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. 

North on Gallatin’s Ditches 5

As we head up the Bay to Baltimore, we pass many things, including Island Pilot,

Kismet from a port I once knew well,

 

Sea Crescent,

Capt. Henry Knott,

 

je ne sais quoi,

Indian Dawn and some others,

Miss T, 

and some surprises at the John W. Brown dock:  Z-One, April Moran, and James R. Moran.

And we’ll leave this post here with arrival in Baltimore.  All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Chrononauts 1

I have more Saint Lawrence posts, but with a chrononautical weekend behind us, let me digress and report.  The mood for the first ship was set by the weather;  see what the mist did to my favorite downtown building–70 Pine.  Click here and be treated to a slideshow of views through time of boro Manhattan’s  tall observation cliffs, past present and future.

Looking eastbound up the East River, I saw her waiting, as

first one of her entourage arrived and

and then another.

The term “haze gray” was certainly demonstrated yesterday,

as was the vintage of this Liberty ship headed to sea, for a cruise.

 

Even the Higgins T-boat in the distance is a whole decade closer to the present–in inception– than Brown, although  yesterday all crowded into 2016.

 

It was a moving sight,

which I beheld,

only slightly regretting I was not aboard.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Thanks to Jed 4

Click here for previous photos from Jed.  Click here for a photo of John W. Brown when she housed a high school in the sixth boro, pre-1988.  Jed took these photos while he was onboard in Norfolk this past weekend.   Click here for info about her September 2016 visit back to her place when she was assigned to the NYC Board of Education.

 

For the rest, I’ll let Jed’s photos speak for themselves.

photo date 22 MAY 2016

 

Steven McAllister is a 1963 YTB.   John W. Brown had already passed 20 eventful years under her keel by then.

photo date 22 MAY 2016

 

photo date 22 MAY 2016

 

photo date 22 MAY 2016

 

Many thanks to Jed for these photos.  NYC should be seeing its own wave of gray arriving today.

Below is a photo taken on June 10, 1946 showing dozens of Liberty ships anchored between where the TZ Bridge would be built  (BF is correction thanks to Tony A’s comment)  and Haverstraw.  That looks like Ossining in the distance.  This photo and hundreds of others can be found in the Digital Collections of the NY State Archives here.   Who knows, Brown could actually be anchored among the others.

 

Other Watersheds 5

Other Watersheds 4 is here.  And the most recent appearance of Joan Turecamo on this blog had her parked along the KVK.  So where was this?

Many cities have a wide or not so much wide street by this name, but –say in New York–Broadway does not have work boats anchoring it, although maybe in a better parallel universe it would.  More on this pier at the end of this post.

Some New Yorkers might also recall John W. Brown, named for a labor organizer and serving as a floating Manhattan high school –focusing on a nautical trades curriculum, of course–from 1946 until 1982.  I’d love to hear from alumni of this school.  So have you figured out which “other watershed” this is?

Here’s another clue.  The watershed feeds into a harbor with large number of massive government ships, like USNS Comfort (T-AH-20 and launched in 1976), which returned from Haiti less than two weeks ago; as well as

some very wet ones like Gov. R. M. McLane, which once served as flagship of government efforts during the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars, when foreign vessels harvested  domestic oysters.

Now if you want to know what foreign and domestic mean here, you need to check this link.

One last clue, maybe more of a distractor:  Sea Star line’s El Faro was tied up there this weekend.

Bertha offers conviviality here.

OK, you guessed it long ago.  But which watershed is it?

Patapsco.

More Baltimore soon.  Many thanks to Capt. Allen Baker for his hospitality.  The link in that previous sentence related to the SS United States aka the Big U, currently one of many vessels in peril.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

So this pier . . . shown in foto 2 above . . . will very very soon no longer be a working pier.  Moran is moving out toward the river’s mouth.  Change.  Improvement?  Ha!

Again, I’d love to hear comments on this as well as recollections from alumni of John W. Brown, the high school.