. . . One, Fire in the Hole!

Guess what this is?  I’ll call it T-time on Kraken.

Then this is T minus five minutes.  Note the orange mass just forward of the channel marker.

T minus five seconds!

Believe it or not . . . this is T PLUS five seconds.  So, there was a thud that resonated through the concrete barrier I braced myself behind on shore at least 600 feet away, and then the sound of spray seen in the first foto above.  But five seconds beyond . . . mist had dissipated and some gurgles formed in the water.

T plus fifteen seconds . . . the first bird arrives and the water turns muddy.

T plus a half minute, the gurgles have grown, appear grainy and muddy, and a yellowish mist forms.

One minute beyond . .  birds have heard the dinner bell . . . er . . . blast.

I wonder what the cormorant on lower right of center is thinking . . ..

Two minutes beyond . . .

And the zone reopens to traffic.  All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who has a blast every time he goes down to the water.  The last blast depicted on this blog–taken in Panama–was the final foto in this post from back in March.

Three, Then Two

I didn’t take these fotos quite right, but  . . . look closely, on the left side of the foto and the channel are three orange channel markers, as they appeared on October 10.  That’s Bayonne in the distance.  Behind the camera and off the right side is Howland Hook terminal.

Of course Patrick Sky cleared that nearest marker without a slightest scratch.

But a few days later . . . October 14 and after a tip-off, I returned and

only two markers remained.

Of course, Irish Sea and Bering Sea had nothing to do with the lost marker. Nor did Kraken.

But one was gone, vanished, disparu!

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who hasn’t returned here since . . . but might there now only be one?  Click here for some background info on Patrick Sky.  The Kirby unit in the top foto is Beaufort Sea.

Meanwhile . . . in the Sixth Boro n Beyond

Many thanks to Paul Strubeck for this foto of a preserved “results report” he has . . .   from a 60-year-old typewriter!  A week from today Working Harbor Committee is sponsoring a great event they call the 20th annual North River Tugboat Race, but clearly there have been more than 19 prior races involving the machinery of the New York City towing industry.  How many races have been held?  Going in “order of completion,” I’ve managed to find fotos of  #2 finisher Barbara Moran and #3  Socony 11 (later Dorothy Elizabeth, shown here racing again in 2007) from Birk and Harold’s site.   Also, here’s a foto of a model of #1 Shamokin.  And a foto from eBay of Wm. J. Tracy.    Finally, here’s a quite forlorn foto of Dalzelleader late in her life.  That leaves me without images of finishers 5, 6, and 7:  Dauntless 14, Russell 17 and Turecamo Girls of that vintage.

Thanks to Charlie Gallo for sending this foto of Mister T (2001) from the east end of the East River, a section of the sixth boro that I’ve inadvertently ignored.    I’ve no idea who the T is Mister T is. Behind the bridge is SUNY Maritime’s Empire State.  Thanks, Charlie.

In fact, I’m always looking for new perspectives, like this one from a week ago over southwest Bayonne, showing McAllister Sisters and Ellen McAllister docking Golden Gate Bridge, with Bebedouro and Islander (I think) in the distance.  Also, in the foreground, it’s drillboat Kraken.

One of the details of ships is their names, like this quite intriguing one.

From a similar aerial perspective, enjoy Turecamo Girls (1965).

How about an unexpected angle on a frequent subject of this blog, Gramma Lee T Moran, running here with an outbound Carnival Glory.

The T in Gramma Lee T is for Tregurtha.   Gramma Lee has this other vessel named for her as well.  She was the wife of Paul Tregurtha, a name that you might know from Ken or Isaac’s blog posts on Interlake Steamship Company vessels.

I spotted one such vessel from Badger earlier this week.  Behold barge Pathfinder and tug Dorothy Ann.

Barge Pathfinder used to be a boat:  J. L. Mauthe. 

Boat-turned-barge Pathfinder now has a detachable engine called Dorothy Ann (1998).

As the person behind this blog, I want to step back a bit and thank you all for reading what I post, looking at the fotos, commenting, and sometimes correcting my errors.  I’ve enjoyed doing the blog for almost six years and will continue.

More SS Badger soon.

Crackin’ the Bottom 2

Ten weeks ago I did this post about Kraken–the best named vessel in the sixth boro.  That day, I sat on the west shore of Bayonne looking at Elizabeth.  But yesterday . . . with many thanks to Frank Belesimo, VP  of  Cashman Dredging, I got onto the water for a close-up tour of the Kraken and masterful description of how it works.   Here we approach the boat with our backs to Bayonne.  That’s St. Patrick’s Church to the right.  The red tug is Jay Michael (1980).

The orange /red tint to the water speaks of the red clay soil of the area as well as

the cords that conduct the blast signal into the charges placed below.

Three bore-platforms operate along a rail, drilling into the bottom and placing the charges.

In the background on the Elizabethport shore is the huge now-defunct Singer plant.

This is intense work.

Moving inside the house, notice Elizabeth Marine Terminal/Port Newark in the background, along with the peninsula of Bayonne and the cliffs of Manhattan beyond.   And on the line stretched betwen bore-platforms, those nodes at the end of each orange signal cord will

ultimately be clipped together so that when the time comes, a coordinated blast will occur down below, cracking up the

whatever hard bottom material needs to be taken away to reach the contracted depth.

More on this dredging project later.  All fotos by Will Van Dorp; getting the tour the same day the Shuttle flew over . . . I positive NASA wanted a close-up view of the project as well.