Random Tugs 189

Can you identify these boats?  This is a game I sometimes play . . . trying to guess before I can read by my eyes or some device . . .

Do you know the unit headed away?

Here’s that Moran vessel from the first photo of this post.

OK.  Did you get Sea Fox?  I had guessed Sea Wolf. There is no Sea Coyote.  Yet.

I didn’t get this one either.

James D. here had just finished the salt ship job,

along with Margaret .  .  . and headed back to base to await the next job.

And finally, Turecamo Girls heads out for the next job.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 188

If you squint, you can almost imagine Ellen McAllister is out at sea, with a big blue sky beyond her.  But that blue is

also Maersk blue;  to know how to create that blue, read through this thread and you’ll get the mix.  And this name . . . I couldn’t get the echo “sheer maerskness” out of my brain.  There’s also this port town by that name.

It’s fishing season in the sixth boro again, and here Eastern Welder is at work as Kimberly (oops!) JenniferTurecamo tows Portland out toward the Lower Bay.  It looks like Timothy Reinauer farther off.

 

Also, in the anchorage at that moment, were Weddell Sea with DBL 83,

launch Grace D, Mediterranean Sea with DBL 84,

Dylan Cooper, Joanne III, and Matthews Tibbetts.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Summer Training 1

Type the word training into the search window to the left on this page and you’ll get a variety of posts, as here.  And truth be told, many other options exist for summer training and sea time for ocean academy students;  I met cadets from at least three on my “go west” trip.  Yesterday David Silver got me advance notice of when this training ship would leave port;  thanks to him, I got these photos.

Kimberly Turecamo assisted, as did Julia Miller and Amy C McAllister.

 

By 1230 Friday, she was west of the Brooklyn Bridge and headed for sea,

 

for Maine, and by

this posting, she’s already east of Cape Cod.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Click here to watch David Silver’s 20-minute video of her departure from pier side.

 

Port Richmond

November, port month on tugster, ends here, making this GHP&W 30.  Here’s how the month began.  One thing I learned putting together this post is that Port Richmond and Mariner’s Harbor appear not to share a border, at least according to the wikipedia map.  Between the western edge of Port Richmond and the eastern edge of Mariner’s (the west side of the Bayonne Bridge) is a neighborhood called Elm Park.  I’d never heard of it.  Also, look at the northeast tip of Port Richmond . . . it’s in the water only and includes the Caddell yard.  Furthermore, Port Richmond never seems like much of a port if you see it by road only.  Click here for photos of the land portion of Port Richmond.  Click on the map to make it interactive.

A google satellite view shows the northernmost margin of land is port-intensive.  Click here for many vintage photos of Port Richmond, pre-Bayonne Bridge, back when Port Richmond was a major ferry/rail link.

Although the late fall midday sun backlit these shots, let’s cruise the waterside of Port Richmond, starting at its northeastern point, where the Wavertree (1885) project is ongoing.

Delaware River & Bay Authority’s Delaware is undergoing some major repowering work. 

Frying Pan . . . light of the night vessel from up at Pier 66 is having some work done.

In the belly of Frying Pan, where the engine and machinery used to be, a night club sometimes comes to life.    Click here for some renderings of the vessel by the elusive bowsprite.

Miss Liberty, built 1954, is nearly finished with this dry-docking.  Notice here she is high and dry?  Well, just 45 minutes later, she had been

splashed and was being towed to a wharf by Caddell’s own L. W. Caddell (1990).

Continuing to the west, it’s the yards of Reinauer and Moran. From l to r, here, it seems to be Meredith C. Reinauer (2003), Laurie Ann Reinauer (2009), Reinauer Twins (2011), and Dace Reinauer (1968 but JUST repowered). . . and Joan Turecamo with (?) Brendan Turecamo.  The McAllister tug between the Reinauer ATBs . . . I’ll guess is Bruce A. Marjorie B. McAllister.

This photo, taken a half hour earlier and before Joan Turecamo (1980) tied up, shows Kimberly Turecamo (1980), the very new and beamy  J. R. T. Moran (2015), and Brendan (1975).

On the west side of the Moran yard, it’s Cable Queen (1952).  Click here for photos of this cable-layer at work through the years.

And for the last shot of Port Richmond–although this may be straying westward into Elm Park waters, it’s Metropolitan Marine Transportation’s newest Normandy.

All the photos today by Will Van Dorp.

So as I said at the beginning of this post, so ends the “gunk holes, harbors, ports, and wharves” series.  However, precedent on this blog makes it really easy to do a Port Richmond 2, 3, 4 . . . . etc. post.  also, if any of you feel like contributing a set of photos from a port of gunk hole, no matter how large or obscure, I welcome it.  Besides, there’s always then possibility of doing an “upland” version of any port, focusing on land-based businesses serving the work vessels.

And as for December, let me reprint this idea for a December theme:

How about  antique/classic workboats, functioning or wrecked.  Of course, a definition for that category is impossible.  For example, NewYorkBoater says this:  ‘The definition of an antique boat according to Antique and Classic Boating Society is a boat built between 1919 and 1942.  A classic was built between 1943 and 1975 and the term contemporary, are boats built from 1976 and on.’  Hmm . . . what do you call an old vessel built before 1919 . . . a restoration project?  antediluvian?

If you take another transportation sector–automobiles, you get another definition:  25 years old or more.    And for the great race, here were the rules for this year:  “Vehicle entries must have been manufactured in 1972 or before.”  Next year’s cut-off will likely be 1973.

So my flexible definition is  . . . photo should have been taken in 1999 or before, by you or of you or a family member, and in the case of a wreck, probably identifiable.  Exception . . .  it could be a boat built before  . . . say  . . . 1965.”

Many thanks to all of you who sent along photos, contributed ideas, and commented in November.

Congestion 2

Here was the first time I used this title, which clearly needs to be used again.

Let me start here at 13:38.  Note from far to near, or black hull to black hull . . . Cartagena, Four Sky with Lee T Moran, Red Hook, and Genco Knight.

Twin Tube slides through the opening between Bow Kiso and Genco Knight.

Even the bow of Genco Knight is crowded as their vessel prepares to dock and resupply the salt depot.

Kimberly Turecamo works the bulk carrier’s stern as Evening Star passes with B. No. 250.

Add McAllister Girls in the foreground and Ellen McAllister in the distance against the blue hull, which will appear a bit later.

McCrews heads westbound and Four Sky now seems to be doing the same.

Are you out of breath yet?  Only 10 minutes has elapsed.

Linehandler 1 cruises blithely through it, supremely self-assured.

Cheyenne adds color.

Another line handler boat scouts out the set up . . . as a new blue hull arrives from the west, as

. .  . does Charles D. McAllister.

Crew on the blue hull–Nord Observer–stows lines as they head for tropical heat, escorted

by Catherine Turecamo although

at the turn on the Con Hook range they meet Mare Pacific heading in with Joan Turecamo and Margaret  Moran.  At this point . . .

14:12 . . .  the mergansers decided to hightail it . . . or at least follow their crests.  And I hadn’t even turned around yet to see the congestion on land behind me.

All these photos in a very short time by Will Van Dorp.

My thanks to Brian DeForest and Atlantic Salt, whom Genco Knight was arriving to restock.

Here was a post about a dense traffic day as well as a busy day.

Balder’s Belly

The link here may show the first glimpse I had of Balder.  Let me share my getting better acquainted, but first . . . the foto below I took 13 months ago.  Note the different colors of salt, reflecting

different provenances, as explained in Ian Frazier’s New Yorker article below.  Buy a copy to get the rest of the story.

Without this vessel, all of us who drive the roads or walks the sidewalks and streets within the metropolis surrounding the sixth boro would be at greater risk of slipping and crashing.  Framed that way, Balder could not be better named.   Here’s what Kimberly Turecamo looks like from Balder‘s bridge.

On the far side of the channel, that’s Dace.

Here’s what has come forth from Balder‘s belly, a bit of the Atacama Desert on the KVK.   Huge tractors load the trucks that come to a highway department near you today.

This 246′ arm, reaching nearly to Richmond Terrace, offloads at the relatively slow rate of 8oo tons per hour.

And here’s the hold just emptied, one hold of five.  Notice the ladders and the tracks at the base of the hold.

Click here to see the unloading machinery in action.

Navel, perhaps?

Here’s what gets even the last pound making up the nearly 50,000-ton payload onto the salt dock.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Thanks to Brian DeForest of Atlantic Salt and the Balder crew for the tour.

High and Dry 9

Here was 8.

Do you recognize these vessels?  At the moment I write this, both are working together to escort in NYK Meteor.

In the drydock earlier this year . . . Joan Turecamo and the other?

This one is unmistakeable.  A year ago she was preparing to steam all night inside the sixth boro to ride out the storm.

Click here for a foto of her in late October last year after Sandy had punished some more than others.

From the land side, you can see some of the work recently done.

And here from the dry side of the first shot . . .  it’s Kimberly  Turecamo and Joan.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Bridges 2

It has been over six years since I first used this title, yet a bridge appears as header for every post.  And just in case you’re wondering, I will keep that version of the header no matter what gets announced the day after tomorrow.    The VZ Bridge is our Arc de Triomphe.  An April morning in 2008 I caught this foto of the QM2 arriving here for the first time.  Foto taken from the northwest (NW) side of the Narrows.

Each year representatives of the fleet pass –here USS Nitze–under, with added moisture added by FDNY.   Foto from the SE.

Dozens of vessels pass beneath the structure daily.  I recall how thrilled I was to drive my boat underneath  . . . in 2003, as I was moving it to the Great Lakes and myself into the sixth boro.  Aside from its symbolic and logistical value, the VZ is beautiful–here seen from the NE.

It’s most beautiful at dawn.

But the other morning as I caught this, I wonder why the bridgegreen version of navygray was chosen as its color.  I think of the Golden Gate, the Purple People Bridge, the yellow bridges of Pittsburgh.

What prompts this post is a sight I saw from the SE a few weeks ago . . . what looked first like a high-hanging fruit hanging west of the Brooklynside tower.  I wondered if it’d always been there but somehow I’d missed it.

Zooming in, though, I saw it was a paint crew, at least five painters.  Putting on camouflage or daubing antirust?

Maybe preparing to change the color depending on the results of a horse race?

Or prepping for a new VZ Bridge color in honor of the bridge’s jubilee . .  in about a year and a half?

Happy May Day .  . all fotos by Will Van Dorp.   Anyone know why the official spelling of the bridge does not match that of its namesake?

Random Tugs 104

Gramma Lee T Moran, 2002

Jay Michael and Mister Jim,  1980 and 1982

Mister T, 2001

Mister T again

Brandywine and Viking, 2006 and 1976

Kimberly Turecamo, 1980

Red Hook (a first on this blog) and Severn, 2013 and 2008

B. Franklin Reinauer, 2012

Shelby Rose, 1963

Hubert Bays, 2002.

All fotos taken in the past week by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 103

Taken about 10 days ago . ..  Lyman headed south towing Sea Shuttle.

Lyman used to sport a red star on its stack.

Harry McNeal (1965) escorts Clyde, whose vintage I don’t know.  Here’s a very similar scene (foto 4)  from almost four years ago.

Atlantic Coast dates from 2007.

Perennial “repeater” on this blog, Gramma Lee T Moran, waiting to retrieve the pilot.

34-year-old Emerald Coast used to answer to the name Maggie Swann.

Calusa Coast first appeared here six and a half years ago.

Jill Reinauer and Kimberly Turecamo westbound in morning light.

As I went into work this morning, there was no more than 10 minutes of spectacular dawn light, before the clouds dulled it.