Retro Sixth Boro 36

April 1, 2011 … and this was not a joke.  More on this distressed vessel at the end of this post.

McCormack Boys and

Turecamo Girls with Barney Turecamo.  All three are still working in the same liveries, I believe.

Long Island-built Escort was phased out as a certain coal-fired power plant shut down.  She’s taken on new life as Northstar Innovator, based on NJ’s

Maurice River, although I’ve yet to see her. 

Stad Amsterdam is not currently in Amsterdam;  she’s not far away though in Scheveningen.  If you want to pronounce this shibboleth as a Dutch speaker would, have a listen. 

Spring sunrises . . .  Coming into port is the 2017-scrapped Atlantic Cartier

escorted by Ellen McAllister and

passing Bow Clipper and Maria J.  That tug is now Nicholas Vinik. Bow Clipper is now in Santos Brasil. 

The venerable Chemical Pioneer was ushered in by Ellen McAllister and McAllister Responder. I say “venerable” because she was built using the stern of Sea Witch, after a massive conflagration in the port, told here by the Fire Fighter site.   .

Two small USMMA boats made their way through the fog.   I’m not sure the name of the vessel to the left, but the one to the right was Growler and she’s back (though hidden away) in the sixth boro.

Of course, I post a photo of Kristin Poling, which had only a few months of service left at this point. She started service in 1934 as Poughkeepsie Socony.

Marion M . . . I’ve been told she was sold to parties in the Chesapeake who planned to restore her and put her up for sale in 2018.  Does anyone have an update on that?

And finally, we return to Le Papillon . . .  the 48′ steel schooner was dragged off the beach but I lost track of her after that.  I believe she was cut up.

It all seems like stuff from long ago . .    all photos, WVD.

Tale of Two Hulls 2

I first used this title a bit over two years ago in relation to two museum vessels whose status is currently challenged.  Click here for a new blog dedicated to saving the fleet languishing at South Street Seaport;  May Day’s not been transmitted there yet.

High and dry,

per plan . . . and  a future versus

one arrived here by accident and now like a fish out of water.

Urger gets floated this year with a new captain.  Type Urger in the search window to see the dozen or so stories I’ve done on her, of which my favorite is probably this.

Can anyone speak from fact about a future for Le Papillon?

Urger has to be the most beautiful 110 year-old I know!

All fotos were taken last weekend . . .  Fotos of Le Papillon by Capt. Justin Zizes, Jr. and Urger  by Will Van Dorp . .  up in Lyons, NY.

Unrelated:  Another fantastic video of Rotterdam harbor by Fred Vloo.

Ashore 6

From the Noreast.com site . .. these screen shots . . . call this dragged off . . .  Check the Noreast.com main site here.

I’m wondering now if she’ll live to sail again.  Read more at Noreast.com.  And still more detail can be found at saltaire38.

Interview with a Seal

When I got to the wreck Easter morning, as you know, I spotted a seal.  In the fog and from a distance, I first imagined it another creature–one more typically associated with Easter but for some reason with a flattened tail and sleeping on the beach.   I gave it wide berth, but when it turned

and looked up, I noticed it was either a deformed bunny sans ears OR  NOT an Easter bunny but rather a seal that seemed to has a sense of boat survey work, the clue being that it was reading Colvin’s Steel Boat Building, Vol. 1.

Having with me a silkie speaker of Halichoerus grypus aka  hooked-nosed sea pig, I thought I’d ask a few questions via translation.  After dispensing with initial interview protocols, I learned that ᐅᒡᖪᒃ , as this young male gray calls himself, witnessed Le Papillon arrive on the beach and was calculating odds of it rolling off the beach in like but reverse manner.  ᐅᒡᖪᒃ  demonstrated as he spoke, and

after astounding me with jargon like panting, racking, hogging, sagging, and hogging some more, he grew quiet, pensively stroking his juvenile whiskers.  “Sooner . . . would have been better than now, but, in my not-so-humble seal opinion, it needs a strong vessel . . .  of several hundred orca-power at least (must be how seals calculate terrific torque) to wrestle the pinky free of this entombing sand and

back to its own element.”

So I risked sounding like a fool and asked the next question . . . which ᐅᒡᖪᒃ  met with such guffaws and  explosive

seal chortles that . . .   totally mortified, I backed off .  . .

I turned back once while leaving;  ᐅᒡᖪᒃ  must have felt bad.  My translator told me she heard him mutter something about “I can’t believe I said that.  I need to learn a bit of tact with these terrestrials.”  Then, he said something about heading for South Street Seaport next . . . . hmmmmm!

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  No . .  I won’t translate the question into English.  ᐅᒡᖪᒃ  . . . Good luck with your salvage plans.  And all your projects.

Ashore 5

Day 24, midmorning  . . . fog reduced visibility to half mile or less along the beach and tower, and given my dose of Christian upbringing, I hoped I would tell a resurrection story, but alas, as I got close,

Le Papillon still rode the swells of sand,

piloted by wishful thinkers.

Moving on beach billows gets one nowhere, and I prepared to head off the beach, until I noticed

beyond the crowd, an unusual visitor, who

inspected the starboard hull,  moving and then lying a long period,

ear to the ground, seeming to divine–or attempt to–

the fate of the schooner.

It ambled around the stranded ocean voyager, conjecturing and

contemplating and

cajoling it to

follow it seaward.  All my ears could tell was that seal encouragement was ignored by the schooner just as much as human encouragement was convincing this seal to return to the water.

More seriously, the seal is believed to be a juvenile male gray seal, about four months old, healthy though tired, which would–if left unmolested–return to its watery realm.

Yes, I took these fotos with a zoom and avoided interfering with a marine mammal.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp on Easter, 2011.  Click here to see how saltaire38 ties this seal to a Fire Island tradition.

Ashore 4

It’s 1430 hours, April 17.  Day 17 of Papillon‘s misery.   Click here on Saltaire38’s blog for fotos a few hours earlier . . . at high tide, showing Le Papillon awash.   Here was Day 10.  After yesterday’s blow with gusts over 25 mph, I was curious.   So was that mallard, not to inject a canard into this story already rife with them.  The most striking change is that

she’s now oriented roughly southward, even somewhat south south west, compared with eastward since I first saw her.  Yes, that’s a car in the distance, and low-level sand blowing across the beach.

Furthermore, she’s been sucked down, but surrounded stern to

bow along her both sides with

 a fairly deep lagoon.

Thousands of fotos will linger for years, no matter whether she

gets an assisted departure or

a shifting sands burial.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

I’m reminded of this wreck from Tierra del Fuego and southbound650.

Unrelated:  since this is the actual tax day, enjoy (or suffer)  biankablog’s “accountancy shanty.”

Spring Sail

Guess what this is?  And check out this link to a related site from Baltimore, from the same marina Le Papillon departed on its fateful trajectory.  Maggie of sailingmevoy blog and vessels  Me Voy and Tara sent the next two fotos along, courtesy of Art and Linda Benson, who were there

from the beginning.  Foto below shows THE launch.  The top foto shows an instant in the construction of Le Papillon.  I’d love to learn more about the day, the event.  Note the absence of a prop.  This foto especially makes clear the relationship between Le Papillon and Rosemary Ruth, still for sale;  follow the links here for  lots of Rosemary Ruth fotos.

Following a northward trajectory similar to Le Papillon was this vessel.  The figurehead appeared on this blog over four years ago.

The next two fotos, compliments of Dan Blumenthal, suggest spars of gold and

stripes and sails of ivory, magic I couldn’t

when I stood up close in the dissipating

fog Monday.  The construction of Stadt Amsterdam served as on-the-job training for young and unemployed Amsterdammers between December of 1997 and 1998, and

I wonder what jobs these Damen Oranjewerf workers moved into after Stadt was launched.  And I wonder who carved the catheads.  At some point tomorrow, Stadt Amesterdam sails for Boston and an endless number of points beyond.  Keep an eye open and a camera charged?

Thanks to Maggie, the Bensons, and Dan for these fotos.

Unrelated thoughts about this foto from gCaptain . . . (click on the “capture” to read the story.)  My thoughts . . . I have no sympathy whatsoever for the pirates; however, that dhow

may once have been a beautiful handcrafted vessel.  Seeing it explode and burn here makes me wince.  Click here and here for youtubes of dhow construction.

If you’re not familiar with gCaptain, it’s a fantastic site for all things maritime.