Ghosts of T’givings Past

Choosing a random starting point, I went to my photo files closest to each of the Thanksgivings between 2008 and 2016. 

The holiday fell on the 27th that 2008.  Of the photos I took –this one on the 23rd–here’s one I remember taking.  ITBs were not very common in the sixth boro then, extinct now.  Maybe someone reading this was then working on the now-dead 1982 ITB Groton.  More on ITBs here.  And 18,000 horsepower!?  pushing 360k+ barrel barges, were they cost effective?  Presque Isle, a laker, is technically an ITB.  I saw it once this past season, but in darkness and the photos are mostly just a blur. 

From 2009, here’s a shot of Volunteer.  K-Sea equipment was omnipresent in the boro back then. Volunteer was launched in 1982 as well, and scrapped in 2018.

Thanksgiving 2010 I was in Philadelphia, where I am today.  That day I was impressed by this crewman, likely at prayer, on the bow of this bulk carrier undaunted by the seasonal precipitation.

In 2011, just before Thanksgiving, the walkway was still on the west side of the Bayonne Bridge.    In the distance that’s the ghost island of Shooters, with a Donjon dredging operation and a Bouchard unit on the north side.

I loved watching traffic pass from that walkway, as with Maersk Kentucky getting an assist around Bergen Point from Elizabeth McAllister.  Resolute was forward on the port side and out of sight.  Elizabeth McAllister was scrapped in 2021, but Maersk Kentucky is currently near Colon, Panama, so I guess these vessels are not all ghosts.

In 2012,  Zim Virginia headed out of town with some pickup trucks, Barbara  McAllister alongside. The Zim ship is currently off Spain, and Barbara is now Patsy K, with another company.  The pickups . . . I’m not sure where they are.

In 2013, John F. Kennedy still regularly transited the Upper Bay

Thanksgiving 2014 I was in Philadelphia again, checking out some of the equipment there.  USNS Guam (T-HST-1) today is in Okinawa.   

2015 on Thanksgiving I was exploring the boro with the good folks at NY Media Boat, and here meeting Amy C McAllister. I don’t know her disposition and whereabouts at this moment.

Let’s end today’s post on Thanksgiving Eve 2016 in Little Falls NY, where former Belgian cargo barge Sojourn was exiting lock 17, downbound for the sixth boro. That looks like Robert on the forward deck, too. And those streaks, that’s some more seasonal precipitation, which we’ve been spared so far in the the sixth boro this year. 

All photos, any errors, WVD.  If you’re interested, I could do the same with Thanksgivings 2018 up through the present.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving Day today.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 8

One satisfying thing to me about these retro posts is noticing how much the local fleet has changed.  All these photos I took in November 2008.  Coral Queen was scrapped at least eight or nine years ago.  Maersk Donegal has had two name changes since 2008, now know as Santa Priscila, and no longer calls in the sixth boro.

SPT Guardian, still under the same name, is currently operating out of Lome, Togo.  Note the NJ State Police boat alongside.  I don’t know if they are still using that boat.

ITB Groton is gone as well.

The huge K-Sea fleet in the boro has dispersed.  Solomon Sea is now Emily Ann,

Falcon, I believe, is still Falcon but wears Vane livery,

Davis Sea still has the same name but Kirby colors and operates in the Gulf,

and Aegean Sea carries the same name but works for Burnham Associates in my old stomping grounds north of Boston.  NYK Diana has moved to the Pacific to the US West Coast.

This Rosemary McAllister has been replaced by another Rosemary McAllister, and has spent only part of one day in the sixth boro.

Stapleton Service takes the prize for the greatest number of name changes, three since 2008.  She’s now Michael Miller.

Buchanan 15 has become Dory, although I’ve not seen her in a while.

Coral Queen‘s smaller fleet mate was John B. Caddell, which became a hurricane Sandy victim:  grounded, sheriff auctioned, and scrapped.

I made a jaunt upriver aboard the only and only Half Moon–now sold abroad– in November 2008, and saw

Champion Polar but she’s now

–ice bow and all- dead and likely scrapped,  as well as

a more intact Bannerman’s Castle.

All photos by Will Van Dorp in November 2008.

 

 

Really Random Tugs 41

Sea Power has been lurking in and around the sixth boro the past few days, and I will continue trying to get some good photos of her, but on 9-22-16 Jack Ronalds up at the Canso Canal caught these photos of her as she headed into Lake Erie to pick up her barge constructed in Erie PA.

Remember, if you need photos of a vessel traveling between the Great Lakes and the west Atlantic Coast from the Maritimes southward, Jack’s your guy.   See some of his work (2440 photos) here.

4-24-08  Dean Reinauer passes NYK Daedalus.  This Dean left NYC for Nigeria in June 2011. 

6-16-08  Juliet Reinauer pushed oil a decade ago.  She’s still in the harbor working as Big Jake.

6-23-08  Odin . . . no longer has an adjustable wheelhouse and may be laid up, and ITB Groton, single-hulled tanker, . . . was sold in later 2008 to Nigerian interests first to ship grain and then returned to petroleum trade.  It was sent to Alang and scrapped in late 2013.

9-13-08  Viking seen here out of the notch has made its way to Kirby and is currently very busy on the Hudson.

9-05-10  Here’s another showing Viking out of the notch and all gussied up, and (it seems) terrifying W. O. Decker.

And finally, another from 9-22-16, a shot of Sea Power heading north through the Canso Canal and ultimately to Lake Erie to pick up its mated barge.  In the background is the 60+ year-old quarry now operated by  Martin Marietta Materials in Aulds Cove, where vessels like and including Alice Oldendorff pick up the aggregates.  Last year, four million tons worth of rock was shipped from here.

Many thanks to Jack for use of his photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp, who has learned that as of this morning, Sea Power is sailing for Charleston SC.

 

From the Line Locker 14

Here were 11, which clarifies the title . ..  I hope.

I’ve had these fotos from Seth Tane for quite some time.  I looked at them today while culling fotos from my library.  Foto shows Foss tugs moving the Sauvie Island Bridge span into position near Portland, Oregon.  Foss tugs visible are (I believe)  the larger PJ Brix and Jim Moore.

This foto also shows Daniel Foss. The bridge move happened in late December 2007;  see page 6 of this Foss publication.  Looking up info on the Sauvie Island Bridge, I stumbled on the clever Flickr assemblage of fotos with the string “island bridge” in the name.  Try playing with it to see bridges with those two words juxtaposed from everywhere.

Like I said, I was scrolling through and culling my 2008 fotos.  Joan McAllister . . .  haven’t seen it in a long time.

Ditto Crow.  Has she been scrapped?

Here’s a summer 2008 treat, tandem pushing Aegean Sea and Caribbean Sea, although still on Roehrig colors.  The K-Sea colors on both have yet to come and by now both have been repainted.

Later in summer 2008 I took this, M/T Great Gull . . . now operating near the Panama Canal.

And  . . . last one for today, Odin passing the stern of ITB Groton, also sold foreign. ITBs like Groton, obsolete now, were technically catamaran tugs.  Just forward of where the stream of water is exiting the hull is the “bow” of the tug;  look above it and you’ll see the “seam” where tug and barge conjoin.   I posted about ITBs here back in late November 2007, and since

I’ve been enhancing my fotos on this blogs, let me add a few to that post here.  Here I’m looking between the “hulls” of the catamaran and toward the stern.  Note the portside prop.  For scale, note the size of the “lift basket” and yard worker.  The aftmost portside portion of the “barge” fits into the groove.

Here’s the aftmost port starboard side of the barge.  These two fotos were taken in the Brooklyn Navy Yard GMD November 2007.

Thanks much to Seth for starting this 2007/08 flashback.  I feel like a veritable John Titor after this glance back at how much the harbor has changed in five years.  All fotos except otherwise attributed, are mine.

And totally unrelated . . . prepare to laugh yerself buttless  bad lip reading the NFL.   This one is a guaranteed laugh-producer too . . . what they really said in the first debate.

Random Tugs 19

In the foto below, Odin is the smaller of two tugs. Groton, the green ITB catamaran tug with stern facing us, dwarfs it. Yes, that’s tug. If you missed my earlier posts, type ITB in the search window and you’ll find lots of fotos in three posts. According to USCG documentation, Groton is 127 loa, 90 beam, and 39 draft… make that “hull depth.”

Gulf Dawn, ex-Francis J built in 1966, hails from the Big Easy.

L. W. Caddell, loa 46, was outside the yard some time back.

Vera K, ex-Goose Creek built in 1967, had me thinking she was her much younger and previously-blogged-about sibling, June K.

This was my first glimpse of Robbins Reef, ex-Glenda D and Gerald S, loa 42 and built in 1953.

Unrelated: Thanks to my friend Peter Mello for calling my attention to a photographer named Shuli Hallak. Peter does a great blog called Sea Fever and a podcast called Messing Around in Ships, with John Konrad of gCaptain.

Photos, WVD.