish these photos here, where I hope group sourcing brings more info to light.
Here’s another photo shared by Ingrid Staats. If you’ve been to this blog before, you recognize the bridge, but what are Vega and Altair you might wonder. The ferries are aptly named, since they are two characters in a Chinese love story, Vega the weaver girl and Altair the cowherd.
Here they operated within the fleet of the Bergen Point Ferry, both built in 1946 and discontinued in 1961.
The ferries were sold after discontinuation of the service, and both were lost in 1961: Vega off New Jersey and Altair between Mexico and Cuba deep in the Yucatan Channel. These are small boats to be going to Mexico: 61′ x 38′ x 8′, but another of the set, Deneb, made it and appeared in the Mexican registry.
To drive along Richmond Terrace these days, you don’t get the same sense crossing Port Richmond Avenue that you would have had 70 or 80 years ago . . . click on the photo below for a photographic tour of what used to be a crossing into NJ.
I used to have a photo of the sign still hanging near the ferry until quite recently, but when I gallivanted around there a few days ago, it was gone and my photo is as well, victim of one of my misguided cullings to reduce the memory demands on my computer.
In that recent gallivant, I did look along the west side of Port Richmond Avenue at this church and graveyard.
This is some old NYC history, and
names memorialized in places are reflected here . . . . Prall’s Island today is uninhabited but known to everyone who travels through the Arthur Kill.
Many thanks to Ingrid for use of the Vega-Altair photo. More of her photos to come.
And while you’re at the Reformed Church, go another 100 yards inland and check out Nat’s Men’s Shop and buy some warm work clothes.
First, bravo to Lee Rust who puzzled out 2 of the 3 photos from IS1. And I’ll just paste in his concise answers here: “#1 is Colleen Kehoe passing under the Bear Mountain bridge southbound sometime around the late ’70’s or early ’80’s. Since 1996 this vessel is has been part of the Axel Carlson scuba diving reef off Mantoloking NJ. And #2. Red, right, returning… Northbound towards Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge under construction… 1956-ish.”
Let me add a bit: #1, click here to see Coleen–and Budweiser banner– about to be reefed in 1996. And #2, the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge opened in February 1957. #3 Paul Strubeck helped me, “That’s the Lester J. Gillen of Gillen Lighterage.” The Gillen company is mentioned in this NYTimes article about a South Street Seaport Museum exhibit from 1977. Thanks much, Lee and Paul.
Below, that’s Ingrid’s father–the photographer for most of this series–in 1957 sitting on the bollard in front of MV Sunoco.
Mystic Sun and Maumee Sun here raft up to a dock in Port Newark in December 1959. Both date from 1948 and had cargo capacity of roughly 15,000 barrels. Anyone know who the buyers were when they were sold in 1969 and 1966, respectively? Mystic Sun appeared in this blog previously here.
Finally, here’s Sunoil, launched in August 1944 as Waxhaws. The T2-SE-A1 tanker was scrapped in 1972.
Mr. Staats worked on ships for almost 50 years.
Many thanks to Ingrid for sharing these photos. More to come.
Recall that I refer to the sixth boro of NYC as the water, which has served to create and develop the city’s other boros and to connect it via waterways to places near and far. Also, on this blog, fifth dimension is time, a vehicle to ride backward in it to where the nature is the same but the machines and structures are mostly gone or changed. “IS” here refers to Ingrid Staats, who has been digitizing her father’s photos and is sharing them here. Her father worked on a Sun Oil coastal fleet vessel. So let’s have some fun. I know a bit more than I’m telling about some of these photos, and will share that tomorrow or soon. Here’s your chance to identify and/or speculate.
Photo 1: What tug? Which location/direction?
Photo 2: Location? More? Date?
Photo 3: Tug? Company? Anything else on any of these photos?
Ok . . . more soon along with the info I know.
Here’s a link to a book that deals with an aspect of Sun Oil I’d never considered but which has NO relationship with the photos Ingrid has passed along.
Many thanks to Ingrid to sharing these.
First, thanks to Joseph Chomicz . . . it’s Rebel and Dolphin over by the Philadelphia Navy Yard . . .
Quo vadis, Rebel?
And the second batch comes from Ingrid Staats with likely the most unusual backstory ever on this blog . . . Ingrid took the photos from a room in New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where her healthy baby was born. She writes, “We had an amazing view of the East River and for four days as Mom & babe recuperated. I amused myself by capturing as many tugs as possible.” Congratulations to all and here they are:
Sea Lion above moving recyclables and and Evelyn Cutler pushing petroleum product.
TJ and Catherine Miller . . . and is TJ really doing all the work here?
And finally . . . Navigator light and Gulf Enterprise pushing a petroleum barge westbound.
Many thanks to Joseph and Ingrid for these photos. And I’m happy to hear that one of the next generation of tugboat watchers has been born.
tugster: a waterblog 
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