From the Line Locker 36

Sometimes I’m conflicted about what to post, like today with too many competing stories, and we’ll start with news, and Cisne Branco, which translates as “white swan.”  The photo below shows Cisne Branco, a Brazilian Navy training vessel,  in the sixth boro in May 2012 for a sixth boro OpSail event.  Earlier this week, the 1998 vessel got swept downstream the Rio Guayas in Guayaquil, Ecuador and came to rest against a pedestrian bridge.  See it and hear about it here.

Here’s another shot of Cisne Branco in Gravesend Bay.

In other news, the 1967 83′ steel schooner Mystic Whaler, a regular in the sixth boro, has been sold to a party on the West Coast.  The Egintons have owned it since 1995. 

A few weeks ago now, the 1943 laker Mississagi was towed to the scrapyard in Sault Ste Marie.  I caught these two photos of her in summer 2016 in Lake Michigan below and

along the Saint Lawrence River below.  Other photos can be seen here.

While looking up my May 2012 photos of Cisne Branco, I saw this photo of Taurus in the North River.  She’s now Joker, featured here several times recently.  In May 2012, the K-Sea fleet had just been sold to Kirby, and in the photo below, the red K-Sea visor was painted blue, the K-Sea logo was removed from the stack, but the Kirby logo had not yet replaced it.  Also, in the background, it’s Harvey and Frying Pan at Pier 66.

This photo also from May 2012 shows Ellen McAllister coming alongside Dewarucci, an Indonesian training ship.  Between the two, it’s Scotty Sky, the small bunker tanker now sold somewhere in the Cabibbean.

Since there’s a lot of media attention on the congestion in SOME US ports, have a look at what’s off Savannah.  This was a screen grab from VesselFinder almost a week ago, and it’s not much different today.  A personal frustration is the outermost vessel shown, CMA CGM Marco Polo.  I missed getting a photo of her in the sixth boro on Saturday, October 9 because I was out of town;  in the wee hours of Monday, she departed for Norfolk and then Savannah.  She’s now been anchored, about 60 miles out from Savannah’s container terminals since the 15th.  Earlier this year she was setting a new record in US/Canada ports, and now she’s stuck in a jam.

And finally, two photos from April 2018 showing Mon Lei getting towed to a marina just north of the GW Bridge, where it stayed for some time.  Question:  Where is Mon Lei today . . .  asking for a friend.

This red/white junk was once quite the fixture in the sixth boro, and although I was never aboard, I’m told the interior was sumptuous!  Click here for posts I’ve done on the boat.  I talked with one of the owners once on the phone. 

That’s some news from my desk in Queens.  All photos, WVD.

I’d really like to know what became of Mon Lei.

 

Other Peoples Photos 81

From Capt Nemo, a few years ago, the 2000 Mary Gellatly high and dry and before she was Mackenzie Rose.  Also, I see Tasman Sea, Dace, an unidentified Bouchard, and Yemitzis.

From KP, Dace getting her upper wheelhouse . . . over 10 years ago.

From a Great Lakes Mariner, the oldest working ship on the Lakes . . . Alpena, a survivor launched in 1942, as she backs out of a Wisconsin city.

From Tony Acabono, it’s Kodi, among the smallest, hard-workingest tugs of the sixth boro.

From Bob Stopper a few years back, when Grouper was facing another no-starter season.

Another one from Bob, it’s tug Syracuse with a comatose Governor Roosevelt alongside.

From back in March 2020, thanks to Jan Oosterboer, via Jan van der Doe, it’s the world’s largest vessel by displacement . . .  Pioneering Spirit.  Here are tech specs and lots of images from her operator, AllSeas.

Here she enters port without an assist. Jan writes:  “Moves complete oil rigs, drilling platforms, can work as pipe layer.
Has a working crew of about 400 people including sailing crew.”

If I read this correctly, she has eight 20-cylinder engines that generate 127,000 hp and can cruise at 14 kts!

 

And finally one of my own from almost 15 years ago, it’s tug Hackensack.  As I understand it she’s now in South America somewhere.

Thanks to Nemo, KP, Mariner, Acabono, Stopper, and the Jans . . .  for use of these photos.

I hope to “see” you tomorrow for my Turnstile Tours on zoom doing “Exploring the Erie Canal.”  Tomorrow’s tugster post will be up early so that you can get interesting info for the zoom meeting.

 

 

Summer Yachts 5

Schooner Ambergris came in from sea in mid-April, but I still don’t know anything more about her.  Anyone help?

Dolphin is truly a yacht;  it’s also likely a winter yacht down south.  Up north, we see vessels like this seasonally.  I can’t identify the burgee on the bow.

Schooner Pioneer, launched 1885!!, has never been a yacht, but in its current much-loved state, it operates only in the warmer half of the year and it’s an excursion vessel.

Passing the Hoboken/NJ Transit terminal, that unnamed trawler is truly a yacht coming north for the summer.

Care for a summer evening on a Chicago Grebe-built yacht?  Here’s the info on yacht Full Moon departures out of North Cove. If you want a full day’s amusement online, you could investigate these other Grebe-built yachts . . . .    Or you could read about this Chicago shipyard and many other topics in this great blog called Industrial History, which I’ve just added to my blogroll.

Sometimes the Erie Canal seems devoid of vessel traffic, but on this day at Lock 17, there were plenty of takers.  As I recall, these cruisers were from Texas, Michigan, Florida, and California!

By the boat name and the VHF manner as I overheard it, I can guess the previous employment of this vessel operator.

Yesterday I went to this location to meet a friend over beer and crab cakes, my first there in quite a while . . .  .  But if you’ve never hung out at Pier 66, you owe to yourself.  Advice . . . if you want a seat, go on the off hours!  It’s been way too long ago that this gathering happened there.

And although I took this photo in the fall, the reminder is clear:  be safe.

All photos and sentiments by Will Van Dorp.

 

Seats of Power 1

Consider this a post in the genre of stacks and wheels. The fourth photo is the latter post shows 12 hands on these wheels, and no one seated.   Someone once said you stand (not sit) watch.

This canoe livery motorboat used in Algonquin Provincial Park has a flat aluminum seat, no cushion.

No seats here either.  I believe this is an oyster dredge mast unstepped.

Tugboat Jupiter has a old-style steering and an old style stool, not surprising given that it dates from 1901.

The once-padded barber’s (dentist’s?) chair shouldn’t really count here because it

complements this wheel aboard Frying Pan, a much modified vessel now floating pub.

So now let’s go standard contemporary.  Thanks to Xian Herrou, behold the seating aboard Abeille Camargue, now VB Camargue, a French tug built in 2007.  Here a seat is essential to operating the controls.

Here’s the note from Tony A, who inspired this post when he wrote:  “The Eric R. Thornton is rocking a new helm seat from Ocean Air Inc, Gainesville FL.  The [builder] is a chief engineer on a processing ship in Alaska and builds these in his spare time. They are very very heavy duty and will last a lifetime.”

“He uses a Nylatrol bushing that will last the life of the chair. The design incorporates an automotive style seat which can easily be replaced if the seat gets damaged or worn out.  He gave me a discount, because I told him I would try and promote his product.”

“His cell is 206-409-9881.  Let me know if you want to come and sit in it:)”

Thanks, Tony and Xian.  More seats of power to come.

Unless otherwise attributed, all photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

New York Media Boat 1

Photo thanks to John Skelson . . . it’s not a bird . . .  it’s not a plane . . . it’s NY Media Boat, one of the recent recipients of the Life Saving Award from the Marine Society of New York for a February 2014 rescue from a sinking tugboat.

So . . . what might you see on a customized adventure sightseeing tour of the sixth boro aboard NY Media Boat?   Well . . . if you’re interested in fireboats or firehouses . . . they’re near their Pier 25 pick up site.

A bit farther north . . . you can see Chelsea Market or Pier 66 Maritime from the water, a perspective quite different from experiencing either of them by land.

You never know what private boats might be docked at the passenger terminal . . . this one obviously wanting proximity to

the car wash.  Thanks to Phil Little for this unique perspective from the cliff at Weehawken.

You can see the newest NYC scalloper port.  F/V Endurance was back there yesterday.

If Alice is in town, you can meet her up and personal.   Alice Oldendorff, aggregate carrier, was the focus of the very first tugster post over seven years ago, as well as many since.  Use the search window.

The East River offers unusual juxtapositions . ..  like the UN and the WTC.

You might see remnants of industrial Brooklyn riverfront like Havermeyer’s sugar mill, or

demolition happening to IER 17.

You can see classic architectural icons of NYC like the 1929 Chrysler Building or

1976  tramway.   But if you’re like me, you’ll be hoping for

unexpected sailing vessels like Halie & Matthew or all manner of work boats like

Long Island built Maryland.

How about the “interior” side of Red Hook Container Terminal?

Of course, then there’s nothing that beats close-ups of wherever you want on the sixth boro by open boat.  Book a tour here.   By the way, the boat offers warm, waterproof gear and PFDs.

Here’s an article on Bjoern Kils and the boat from a publication of Willard Marine, manufacturer of the boat, which formerly lived on a US destroyer.   Also, here are some recent NY Media Boat clients.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp, except the delightful one of the private boat at the car wash by Phil Little and the lead photo by John Skelson.  Thank, Phil.

 

Road Fotos 4

For the record, I’m back in the boros of NYC, but I think I’ll just catch up with the road trip one day at a time.  I also went back and corrected/enhanced the “road fotos” posts I put up with the difficult iPad.  Also, I added new fotos on the Flickr slideshow.

Out front of the Charleston Museum is a replica of the CSS Hunley, the first combat sub to sink a warship.  Actually, it sank two, one of which

was itself.  Notice the lethal tip of its bowsprit from hell.  Click here for more Hunley pix.  Label below was taken at Fort Moultrie.

With only the housetop above the surface fog, Ann Moran (I think) heads past Carnival Fantasy to meet a car carrier taking automobiles OUT of Charleston.  A series on Carnival Fantasy soon.  In the background is the 5-year-old Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge.

Near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, here is the restored 72-year-old Solomon T, a workboat built near Kitty Hawk on the northern Outer Banks.  Much more on Solomon T soon.

I had the great pleasure of a short Cape Fear River tour with Captain Bert Felton, who pointed out that this stretch of Southport NC waterfront was once the location of the sixth boro’s lightship Frying Pan.  More on this later too, but an attempt was made to create a maritime museum here using the lightship Frying Pan that for decades before had marked Frying Pan Shoals some 25 miles outside the River’s mouth.  Use the search window of this blog for more posts I’ve done about Frying Pan, the sixth boro fixture.    More Cape Fear River soon.  By the way, Verrazano, namesake of the Bridge, once visited here.

On a personal note, this trip included a stop at my personal place of the Grail . . .  Galivants Ferry, howsoever you want to spell it.  This place is sacred–or at least inspirational– to the gallivanter in me.

And finally, on another personal note,  a bird show at the southern terminus on the Appalachian Trail instructed me on my insult-of-choice for 2011.  Can you guess it from this foto?  It has nothing to do with the charming bird handler, but it does related to the avian on her left wrist.  The befuddled expression on my face . . . reflects an unpleasant discovery I’d just made.

The bird is a turkey vulture. It’s “domesticated” as a result of a farmer’s finding a large stray egg and –wondering what bird’s it was–he placed it with the clutch his hen was sitting on.  After hatching, the chick was unusually friendly, having imprinted on the farmer.  Well, it was a vulture, who wasn’t interested in eating mash.  Vultures, of course, clean up road kill and any other carrion.  My discovery and term-of-insult?  Vulture breath!  It has to be the rankest smell on the planet.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp except the last one, taken by Elizabeth, the ablest navigator and interestingest conversationalist on the planet.  She’s also talent at the stern of Hunley, above, and in spite of the illusion, she is NOT standing on the sub’s portside stabilizer.