Non-Random Tugs 19

I’ve noticed and mentioned patterns before today.  A pattern in my book has to be made up of more than two items or occurrences.  So Marilyn George by itself is not a pattern.

Having Kimberly Poling show up while Marilyn George was at the IMTT dock is not a pattern either.

 

Kimberly appeared to be settling into their space east of Caddell’s but then abruptly turned out and westward.

That Crystal Cutler powered into my view should not have surprised me, since I’d noticed her northbound on the AK

By this time, I’d not yet realized I could have gotten all three boats into the same frame.  By the time I noticed the pattern, the opportunity had passed.

Know the launch order?

Patricia E. Poling . . . number of barrels?  Answers follow.

 

All photos, any errors, WVD, who took these photos in the space of an hour.

Crystal Cutler– 2010, Marilyn George-2004, Kimberly Poling-1994.

And Patricia E. Poling –2010.  Capacity . . .  15,000 barrels.

To repeat, any errors, WVD.

Random Sixth Boro 13

Here was the post I’d planned for yesterday, put together in a moment when I thought a single focus was too elusive, random scenes, like a container ship anchored off Stapleton, elusive detail in a set all diverging from usual patterns. 

Or seeing a Mein Schiff vessel in town after a hiatus… with Wye River passing along her stern?

Or this bayou boat discovering it offers solutions all over the boro and beyond, here passing a lifting machine?

How about this speedboat chasing a tugboat, or appearing to, with lots of hulls in the distance?

Or a single terrapin crawling out of the surf in a non-bulkheaded margin of the wet boro?

Two pink ONEs at Global terminal?

A ketch named Libra or Libre heading south with a scrap ship at Claremont?

Two commercial vessels out at Bayonne?

Two Ellens?

And finally two elongated RIBs with

camouflage-clad Coasties aboard?

All photos, seen as slight deviants from existing patterns, WVD.

 

Random Tugs 378

Let’s jump back to the present . . .  and Doris Moran, both light

and moving containers across the harbor to the other container port back fields. If I count right, that’s 160 containers not on chassis pulled by trucks on the BQE, SIE, or other such clogged arteries.

Brinn Courtney is moving a scow, as

is Eastern Dawn.

Mister Jim and all the CMT boats seem to

be getting

a makeover.

Marjorie B. might be going to pick up her daily train cars.

Kimberly Poling basks in the dawn liight.

All photos, recently, in the sixth boro, WVD, who won’t be in the boro for the rumored tugboat race this weekend.  If you’re out there, take photos, especially ones with splash!

 

Random Tugs 373

Kimberly Poling and barge lie alongside Maritime Gracious for lightering.

 

Eastern Dawn, here pushing a mini barge, continues to work in the sixth boro,

with a base over alongside the dormant Evening Tide. 

Bruce A. travels west in the East River after a job over near Throg’s Neck.

I love the “whitewater” on the uptown side of the 59th Street Bridge.

A mile or so behind Bruce A., Ellen McAllister passes  Rockefeller University’s River Campus.

Back exactly six years ago, pre-fab sections of the new campus building were lifted in place by a fleet of DonJon vessels here. 

And finally, in the late spring haze, it’s Mary Turecamo

approaching her next assist.

All photos, WVD, who’s entrusting these posts to the tugster tower robots.  Hat tip or whatever, robots.  Actually, I don’t even know how many robots are involved in this effort, since they appear happy to subsist on nothing more than the electricity I provide.

I’m trying to get together a post or two from my current location, which I was supposed to depart from a week ago . . .

Random Tugs 368

Five tugs are grouped in the photo below.

Let’s follow these two.

Ava and Ellen are off to assist a tanker into a berth at IMTT.

Shortly afterward, Kimberly Poling passed by with Noelle Cutler and 

Evelyn Cutler followed

with Edwin A. Poling.

 

Beyond Energy Centaur, that would be Kimberly heading upriver.

Meanwhile, Ellen and Ava muscle Lillesand into her berth.

All photos, WVD.

Unrelated:  Ever Forward, the more distant vessel here, is currently aground in the Chesapeake, for some reason outside the channel since Sunday night.  She was headed from Baltimore to Norfolk and then would have come to the sixth boro of NYC.  Speaking of tugs, watch this story evolve, since large tugs may be necessary to get her off.  If you have 17 minutes to spare, here’s Dr. Sal. 

Random Tugs 346

I’m on a short gallivant, but I have no shortage of sixth boro photos, mostly of tugboats engaged in commerce.  Sometimes I look for meetings, and interesting (how ever that’s defined)  ones are best.   Like here…. Kristin and Kimberly,

B. Franklin and Dylan Cooper,

Mary H and Joyce,

Reinauer Twins and Pokomoke,

R/V Ocean Researcher (a multirole survey vessel [aka an exotic] for the offshore energy sector) and Emery Zidell,

 

and Fort McHenry and Philadelphia.

 Then sometimes there are more than two at a time that can be framed in a shot, like here, Elk River, Paula Atwell, Chem Bulldog, Kirby, and B. Franklin . . .

More Bulldog soon.  All photos yesterday, WVD.

Poling and Cutler 3

Let’s start with a routine KVK scene:  l to r, an orange tanker with a neon green stack, a Poling unit, and escort tug Ava M.

Compare Fort Schuyler‘s  green and Kimberly Poling‘s green. 

But then the frame contains only Kimberly and Kristin.

It’s possible that Kimberly was going to do an assist for her fleet sister. 

But it made for an fleet shot.

 

All photos, WVD.

Random Tugs 332

Mornings on the KVK can be busy.

Above, Sea Fox (1971) follows Barney Turecamo (1995), and below, Kimberly Poling (1994) is followed by Mary H (1981)

Kimberly Turecamo (1980) and Marjorie A. McAllister (1974) head east to escort different incoming ships.

Chesapeake Coast (2012) assists Gulf Coast (1982) moving the cement barge out into the current.

Bruce A. (1974) and Patrice McAllister (1999) hasten out for work.

Thomas A. Witte (1961 when she was called Valoil) returns to Port Newark.

Joyce D. (2002) passes the docked Normandy (2007).

And Cape Canaveral (2019) makes for her yard.

All this and much more during a few hours one bright, mild morning recently by WVD.  Any errors, my blame.

Retro Sixth Boro 29

August can be hazy, and it appears that some August days in 2010 were, as below when Colleen McAllister towed dredge spoils scow GL 501 out and Brendan Turecamo (?) moved Bouchard barge B.No. 260 westbound in the Kills.  Colleen has now traveled from sun to ice out to the Great Lakes, where the 1967 4300 hp tug is currently laid up.   Brendan is alive and well and working in the sixth boro.

Kimberly Poling, then in a slightly different livery than now,  pushed Noelle Cutler in the same direction.  Both still work the waters in and out of the sixth boro.

These days I just don’t spend much time near the sixth boro at dusk, but here Aegean Sea pushes a barge northbound in the Upper Bay.  Aegean now works the Massachusetts coast, and I recall she’s made at least one trip back to the Hudson since 2013.

On a jaunt on the lower Delaware, I caught Madeline easing the bow of Delta Ocean into a dock.  The 2008 4200 hp Gladding Hearn tug is still working in the Wilmington DE area. Delta Ocean, a 2010 crude carrier at 157444 dwt, almost qualifies as a VLCC. She’s currently in Singapore.

Madeline is assisted here by Lindsey, the 60′ 1989 Gladding Hearn z-drive boat rated at 2760 hp.

Duty towed a barge downstream near Wilmington.

Recently she has sold to South Puerto Rico Towing and Boat Services, where the 3000 hp tug is now called Nydia P.  I’d love to see her in SPRT mustard and red colors.

I traveled from the sixth boro to Philadelphia as crew on 1901 three-masted barkentine Gazela.  In upper Delaware Bay, we were overtaken by US EPA Bold and Brandywine pushing barge Double Skin 141.  Gazela, like other mostly volunteer-maintained vessels, is quiet now due to covid, but check out their FB page at Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild.   US EPA Bold, now flying the flag of Vanuatu and called Bold Explorer, is southwest of Victoria BC on the Salish Sea. She was built in 1989 as USNS Bold.  Brandywine, a 2006 6000 hp product of Marinette WI, has today just departed Savanna GA.

Getting this photo of the barkentine, and myself if you enlarge it, was a feat of coincidence and almost-instant networking, the story I’ll not tell here.

On a trip inland, I caught Tender #1 pushing an ancient barge through lock E-28B.  I believe Tender #1 is still in service.

From a beach in Coney Island one morning, I caught Edith Thornton towing a barge into Jamaica Bay on very short gatelines.  Edith is a 104′ x 26 1951-built Reading RR tug that passed through many hands.  currently it’s Chassidy, working out of Trinidad and Tobago.

Here’s another version I shot that morning. For even more, click here.

The mighty Brangus assisted dredge Florida.  Back in those days, the channels of the sixth boro were being deepened to allow today’s ULCVs–like CMA CGM T.Jefferson— to serve the sixth boro.  If I’m not mistaken, Brangus has been a GLDD tug since it was built in 1965. Currently she’s in the Elizabeth River in VA.

Here she tends the shear leg portion of a GLDD dredging job.  See the cutterhead to the left of the helmeted crew?

On another hazy day, a light Heron heads for the Kills.  The 1968-built 106′ x 30′ tug rated at 3200 hp was sold to Nigerian interests in 2012.   I’d love to see her in her current livery and context.

Java Sea resurfaced in Seattle as part of the Boyer fleet and now called Kinani H, seen here on tugster just a month ago.    The 110′ x 32′ tug was launched in 1981 as Patriot.

And finally . . . probably the only time I saw her, crewboat Alert.  She appears to be a Reinauer vessel.

All photos, WVD, from August 2010.  If you want to see an unusual tugster post from that month, click here.

For some unusual August 2010 posts, click here.

 

 

Random Tugs 283

How’s this as an unusual perspective, East Coast coming through the Narrows and under the VZ Bridge, barely visible at top of photo,  with a sugar barge, not sure which one. I believe that’s a Sandy Hook antenna and West Bank Romer Shoal Light off starboard.

Kimberly Poling heads into the Kills past Robbins Reef Light.

James William has been moving garbage containers these days.

The intriguingly named Iron Wolf passes the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Mary Alice moves Columbia New York.

A few hundred yards ahead of Iron Wolf is Sea Fox.

Andrea departs the Kills to pick up a fuel barge.

Mary H returns from a run with barge Patriot.

And finally, Fox3 heads southbound;  that’s the southern tip of Manhattan behind her.

All photos, WVD.