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Does equipment ever change in the sixth boro? Of course.
Thornton Bros, the 1958 Matton Shipyard product, was scrapped in 2014.
The 1971 Maria J is now Nicholas Vinik.
USACE Hudson, the sweetest Corps boat I’ve ever seen, got transformed into a fish house in 2019. Advance Victoria, 2006, is now Kition M, anchored in the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
The 2002 Labrador Sea is now Vane’s Brooklyn.
The 1944 Gage Paul inadvertently became a very deep fish house in 2015.
The 2002 Gramma Lee T is now in Norfolk.
Does the US Navy still have airships? If ever I have the chance to ride in one of these, I’ll take it in a heartbeat!
Bruce A brought in the 1970 Crowley Mars and
Michael J brought in the 1975 Crowley Pioneer; both Crowley’s were shipped off to Africa later in 2012. The 1971 Michael J. was scrapped late in 2021. Christine was working for Reinauer.
The massive 1970 Penn No. 6 is now the massive Vinik No. 6.
The 1972 Catherine Turecamo is now on the Great Lakes as John Marshall.
Do you still want to tell me nothing ever changes in the sixth boro?
All photos taken by WVD during the first SIX days of 2012.
I hope you enjoy looking back 10 years as much as I do, although some might say I live in the past a little too much. Here’s some dense traffic, l to r, Twisted Sisters, Lucinda Smith, Maurania III, and Petrozavosk.
Up in Lyons NY at the drydock, Governor Roosevelt shows her deep 8′ 6″ belly. Rosie will turn 100 in summer 2027.
Greenland Sea . . . one of my favorites is likely on her terminal lay up.
Does Duty still do duty on the Delaware?
Maria J is now Nicholas Vinik.
Charles D. is still working hard in the boro, as she was here helping Zim Virginia around Bergen Point. I do miss the walkway on the WEST side of the Bayonne Bridge.
This Peter is now Long Island . . . or Long Peter if you like.
Resolute assists Maersk Kentucky around that same point.
Amberjack is now Kirby Dann Ocean white and blue, and some of the Bouchard boats are now this Penn Maritime gray.
Giulio Verne was in town for some submarine cabling, and I’ve heard tell there was a fabulous Italian chef on board. She’s now docked in Naples IT.
I went to Detroit for Thanksgiving, and made a stop at Mariner’s Church, alluded to in “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” [In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed. In the maritime sailors’ cathedral. The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine time…] . I’m told the pastor at the church objected to the word musty and now Lightfoot sings it as “In a rustic old hall in Detroit …” In fact, you can confirm that here.
And let me throw two more in. I took this photo seven years ago from Rhinecliff as I headed south the day I completed my season on tugboat Urger. This was my way of reconnecting with the sixth boro. Maryland is now Liz Vinik.
And finally, a photo from Jason LaDue . . . it’s Grouper as she looked in 2000. A week ago her second auction concluded with a winning bid of $4850, but I don’t know who tendered that bid. According to my source, no movement has happened since the auction concluded.
Happy November. All photos except Jason’s by WVD.
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.
Here was Exotics, the first of this series. Exotics are the out-of-the-ordinary vessels, ones not common to these waters.
The first four photos here come thanks to Kenny Montz, who had his reasons for watching DSV Joseph Bisso arrive in the sixth boro of NYC. The church in the background is St. Patricks, not St. Louis.
I was locked in at work but watching periodically on AIS, wondering whether such a vessel might be here for Tappan Zee Bridge work?
Click here for info on the addition of Joseph to this Bisso fleet in 2008. Previous Bisso boats on tugster can be seen here and here. Maria J is in the background along the wall.
Kenny, thanks much for sending these along. Former names for the boat are Thresher, Rapid River, and originally, Kathy Candies.
This morning through the sprinkles I caught another exotic, Rikki S, a P & L boat. In the background, it’s Barney Turecamo.
Again, I’m not sure how long these boats will be in local waters,
or what jobs brought them here.
Thanks to Kenny for the first four photos taken yesterday; the last four by Will Van Dorp this morning.
Wow! It’s been over three years since I last used this title. Here’s S 15.
A few hours this morning evoked the sense of the sixth boro as a place for the likes of Harbour First and Charles D. McAllister, larger vessels from larger organizations,
as well as
others . . like Thornton Bros. Guess which of the five smaller tugs here is the oldest?
Or Maria J,
John P. Brown,
Gage Paul Thornton, here beside the resplendent Maria T barge,
0r Iron Mike?
How about another look at each . . . . Thornton Bros,
Maria J,
John P. Brown,
Gage Paul Thornton, with the beautiful stained wood door,
Iron Mike,
or . . . to throw in another,
Durham? That’s John P. once again in the distance passing the globe-trotting, Suez-transiting Advance Victoria . . . .
And you were right if you guessed Gage Paul Thornton, ex-Coastline Girls, launched 1943. Launch dates for the others, to the best of my info, are as follows: John P Brown 2002, Iron Mike 1977, Maria J 1971, Durham 1964, and Thornton Bros 1958.
On the southern end of Arthur Kill lie in barely perceptible disintegration two tugboats launched one year later than Gage Paul Thornton . . . namely ATR-89 and LT-653.
Unrelated: It looks like I’ll not be able to salvage Ryou-Un Maru . . . .
There always needs to be a first time, for everything. Maria J (ex-Jesus Saves) did it for me . . .
my passing from innocence to experience. I picked the day, bridge dedication plus 80 years with vivid bridge shadow on the water. Land in the distance is Elizabeth, NJ; point on right is Bergen Point . . . a section of Bayonne, NJ that once was a farm of tanks . . . an orchard if you prefer.
Zim Virginia was the first ship
to pass beneath me. Anyone know of fotos of traffic through here 80 and 75 and 50 years ago?
Charles D. McAllister assists port side, and
besides the hard over rudder,
Maurania III, starboard, nudges the vessel to starboard to
avoid Shooter’s Island and head up to Port Elizabeth.
Happy dedication day! If you missed the link to the pdf published by the Port Authority upon the 75th anniversary, click here. Great vintage pics. If you missed the diagram of the planned approximately 80′ raising of the roadbed, click here.
All foto by Will Van Dorp.
If you’ve never sat along the KVK, you might have no idea how much traffic passes. I left two hours early for work yesterday to allow a 120-minute savoring. What you see here is only the big stuff. Zim Virginia bound for sea. Note the apparent lowering of the hook onto the house of Maria J.
Notice the port of registry: Haifa.
Next vessel out, bound for sea and escorted by Laura K Moran: Ever Deluxe.
As Ever Deluxe bends to the north in the Constable Hook Reach, she passes Michigan Service and Stephen Reinauer.
Next outbound vessel is Tessa PG, with Justine McAllister looking to assist. By the way, where’s Douglas? Answer below.
Actually providing the assist is McAllister Responder.
Inbound is Americas Spirit, an aframax tanker.
And just as I know I have to rush to work, outbound sashays MSC Endurance, (ex-Sea Land Endurance) guided by Marie J. Turecamo to port and . . .
Kimberly Turecamo. See the guy descending the ladder. Would he be
deckhand? And all the spectators?
Maybe I’ll put up more fotos of Endurance and others later, but my point here is . . . two hours equaled five large ships with combined 278,000 deadweight tons.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp on June 23, 2009 between roughly 0700 and 0900 h. By the way, if it seems dark in these fotos, New York has seen rain every day except a handful since the start of June, nine inches over the past 30 days versus the “normal” three.
Douglas . . . port and largest city of Isle of Man. Douglas population is almost 27,000!
Unrelated: I might not post this Saturday because I’m . . .er . . . er . . . going for a hike on the Appalachian Trail, probably the South Carolina portion, said to have stunning vistas, easily confused with the southern hemisphere, I hear.
Here’s a quick post. From the cliffs last week I couldn’t make out the name of the red tug, even with fairly powerful binoculars, but
those lines are unique. I’d seen them many times last summer in the KVK. And the name is
Maria J. But the best part is the former name:
Jesus Saves, formerly from my part of coastal New England. Now would I try to kid you? Jesus Saves. Can you imagine that prose on the VHF?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
I like this NYTimes slide show called “Tugboat Minuet,” although I think tugs tango, no matter the number involved in shifting.
And …don’t know about you: I really take issue with some writing in the piece, like the lead sentence, i.e., “Tugboats are not as romantic as fire trucks, and they do not have the sleek aerodynamic shape of airplanes.” Such a land-biased statement! How many people do you know that have ever considered fire trucks romantic? I’ve never met one, and I’ve met a lot of people. Fire trucks are saviors on land, to be sure. Shrill and fast, of course. But in romance, I’ve never looked for a shrill and fast savior! Later in the piece, tugboats are described as “moving like children pushing a shopping cart for Mom” (I paraphrase) almost knocking over “stacks of cereal boxes and paper towels.” Please! I find this bordering on offensive.
Tugboats could be described as powerful, relatively silent, and mysterious. Agile. Supportive. Rugged. Reliable. Decisive. Versatile. And they’re hydrodynamic because that matters in their environment. Would you ever hear an airplane described as not as hydrodynamic as a tugboat? Tugboats certainly have classic beauty that ages gracefully . . . like Daryl Hannah or Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini… And children in the supermarket are annoyances; I’ve been a loving parent and know of what I speak. Is the insinuation here that tugboats propel themselves around the harbor wreaking havoc and chaos, reckless and immature?
Great fotos; problematic writing. So I’ll just list names today.
From left to right: Baltic Sea, Amy C. McAllister, Nicole Leigh Reinauer, and Maria J ex Jesus Saves, closest.
and a few seconds later.
Specialist and
Specialist too. . . or II.
Tucana . . . ex-Exxon Pelham, high and dry. Foto thanks to Ted.
By the way, Tucana and Daryl Hannah are both vintage 1960.
Except where stated otherwise, photos . . . WVD.
Anyone not familiar with the waterways (or their names) around Staten Island might cringe upon seeing the name in the title. My students, newcomers to the United States as many of them are . . . see “Arthur Kill” on signs in the area and, besides wondering what the object of the sentence ( Arthur kill who or what?) must be, suppose the parties responsible for the name on the sign have some thuggish perversity, some macabre sense of humor they want no part of. But Arthur Kill it is . . .
A K-Sea, a McAllister, a Reinauer, and a Maria J. Bayonne, NJ barely shows through the drizzle in the distance, and . . .
a social unit of buffleheads swimming in the borderwaters between NYC and Elizabeth, NJ, already come south, while
another K-Sea approaches and a Vane Brothers (Wicomico) heads south. That’s Linden, NJ in the background.
More Arthur Kill soon. All fotos, Will Van Dorp
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