Ports along the Malaccan Strait

This photos and text come from JS, a frequent commenter on this blog.   He took the photos on a voyage that left NYC in July 1966 and returned to LA in December.

JS:  “President Pierce (C-3) is being dragged stern first from the dock by an Indonesian tug to mid channel in a shifting procedure.   I took the snaps standing on the dock of a rubber port in Java.  We loaded latex rubber.  The port was Belawan Deli. No one went ‘ashore’ but we did trade newly purchased Seiko watches for Bali heads to smuggle home and  sell in antique stores.That place was a short day or two sail from our loading general cargo in Singapore.”

 

Tugster:  I’ve no idea what has become of this steam tug. Here’s some info on Djatisari.

Here’s some info on Florian Ceynowa.

JS continues:  “It’s me on the right (2nd electrician, promoted from wiper), my uncle Al (John Noble‘s neighbor) and Steve Duhamel, the bull wiper.  He was great at moving 55-gallon drums anywhere in the engine room.  Also, note the longshoremens outhouse overhanging the stern rail of the Pierce.”

JS:  “Fish loading was from an anchorage in either Port Swettanam, or Penang, Malaysia. Local longshoremen winched them from boats alongside, stacked them in our t’ween deck reefers, and we discharged half the load into uncovered trucks on a cold Yokohama dock weeks later and the rest stayed on for U.S.”

“Whole frozen tuna gathered by the tails, being winched from fishing boats holds.”

“After a 6-month ‘jungle run’, conditions on board had become lax. The ship was in disarray, so perhaps the patrolmans report was a bit severe.   We were paid with cash and we happily descend the gangway in a “suitcase parade”.

Many thanks, JS.  I’d love to see more pics and hear other stories like these.

The world was truly a different place a half century ago.

 

KVK Tourism

And I thought I was a solitary tourist wanting to see the sights here?  I always do bring outatowners here to my “offices” for the scenery.

And to think that he too thought a maritime center devoted to contemporary shipping is sorely needed along the busy channels of the sixth boro.

First, Noble Maritime IS open this Saturday and Sunday, Labor Day.  More than half the fotos in this post are from the well-worth-seeing display called “Tides of 100 Years.”    Snug Harbor also caught some attention in the New Yorker  this week.

The KVK always intrigues and amuses.  Like, this tanker . . . made me think Torm is mini?    No way . . . it’s heavily-laden,  it’s rusty,

it’s orange (or would you call that cantaloupe?).

Over beyond it at Bayonne’s dry dock, USNS Dahl is getting a make-over.

Farther west, Maersk Phoenix is transferring a petroleum product and soon to head into the Mediterranean.

John Noble is the godfather of this blog.  And this exhibit helps you form a fuller idea of the artist.

And lest you think, it’s only his fabulous artwork, it’s more . . . like this manual below.  John Noble had a Jeepster, one of my all-time to-be-coveted vehicles!  See the flickr image to the left margin of this blog.   Anyone remember his topless Jeepster around Staten Island?

And here’s a taste of his workshop . . ..

If you have a chance this weekend or soon, come to see this exhibit.  Spend some time in the museum, and then find a place across the road to sit and watch his inspiration.

Tangentially related:  My Jeepster story does NOT involve John Noble or even NY.  I was born in coastal North Carolina, a marshy farming area where deep ditches tend to outline roads.  My slightly older relatives–who will stay unnamed–used to waterski behind the Jeepster.  Run the tow line from the car to the ditch, where the skiier crouches at the ready hoping to begin the ride before a snapping turtle, alligator, or water moccasin happens along.  Once the tow gets going, keep your skis cranked forward in the ditch, not toward the car.  Can be done. Has been.  Wish I had fotos!

If anyone has Noble Jeepster stories, please leave a comment.

Nobility

Do you recognize this vessel?

A clue is that it was made of scrap materials gleaned from around the sixth boro.  Although the hull leaked, the compass was positioned in the floor.

Here are galley supplies.

It’s John Noble’s houseboat studio aka “little monticello.”  For a 360-degree view of the interior, click here.

I’m assuming this is a fair use of a few fotos by Robert F. Sisson,  p. 808, showing John Noble at work on his houseboat, granting eternal life to the rotting hulks over in Port Johnston, then a coal dock and now a petroleum dock.

Here’s the issue.  If you find yourself with free time browsing in a Salvation Army store that sells used issues of National Geographic, the December 1954 issue has a fabulous article called “Here’s New York Harbor.”   It lends itself to an excellent then/now revery.

Pages 804-5 show tugboat races already then.  Much more . . .  many vintage fotos to check out.

Visit Noble Maritime too.

Check out  Erin Urban’s fine book on John Noble, Hulls and Hulks in the Tide of Time, or click here for the smaller work, The Rowboat Drawings.

The “houseboat” can truly be called an Artship, but I recently learned of a (now defunct??) project in San Francisco called the Artship, an arts space on a February 1940-launched vessel previously known as Del Orleans, then USS Crescent City aka APA 21, Golden Bear  II.  Currently, though, she’s slated to be towed to Texas for scrapping.   I can imagine at least two constituencies are sad to see this vessel go. I wish I’d be able to visit Artship before these days and this one-way journey.

Just ahead of her and already on the way, at the end of  Elsbeth II’s towline off southern California and bound for the scrappers is USS Mispillion  aka AO 105.

Many thanks to David Hindin for this info (and see comments)  apologies for the errors that I hope I’ve corrected.