Where “Exotics” Ain’t Exotic 3 b

One more to underscore the increasing frequency of a variety of these boats . . . Brooks McCall even today is working an area of Long Island Sound between Plum Island and Fishers Island.

That’s Millstone Point in the background. 

Brooks McCall is slightly older and longer than Miss Emma McCall, from yesterday’s post.  Brooks appears to operate out of the Thames River. 

Note above three towed surface “sleds” (not sure what they are called) attached to the boat, as seen below.  

This is the best I could do from a bit 

over a mile distance . . . .

Abreast of us, she turned to starboard and showed

her arm.

All photos last week, WVD. 

Here’s where TDI worked earlier.  “Our specialty is the survey, geotechnical and benthic components of these wind farm projects,” according to their CEO.

 

Tugs on the Sound 1

Here are some previous Sound posts. Recognize those buildings about 30 miles from my location?

How about this tug with a string of scows?

 

Yacht traffic in this location between Huntington and Stamford seemed to be in a hurry.

If you didn’t recognize this tug earlier you can’t miss the name now . . .   Mister T is a Blount built boat from 2001.

 

 

How about this one?  There aren’t many tugs in the area that look like this when the wheelhouse is hydraulically raised.

Here’s the skyline a few hours after the first photo, showing only midtown and up.

All photos from the Sound by WVD.  That tug with raised wheelhouse was Justine McAllister, a 1982 product of Jakobson on Oyster Bay, one bay to the west from my vantage point on Sound Wave out of Huntington Bay.

Sound Ferries 2

After I return to CSF with a camera, I’ll pick up part 1 again.   For now, let’s look at another ferry line that crosses the Sound.  By the way, how many ferries do you see in the photo below?

It was a foggy day in Port Jefferson that I chose to walk on for a jaunt across the Sound.

Grand Republic, certainly not the first vessel to carry that name, was getting some maintenance, so her sister vessel, P. T. Barnum, would be my ride. More on a much-earlier Grand Republic and a question at the end of this post.

This Grand Republic and this P. T. Barnum were launched four years apart, in 2003 and 1999, respectively. Mr. P. T. Barnum was a co-founder of the line, creating a ferry route that ran between his hometown of Bridgeport, nicknamed Park City,  and the port in Long Island farm country, Port Jefferson.

We backed out of the dock of a very foggy village of Port Jeff.

Here’s a phenomenon I don’t understand:  on either side of P. T. Barnum, I saw these rainbows.  Why there?

Mid-Sound we passed Park City.  She’s the oldest (1986),  smallest, and greenest of the current fleet.  When Park City was launched in Florida, she apparently made alligators fly;  read about it here.

Back in March, while in Seaside Park, one of the big parks in Bridgeport, I watched Park City sail into the port.

Later that same windy and cold March day, I watched Grand Republic sail in.

Here I’m looking north from just inside Port Jefferson harbor.  It’s worth a glance at a map to see how protected this harbor is.

All photos, WVD.

Related:  I’ve heard there’s a difference between the McAllister family and the McAlister family, the latter referred to here.  Can anyone jog my memory?  Of course, that may be yet another story than the one recounted in the 150 Years of Family Business book, in relation to the tugboat Iona McAlister.   Has anyone been to the Greenpoint bar called Grand Republic?

Mostly unrelated:  Here are two interesting postcards, one featuring the Starin  fleet, which McAllister acquired to form their own ferry business, and second . . . an appropriation of the Statue both from 150 years ago.

If you ride the ferry or just visit Port Jeff, spend a few minutes inside the office for some vintage photos like Nonowantuc (a native name for part of the Port Jeff area) and

Victor.  Info on all the boats can be found here.

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Sound Ferries 1

New London with bow ramp open here . . . has to be the fastest and one of the cleanest boat for Cross Sound Ferry (CSF).  I mean cleanest burning,  with its recently added Tier 3 Cummins power.  She was CSF’s first new build, coming off the ways in New London in 1979.

What I like about New London is the design allows a passenger to see over the vehicles at the wake, vehicles oriented toward the stern

or the bow.

John H, the largest CSF  vessel, was built for the company in 1989.

She has the capacity of 100 vehicles and 1000 passengers.

Mary Ellen was in 1983 by Offshore Shipbuilding in Palatka Florida as Grand Republic for the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry (BPPF).  That fleet will be next when I post more on ferries on Long Island Sound.

Once loaded at Orient Point NY, she backs out of the rack while lowering the bow ramp.  In that she reminds me of Badger, although there, it’s the stern ramp that lowers upon departure.

I did several trips on BPPJ ferries back in 2000 as I shifted domicile from MA to NY, so I’m guessing I rode or saw this vessel ass Grand Republic at that time.

Caribbean Ferry is called that because she originally worked in the Caribbean after coming off the ways at Blount in the 1970s.

And until I get photos of the remaining CSF boats, we’ll end here with the most distinguished, Cape Henlopen, launched in 1943 as USS Buncombe County (LST-510) from Jeffersonville Boat and Machine Company.  In early 1944 as an LST, she departed NYC for a convoy crossing over to Europe, where she took part in the D-Day landings.  Subsequent to the end of WW2, she worked as a ferry crossing the Chesapeake Bay, then Delaware Bay, before coming to CSF in 1983.  She also operates with Tier 3 engines at this point.  That’s the light on Little Gull Island in the distance.

One goal I’ve set for the nearer future is to ride or at least see all the other CSF boats.

All photos, WVD.

Sound Platform

Let’s start at the Mattituck Inlet . . . and look east.  I’d never had a sense of the bluffs here.

I’d come here to catch a glimpse of the platform, the only deepwater petroleum platform on the US east coast, I’m told.

It was built in the 1960s by Northville Industries,

which in the decade before had built this storage facility. You can find more of that history here.

By the time I got closer, a tanker had arrived.

Kimolos carries the livery of the TEN fleet, like Afrodite.  Kimolos has previously appeared in this blog nine years ago.

I believe those are two Miller’s Launch boats alongside the platform.   Kimolos has since departed for Sint Eustatius. 

All photos, WVD.

Truckster! 18

See the previous 17 posts off along this tangent here.

Let’s start here.  Name that truck.  Answer follows.

How about this vehicle, with its brand info stripped off?

It should be easier from this angle.

If you were wondering about the context for the top photo, here’s more of the field.  Note the USCG members on either side of the “bridge.”

This “marine highway” shows that the ferry needs to rotate to put stern to at the dock.   Know the ferry line?  This ferry itself?  The ferry in the distance?

On the same run as the top photo, that’s a mighty narrow bridge to the pier.

 

Ditto.  I can’t tell the brand of the red truck above or the blue below, although it would be safe (though not necessarily correct) to say a Peterbilt above and a KW below.

It takes expert judgement to drive onto and off this ferry.

And finally . . .  here’s the top mystery pickup.  The name’s on the tailgate.

All photos, WVD, from the ferry New London.  The red pickup is a 1950 Chevrolet.  The black/gray pickup . . . a 2021 Jeep Gladiator.  The other ferry is Susan Anne. Click here to see the whole Cross Sound fleet, including the ex-Zephyr.

Deep and Clear

You’ve likely walked in a muddy wilderness area and seen animal tracks and tried to identify then.  Or, you’ve had the same experience with tracks in the snow.  So what would leave these tracks on AIS?

The vessel has been working the Sound for a few weeks.   The two blue vessels here are Cross Sound ferries....

 

Here’s the answer:  Deep Helder, a 2014 vessel conducting sea bed mapping.  Helder is the Dutch word for clear, hence the post title.  In the distance, those are the hills of Connecticut.

Deep Helder is a 213′ by 52′ multipurpose offshore supply vessel, contracted to stay in US waters for a time yet.  More on MMT surveying here.

Note a cable supported from the port stern here.  I got these photos from the Cross Sound New London and never got closer than two nm from the vessel.

I hope to get closer up photos and learn more of who all’s on board . . .

All photos/info and any errors, WVD, who could have called this “exotic,” of course.

Random Tugs 211

Here’s what’s on the surface and

here’s a bigger picture.  That trio in the sky following Bruce A McAllister tails us as well!

Big Jake once

trafficked the sixth boro as Juliet Reinauer.

Over at the Brooklyn passenger terminal, Jonathan C waits,

canvas on the fenders, to assist Crown Princess out.

And given my scarceness in the sixth boro, the only image I have to date of the new Capt. Brian A. McAllister has the tug concealed by Alex and Eric.

And then out on the Sound, it’s John P Wronowski and escort,

headed for the barn.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who recently stumbled onto an interesting blog, now added to my blogroll under a seamsters.org  Damn autocorrect . . . I really typed aa seasisters.org          the “aa” being there to keep this near the top of my links.

 

Fall Fish Boats

Recognize the skyline in the background . . .the Empire State Building and 432 Park stand out for me.

I’ve done fishing posts before, but a lot of them relate to winter or to fish tugs . . . .  Seeing Mackenzie Paige II and Ruthy L traverse the sixth boro the other evening seemed unusual for me.

It appears they were headed into protected ports along the northside of the Long Island Sound to escape the storm back in the second half of September.

 

In the port of New London, I’m not sure if Mystic Way,

Jolly Roger, and All for Joy all still fish.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Balancing … or Not 2

If you click here and are familiar with some of the changes on the NYC waterfront, you’ll know some of these landmarks are gone.  Debate on choices of what to save and what to preserve are endless.  Recognize the vessel below?  What was its past and will be its future?

The vessel above and the one below live about 20 miles from Hell Gate.  Christeen, below, was built as an oyster sloop in 1883.  Click here and here for video of Christeen under sail today.

Here’s a summary of Christeen‘s features.  Click here for a quick timeline of  150+ years of water history of Oyster Bay, NY.  Of course, Oyster Bay launched many tugboats during the half century of Jakobson‘s tenure there.   Scan the list for boats that have appeared on this blog, (Cornell, Margot, Houma, Maryland, Escort, Consort …) too numerous to link to now, but you can use the search window to see them.  Jakobson’s even built a small submarine, X-1.  Jakobson’s yard is now gone without many traces.

The vessel in the top foto is Ida May as she currently looks, but

she once looked like this.

This is a down-at-the-heels queen whose future

hangs in the balance.  More info is available through the

Waterfront Center.

What prompted this post is an article in the NYTimes this morning about Pier D, near 64th Street.  If you’ve never seen it,

you won’t.  It’s gone.  See the article here.  I took this foto less than three months ago.

All fotos by will Van Dorp.