Headwaters 5

Seth Tane took this photo on the Columbia in 2000.  This was my sense of tugboats back then.  I had little sense of their age, power, crews, skills needed for operation, etc.  Take a guess on those features of this boat, and I’ll provide you some answers at the end of this post.  Note that this tug and barge are at a log dock, a trade unknown in the sixth boro or the NE US.

Here’s a shot I took in 2002 while hanging out on what I called back then the “waterfront” and saw this vessel.  Again, I had no idea of those same features as they pertained to this vessel, nor of the logic of this design.  Test yourself, and then some info can be found at the end.  

I took this photo in 2004.  My 15 years in coastal NE had given me an interest in schooners but I’d never sought an opportunity to crew on one, until my move to NYS, first on and then off the live-aboard.

Note the warehouses still standing where Brooklyn Bridge Park is now located.  Volunteer crewing on Pioneer and the other boats at South Street Seaport Museum kept me on the Upper Bay for long hours, and I  saw lots of new things, 

some things whose uniqueness I didn’t even fully appreciate.  Anyone know what’s become of that tugboat Rachel Marie?  I don’t.

Some things intrigued me, 

and other things like this derelict sugar mill and sunken lightship were soon to disappear.

I started to see interesting tugboats in unexpected places.

Little did I expect then the  changes that would happen.  Know the boat above and below?

All photos, WVD.  Answers below. 

Craig Foss, 1944, 116′ x 30′.  Here are more particulars, but as good as the boat appeared the top photo, she was purchased by unqualified parties, detained, and eventually scrapped.  You need to read the story here;  some crew were lucky to have survived. 

The second photo shows Coral Queen, a motor tanker that carried petroleum from 1920 (!!!) until 2011.  That is a long working life.  Here are the particulars from Birk’s data base.  From Auke Visser’s site, here are more particulars.  And finally, from my Barge Canal series last year, here are images of her generations of fleet mates;  her design relates to her work as a tanker in the “inter-connected waterways,” the Great Lakes and salt water connected by the Barge Canal.

The 1885 Pioneer still seasonally sails with professional and volunteer crews, and the 1893 Lettie G. Howard does the same on Lake Erie mostly.

I’ve no idea what became of Rachel Marie.

Meow Man traces are still around.  

The sugar mill area now has an Amazon facility, and the old shipyard is the Red Hook Ikea parking lot, and the sunken ship reefed,  the piers scrapped. 

Grouper, frozen in ice, is still waiting to be scrapped, but as of March 2, 2023 is still entirely intact.  The orange livery has disappeared from the sixth boro; that boat June K is now Donjon blue.

Ultimately, the more I found answers to questions I had, the more I was drawn in to learn more, a fact that keeps me looking and asking. I really never expected to be in the boros and fascinated by the sixth boro as long as I have been.  Recently, I had a conversation with a friend from another NYC life and she reported never to have heard of the sixth boro.  I guess that’s as shocking as hearing that someone’s not heard of the legendary Meow Man, the saltwater equivalent of Kilroy, or the US version of Maqroll, whose exploits need to be written down.  As of the date of these photos, tugster the blog had not yet been launched.

I’m not sure when I’ll post anything next, but it could be tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 12

March 2009 . . . Stephen Scott here passes Port Ivory, near my old job, pushing RTC 70.   I’m still looking for Stephen Scott photo is her new profile, sans upper wheelhouse.  Port Ivory was an intriguing place name for me when I first moved here;  once a North Shore Branch of the SIRR even had a station there.

Kimberly Poling already had the color scheme, but adding a few more teal stripes to her current appearance is a big improvement.

Lettie passed by once while I scheduled my lunch break.  As of today’s posting, Lettie G is in Mobile AL!!  If she continues, she could end up back in Lake Erie by way of the great loop.  Is that what’s happening?  A few months I caught her at the top end of the Welland Canal here.

More Port Ivory area, Specialist was around, then called Specialist II.

So was the huge K-Sea fleet, which included Falcon.

This post should be called “sixth boro and beyond,” since I took this photo of Justine with RTC 120 up near Saugerties.  Back then,

was that a red canoe along her portside rail?

Side by side  in the Rondout 10 years ago were Hackensack, the 1953 colorful one, and Petersburg, 1954 vintage and still in the general area.  Last I knew, Hackensack was in Guyana pushing molasses barges.

And going  farther out, it’s Allie B pulling Goliath on a cargo barge Brooklyn Bridge out of Quincy MA, with assistance from Vincent D. Tibbetts Jr and Justice.

Here’s a closer up of Liberty.  For the entire reportage on that journey to Mangalia, Romania (!!), click here.  Damen operates the crane in their shipyard there, the largest shipyard in the Damen collection.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you enjoy these looks back as much as I do.

Port Colborne Pics 1

Besides the title, you might place this photo by the background.  It was the focus of this post from about six weeks ago.

I returned to Port Colborne because I wanted to spend more time.  All vessels traveling between the upper four Lakes and Ontario/St Lawrence Seaway must traverse here.  And an alarm on Bridge No. 21 notifies that traffic will pass in a few minutes from the sound.

In the case of today’s post, however, I was caught between a need to head back across the border and a compulsion to see the vessel about to enter town from Lake Erie.

A schooner.

Leftmost flag on the crosstrees tells the tale.

It’s Lettie G. Howard, homeward bound and beyond.  For now, after a summer of sailing and sail training on Lake Erie, Lettie was headed to New York via the Saint Lawrence/Nova Scotia.

 

As she came into the dock, cold rain starting to fall and hint of winter, the crew tied her up with skill and aplomb to wait for timing.

Fair winds and warm days.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Summer Sail 2

Here was Summer Sail 1; and since that dates from almost two years ago.

Clipper City looks great juxtaposed against the skyline, but

ketch Catriona . . . she has Herreshoff pedigree.

No matter . . . larger schooner or smaller and more intimate ketch,

one is pampered moving by sail in the sixth boro. And that includes the option of sailing aboard the oldest harbor schooner of all . . . Pioneer.

 

Above and below, it’s Pioneer, and below the other schooner is one you won’t see in the sixth boro for a few years . . . Lettie G. Howard.  Of course, if you head over to Lake Erie–where I’ll be n a few weeks–you may catch a glimpse, even catch a ride.

And finishing it off, it’s America 2.0.

All photos taken by Will Van Dorp in the past 365 days.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 3

All photos today I took in May and early June of 2008.  Odin, configured this was in 1982, is now known as Jutte Cenac, after considerable reconfiguration.  You’d no longer look twice at her now, as you would back then.

Scotty Sky, the Blount-built tanker launched in 1960, was rendered obsolete on January 1, 2015  by OPA 90, and now calls the Caribbean home.

When I took this photo along the South Brooklyn docks, I had no idea that it was to become the Brookfield Place ferry terminal. 

I had no idea until looking this up that Joan McAllister is the current Nathan G.

Juliet Reinauer now works as Big Jake.

For Lettie G Howard, another decade is somewhat insignificant, given that it’s been afloat since 1893.  Currently she’s sailing up the St. Lawrence bound for Lake Erie. The NJ shoreline there has changed quite a bit, beginning with the removal of the Hess tanks there around 2014.

Crow was scrapped in 2015.  I caught her last ride powered by Emily Ann here (and scroll)  in May 2014.

And finally, back in 2008, this living fossil was still hard at work,

gainfully plying the Hudson. This Kristin was scrapped sometime in 2012.

All photos taken in late spring 2008 by Will Van Dorp.

 

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension Mon Lei

Recall that “fifth dimension” is my code for the time travel series;  call it history if you wish.

In 1968–50 fast years ago!!–  Mon Lei, which transited the harbor last weekend, was more of a presence.  All photos here come from Steve Munoz, who writes:  “I saw your post and remembered seeing a Chinese junk at the South Seaport in June 1968, and I looked at my pics, which were originally slides. I was on the tug Dalzelleagle (1958 and now McAllister Brothers) with my uncle Bob Munoz, captain and pilot with McAllister. We had some time between jobs so we walked over to the Mon Lei and the people on the boat let us go aboard and inside to take a look. If I remember correctly, the boat was built in Hong Kong around 1895. The interior was beautifully hand-carved mahogany, but very musty smell. You will also see the USCG sail vessel Eagle at seaport pier. I did not know that Mon Lei was still around.”

Another reader of Monday’s post wrote:  ” I boat-sat her for one week in maybe the winter of 87-88. Was bitter cold and she was wintering at the late great Pier 15 [pictured above and below].  Normally she lived at the E 23rd St. marina, but some construction was going on there.  Alan York was traveling on business, so I looked after her. The interior was nothing short of a  fantasy world of Asian carving and ornamentation. One friend described it as a “floating fornicatorium.” Also a nice comfy oil burner for heat. I remember he was scouring the world for new bamboo of a certain kind for her sail battens. Quite the gentleman.”

If you didn’t look at this link previously, see it now for some interior shots.

I’m curious about the two vessels alongside the pier in the lower right.

Continuing here with photos from Steve, below is the future that never was . . . NS Savannah passing Ellis Island (onion domes) bound for sea.  It was June 1968, almost exactly a half century ago for all these photos.

Back when some tugboats had eagles atop their wheelhouses . . . this was Steve’s Uncle Bob at the helm.  A few years ago, I recall seeing one of McAllister’s boats with a plastic dinosaur atop the wheelhouse for a while.  I’ll have to look for the photo.

 

On a different note, here’s a photo by Elizabeth Wood taken in 2005 of Lettie G. Howard along the Brooklynside of the Upper Bay.  Lettie G., built in 1893  (125 years ago, making her as old or even older than Mon Lei, depending on which story you believe.   for all you readers downcast of me, Lettie G. departed the Hudson River around 0700 today, heading for Lake Erie via Gloucester and Nova Scotia.  She is on AIS.  Nelson, Joey, Mac, Jack, Marc, Brenda, Jake, Barry . . . you know who you are.   I hope to see Lettie G. on Lake Erie this summer;  I hope you do too.

 

Thanks to Steve and Elizabeth for use of these photos.

For a history of the Chinese “junk,” click here and here.

Spring Sixth Boro Sail 2018

“A butterfly among moths” flitted past lower Manhattan yesterday, northbound  on the North River, albeit a butterfly that hadn’t yet fully shed its cocoon.

“The boat has a colorful history, beginning as a small trading vessel along the South China coast. It reputedly once belonged to a Chinese warlord who had to sell it in haste to flee the country. Believe it or not, Robert Ripley purchased it in 1946 and owned it until he died…  It was sailed across the Pacific Ocean in 1939 and then to the East Coast the following year.”  All that was written here in 1985.   Mon Lei is not to be confused with a junk called Free China.

Maybe she flitted as a butterfly in my mind, but yesterday Mon Lei was being towed.   I should have gotten this photo without the excursion boat in the distance.

I had forgotten that the bow was squared off until I returned to my post from that year.

It’s truly unique, and I hope it doesn’t berth too far upstream because

I’d love to see it again, sans shrink-wrap and with junk-rig sails set on all three masts.  Here’s a long article from 2017 with black-and-white photos from the distant past, including one with the unique Robert Ripley playing mahjong, believe it or not.

Here’s another unique sailing vessel of the sixth boro, Lettie G. Howard.  And if you don’t see it in the next day and a half, you won’t see it in New York any time soon, as it heads west by sailing east:  Lake Erie bound by way of Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.  Maybe my friends along the way will get photos of her.  The Seaway and its locks might provide good opportunities for photos.

And to round out this post, here’s a Nautor Swan for sale, currently tied up in North Cove.  At a bit over $1.6 million, it could be yours, or mine, or someone else’s.

Like a RORO and a tanker that have appeared here before, Tugela is named for a South African river.

Quite the mast!

Finally, not the same black hulled sailboat, it entered the Upper Bay last week passing the Quarantine Station.  Anyone know if a facility by that name exists there  today?

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who should take walks around the land’s edge every weekend.

Here’s Mon Lei‘s homepage.  Somewhere  (?)  I recall seeing photos of her in the 1976 bicentennial harbor muster.  Also, not surprisingly, bowsprite dabbled with junk for a time.

Unrelated:  Here’s a voyaging sailboat from the Philippines. 

 

Chrononauts 7b

Ken came up with additional photos of his overnight in the transient slip at South Street Seaport Museum many years ago . . .  so here they are.  Note the Twin Towers in the background.  To the right side of the photo, I’m guessing that’s a mastless Lettie G. Howard and Major General William H. Hart, now languishing along the Arthur Kill.

Here’s a close up of the stick lighter, identified by eastriver as Vernie S. 

Russell Grinell, among other things, was an owner of schooner Pioneer before she came to SSSM.

Here’s Black Pearl in the foreground, with a respectable looking eagle’s figurehead.

And finally, this might be the stern of Anna Christina, which sank in the “perfect storm” as mentioned in this NYTimes article.

Again, many thanks to Ken Deeley for bringing these photos he took from the transient dock several decades ago to the light.  One of my tugster goals is to publish photos like these, bringing them into the  “creative commons.”

 

 

Wavertree Returns 2

Who else greeted Wavertree on the rest of the way home?  John J. Harvey is always in on celebrations.

Lettie G. Howard was there,

as was the helicopter.  Feehan presented herself on the far side of Rae.

Pioneer accounted for

herself with crew in the crosstrees.

Pioneer and Lettie teamed up at times.

Wire showed up.

New York Harbor School had two boats there, including Privateer and their

newest vessel Virginia Maitland Sachs, about which I’ll post soon.

Melvillian throngs came down to the “extremest limit of land” on Pier 15 and 16, for one reason or another, but who were about to be treated to some excellent ship handling.

Rae took the lead, showing the need for tugboats of all sizes.

 

The larger tugs pushed and pulled as needed to ease into the slip

 

until all lines were fast and

and the shoreside work needed doing.

Bravo to all involved.  If you want to take part in a toast to Wavertree, you can buy tickets here for the September 29 evening.

If you haven’t read the NYTimes article by James Barron yet, click here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes I left no one out and who as before is grateful to the South Street Seaport Museum and the photographers’ boat provided by US Merchant Marine Academy and crewed by a set of dedicated cadets.

Often folks ask how one can learn about the harbor or is there a book about the sixth boro.  Volunteering at South Street Seaport Museum is a great way available to all to get access to the water, to learn from like-minded folks, and to start on a journey of reading the harbor and its traffic for yourself.  Each volunteer’s journey will be unique, and willing hands make institutions like this museum survive and thrive.

Lettie: Sixth Boro to Gloucester and Return

Here are some posts about Lettie G. Howard.

Want to join the crew for a sail to Gloucester for the 2016 schooner race, be part of the race crew, or help sail the 1893 schooner back to NYC’s sixth boro?

You’d be crew in training, integrated into watch-standing along with her professional crew.

On the return, she stops in New London for the Connecticut Maritime Heritage Festival.  And all the while, you’d be supporting the good work of South Street Seaport Museum, which has many other unparalleled events coming up in the next few weeks.

Here are the specifics on ticket prices, dates, and itineraries:

NYC to Gloucester | 8/29-9/2: $800.00*

Gloucester Schooner Race | 9/4: $160.00

Gloucester to New London | 9/5-9/9: $800.00

New London to NYC | 9/11-9/13: $480.00

*Sail the first leg and join the race at no additional cost!

To reserve your spot,  email: lettieghoward@seany.org

 

The first and last photos here come from Hannah Basch-Gould;  all the other have been taken by Will Van Dorp, who on these dates will be gallivanting to francophone Canada in search of Champlain’s dream.