From the Line Locker 30

Have you read or heard references to a “trackless sea” or “trackless deep”?  Last night I was looking a “whole ocean” views of traffic.  Notice the magenta stream?  Recall that the magenta arrowheads show recreational vessels.  The green (cargo ships) and red (tanker) arrowheads seem much more random, but the magenta . . . pink . . . ones, they are totally following a track.

Ditto here; notice the magenta stream showing the “coconut milk run” on the tradewinds to the west to the Marquesas, French Polynesia, and beyond from Panama.

If we look at the Indian Ocean, the red icons heading east out of the Persian/Arab Gulf and the green ones heading both ways around southern Africa . . .  does rush hour on highways around any major metropolitan center come to mind?  It does for me.

Given all the sea shanties dating from the 19th century and references to Cape Horn, how about a shanty or two about the Cape of Good Hope?

Tracks in the southern Atlantic form an X. Try it out yourself.  Without AIS, we’d still talk of “trackless seas.”

A “little sister” Statue of Liberty will be displayed on a sixth boro island later this month and next.  Note the photo credit;  I wonder if the half-ton statue will arrive by CMA CGM water cargo or air cargo.

And finally . . . thanks to a Great Lakes mariner for this page from the Detroit Marine Historian Newsletter.  Grouper was a name yet to be when that publication hit the stands. The auction info is here.

I use the term “line locker” where some might say “miscellaneous.”  That’s the bright red hull of Issuma a decade ago as it encountered a local mammal while transiting the Northwest Passage.  You might wonder what became of Richard Hudson and his boat.  The good news is that he’s still sailing, and the better news is that he’s creating a rich offering of sailing videos on YouTube.  Check them out here. 

Screen grabs, WVD.

 

Issuma’s Journey Around

You may recall the schooner Issuma?  Click here for many of the posts featuring her and her skipper Richard Hudson.  She’s overwintering in the sixth boro after a truly remarkable voyage.  When he left northward from the sixth boro in the fall of 2010, inviting me to sail along as a Halloween ride, he

eventually sailed out the Saint Lawrence, up along western Greenland, across northern Canada through the Northwest Passage, through Dolphin and Union Strait, southward in the Bering Strait, eventually to Easter Island, around Cape Horn into the Antarctic . . .

to Cape Town, and then northward along SW Africa until jumping off for St Helena, and then single-handing back to the sixth boro.  That adds up to a circumnavigation of the North and South American continents and then some, and I think that’s a big deal.  If you want to read about the entire trip, click here.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.

 

At the End of the World

A Jules Verne novel set at the southern tip of South America goes by the fabulous title,  The Light at the End of the World.   Richard Hudson passed through here recently and sent along the photos in today’s post.

It’s USS ATR-20, built in Camden Maine, launched in January 1943 and ending her days in Ushuaia, Argentina.  The shipyard is now Wayfarer Marine, which I should do a post about one of these days.  The sixth boro–as does The Graves of Arthur Kill– has its very own disintegrating ATR here.

Fishing vessel Don Herman makes its way past the glacier in Seno, Chile.

 

Here’s a smaller fishing boat near Isla Riesco. 

 

End of the world aka Strait of Magellan, find tankers there?  Of course.  Here’s Sloman Herakles.

Ditto ROROs like Fuegino.

 

Canal Cockburn . . . they fish there too.

Puerto Eden . . . some folks live their whole lives there and like it.

 

 

Here are two more pics he sent a few months ago;  I’m impressed with this tender made of repurposed styrofoam.

Note Issuma in the background to the right.   Here are more.

 

Many thanks to Richard for this.  Follow his progress along the edge of the world here.

 

Meanwhile . . . 8000 Miles Away 5

Recognize the red schooner?  It’s shown here approaching the dock in Cape Town last week in a photo by Colin Syndercombe, whose previous photos you can see here.  Here are previous photos of the red boat on tugster, and here is the blog kept by the crew of the red boat, Issuma.  Since leaving the sixth boro in Fall 2010, Issuma has traveled up the St. Lawrence, northward leaving Canada to port and Greenland to starboard, across the Northwest Passage, southward through the Bering Strait . . . you get the flow.

It’s Richard Hudson.  So if you didn’t click on his blog link above, after traveling southward west of the entire North and South American continents–with a stopover in Easter Island–he rounded Cape Horn, leaving it to port, and kissed Antarctica.  Some time later this week, Issuma will leave Cape Town and head for New Zealand.

 

In October 2010, Issuma tied up briefly along the East River in Queens.  Oh the stories he can tell!

Also, much gratitude to Colin for taking these pics.

Ports of southern Chile

aka GHP&W 4

Some of you might remember schooner Issuma . . .   ?  Since this post and this one five years ago, Richard Hudson has sailed the schooner from the Northern Atlantic, westward across the Northwest Passage to Alaska, down to Easter Island, and now he’s truly been gunkholing along the western side of southern South America, where there’s an archipelago not unlike parts of the coast of Maine.

The boat below, part of the Naviera Ulloa fleet, is also remarkably similar to the transporter in yesterday’s post.

Richard took these photos in mid-September, so this is approaching the start of spring here.

Don Jose, part of the Frasal fleet, is a multi-purpose transporter that sometimes transports commodities such as fish and wine.

 

 

Hull cleaning is done here in much the same way I’ve seen it done in Maine.

 

 

By the way, the distance from this archipelago in the south to the salt mines in the north of the country, Salar Grande de Tarapacá, Iquique-Chile, is about 1500 miles!  These are the mines where much of the road salt stored in Staten Island and elsewhere along the eastern US come from.

Many thanks to Richard Hudson for these photos. Priot to sailing on Issuma, he had a beautiful Tom Colvin-design pinkie schooner called Rosemary Ruth.

Issuma’s Journey

So here’s a prime example of a sixth boro delight.  No, THAT inspector is not immersed in the sixth boro!  But the object of the inspection sailed into the East River last year in late August from the Sound and then out again heading north, up the Hudson River.  Note the place and date on this foto, which I borrowed from Richard Hudson’s Issuma blog.  Click here if you don’t know (like me) where the “Dolphin and Union Strait” is located.

I took this foto of Issuma last October just off the Rondout, where Issuma anchored.  Who would have guesed that Issuma, one year on, would be NORTH of Whitehorse!

Here’s another from that same morning.  Another schooner . . . Rosemary Ruth . .  was buddied up alongside.

This foto, also from Richard’s blog, shows the exact date.

So how does one get a 50′ schooner from the Rondout to the Yukon is less than a year?   Some thoughts come to mind:  very large truck, a C-17, squadrons of helicopters . . .  or by just sailing it through the northwest passage, doing what a namesake failed to do some 400 years back!

Congratulations to Richard Hudson and his crew, who on Columbus Day 2010 poured me a distinctly tropical drink on Issuma, docked in Long Island City, Queens.  Cheers.  I trust you passed the mustachioed one’s inspection gloriously.

Issuma’s Tow

Issuma has traveled off four continents in the past two years:  Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.  In the past year alone, Issuma‘s landfalls have included Argentina and Nunavut.  Yet, Issuma‘s skipper Richard Hudson has logged hundreds of hours sailing in the sixth boro, as well.  His tow, the vessel slinging here on the towline–for sale–is none other than the charming Rosemary Ruth.

Issuma is Richard’s third schooner.  See all the stories from Issuma back to Orbit II (which now lies thousands of feet below the surface of the North Atlantic between Iceland and Ireland)  here.

Here Richard and Gabriela pose in front of the two schooners at anchor off Thomas Cole-base, Catskill.

Issuma–unstepped mast lying cabintop–by now might be off farther north and west, headed for Toronto before winter closes the Erie Canal.  The tow will be left behind in Catskill, awaiting a new owner.

Here Richard and Bowsprite return from a sounding trip up Catskill Creek.

More fotos of the trip up the Hudson Valley coming soon.  As an aside, with a vista like this, I find it credible that Henry Hudson, making this trip 401 years ago, could have believed this waterway would lead through the continent.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  If you are interested in Rosemary Ruth, contact Richard today.

Related:  Rosemary Ruth IS a signed piece of art.  See the weld signature here.