Retro Sixth Boro 48B

Let’s go back a decade.  Then MSC Emma was on the west coast of Bayonne leaving town; now she’s on the west coast of Central America, leaving Lazaro Cardenas for Panama.

Above she was assisted by Gramma Lee T [now in Norfolk] and Margaret and setting up for the turn from Newark Bay into the KVK;  here we had almost gotten ahead of the trio of vessels.

A strange trio was in the sky

over the sixth boro. The piggyback rider is still in town, albeit likely to never fly again. More here.

Meanwhile, over in the Arthur Kill, a boring machine was placing charges in holes below the bottom of the waterway and connecting them to the stringy orange signal cord to blast when the time was right for them all to detonate at the same millisecond.  That day I touched some hefty but perfectly safe explosives, inert until the right signal is applied, which sounds like some folks I know.

More on “kraken” the bottom here.

Back then, I was spending a lot of early mornings near Howland Hook waiting for my work to begin, and I caught a Double Skin 37 moving bunkers

and maneuvered by Coral Coast.  Was that mechanical dredge Captain A. J. Fournier in the distance above?

The Joker was then a more sedate Taurus, before joining the hilariously-named over at Hays.

Put Tasman Sea into the picture too.  Is the Tasmanian still laid up in Louisiana?

And it was a great April 2012 day I caught the seldom-seen Patty Nolan

moving a houseboat into the sixth boro.  Patty seems to be preparing for a comeback.

And the 1972 2325 teu Horizon Navigator, here with Samantha Miller alongside,  was still working.  Is the 1972 container ship still intact?

And let’s wind this up with Ellen and Maurania III returning to base after a job.  Ellen is still in the sixth boro, and Maurania III is in the Delaware.

All photos, WVD, April 2012.

Entirely unrelated, check out these Smithsonian photo winners.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 43

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.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 42 B

The bridge photo at the end of part A was of Kristin Poling, right after she’d been taken out of service.  In her long life from 1934 until 2011, she carried the nameplates of Poughkeepsie Socony, Mobil New York, and Captain Sam, before taking on her last name. 

Here’s a shot from the bow, and

here from near the stern looking forward along the catwalk.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos.  I wonder where this Coastie is today.

A decade ago, Maurania III worked in the harbor, here alongside the venerable Chemical Pioneer and

here muscling Suez Canal Bridge around Bergen Point.

APL Coral was scrapped in 2017, I believe.  Anyone know what those bolts of green fabric are?  By their location, I’d guess an anti-piracy measure.  Nicole Leigh continues to work.

DEP’s Newtown Creek was in her last days;  currently she’s a dive destination in Pompano Beach, FL known as Lady Luck.

Lygra (1979) went to Alang in 2018, after carrying that name as well as Centro America, Nornews Service, and Transfjord. 

Does anyone know where Captain Zeke has gone to?  I don’t.   If I ever did, I’ve forgotten.

Catherine Turecamo assists SN Azzurra away from a dock. The tanker seems still to be working as Augusta;  she’s also carried the names Blue Dolphin and Stena Commander.  In 2014, Catherine T. went to fresh water and, the last I knew,  became a Chicago area based John Marshall.

If you click on no links in this post except this one, you will be pleased;  it’s the legendary 1937 commuter yacht Aphrodite.  HERE is the link.  Those all-caps are intentional.

Note the raked forward portion of Maersk Murotsu, getting an assist from Kimberly Turecamo. The tanker is currently known as Ardmore Seafarer, which I have seen but not photographed in the boro.  It’s impossible to keep up . . .  hang on to that thought until the end of the post.

And let’s close out  with some busy photos, here Barbara McAllister moves a barge, East Coast follows light, and Gramma Lee T Moran assists a tanker.  Barbara is now Patsy K.

And finally, the waters here are churned up by James Turecamo, Resolute, and Laura K Moran, as well as a few tankers off to the left.

All photos, WVD, who’s astonished how much changes if not daily or monthly but surely by decade.

And about that thought I asked you hang onto:  I’m considering taking a break, a sabbatical, or as Chapter 17 of Moby Dick explains . . .  a ramadan, a term used with respect. I say this as a solicitation of advice.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 41

These photos I took back in September 2011.

This boat became Bouchard Boys and is now in Red Hook waiting to be repainted as Stasinos Boys.  She’s 100′ x 31′ and 3900 hp.

North Sea has had many owners;  currently she’s Sause Brothers North Sea out of Portland OR.   She’s 120′ x 34′ vessel with 4200 hp moving her.

Growler used to be one of my favorites during the years I went to the Hudson River tugboat races.  She’s changed hands several times recently and last I saw her she was in the Arthur Kill.  She’s a 1962 Jacksonville-built WYTL, as the others, 64′ x 19′ powered by a 300 single Cat D-375 V8, or once was.

How about another shot of another attempt . . .  with Maurania III and Ross Sea looking on.

Since coming off the ways in 1979, Miriam Moran has worked in the sixth boro of New York under that name.  From my outsider’s perspective, she has paid off handsomely.  At 99′ x 32′ and with 3000 hp, she has just assisted Seabourn Sojourn into the passenger terminal.

Sassafras then was three years old;  she’s since been sold out of the Vane fleet and now wears colors of Norfolk Tug as George Holland, at 90′ x 32′ and 3000 hp.

Thornton Bros. here was just a few years away from the scrapper;  she began life as John E. Matton at the shipyard in Cohoes in 1958.  Her long run is profiled in a tugster post  here. The “shipyard” link is a couple hours’ good history reading, including a surprise about a well-known naval architect who once worked for Matton.

As part of the 10-year commemoration of 9/11, USS New York came back to the sixth boro after having made her inaugural visit here two years before.  The yellow/brown water reveals the aftermath of Hurricane Irene that gorged all the streams upriver.   USS New York has a FB page here.  Escorting her here is Ellen McAllister.

Yacht Black Knight made an appearance passing the tip of Manhattan while passing from the Sound to the North River in mid-month after theb hurricane. She’s a 1968 product of Goudy & Stevens, an East Boothbay ME yard that has done a wide variety of vessels.

I’ve got a few dozen pics from this month in the archives, but let’s call this the end of this post;  all photos, WVD.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro NYC Tugboat Races 6

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve not been to the Great North River Tugboat Race since 2014, but in normal times, September 5 would see the next race.  But we’ve dispensed with the “normal times” concept for the time being.

In selecting the batch for this post, I wanted splash, froth, bubbles, and the effervescence the river can react with when tons of steel and thousands of horsepower push through the ever changing water.   The next two photos are from that 2014 race. 

It was overcast during the race, but an hour or so later, when pushing contests were happening and

the wakes flattened out and we sized up USAV MGen. Anthony Wayne, patches of blue appeared.  I should leave you in suspense about how this push went.  Let me put it this way;  they left town not long after the push-off.

2013 was an equally overcast day, and again, not to identify every tugboat in that lineup, it appears that W. O. Decker has either jumped the gun or activated its jet drive and will soon rise up out of the Hudson on her hydrofoil assists. I’d guess the latter.

See what I told you . . . Decker has gone so far ahead that it’s already over the horizon.

Second lap maybe for Decker?

It’s starting to appear that in 2012, as in ’13 and ’14, it was overcast.

It was great to see Buchanan 12, usually burdened with a half dozen stone barges, disencumbered and frothing up the river.  That’s the 1907 Pegasus back there too.

In 2011, I was able to get a photo of the racing craft along with sky spray by one of the fireboats present, likely 343.  What’s remarkable comparing the photo above with the one below is the color of the water;  hurricane Irene had dropped a lot of rain upstate and all the tributaries sent that into the Hudson with tribute in the form of silt.

Quantico Creek and Maurania III did an excellent job of stirring up the water.

But again, it was overcast and hazy over silty water.

However, in 2010, we had blue skies that really accentuated the DonJon boats like Cheyenne and

the harbor colossus, Atlantic Salvor.

In 2009, there were wispy clouds, allowing the “queen of the day” to be Ellen McAllister. But look who else showed up!!!!

Urger.   Urger would EASILY have won the race, but she was doing what she does best . . .  urging all the other boats and crews to be fleeter than she, holding herself back, allowed herself to be that day.

All photos and commentary, WVD. See you at the races in 2022.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 35 C

March 25, 2011 was a busy day.  L to r, Maurania III, USNS Yano, Resolute, McAllister Responder, McAllister Girls, Amy Moran . . . with a K-Sea barge at the mooring, and some iconic structures.  None of these vessels in currently in the sixth boro.  Amy Moran is now John Joseph.

Let’s follow the USNS vessel first, as it’s assisted into the graving dock.  Yano is in Newport News at this time, 2021. 

Yano is an example of a US-flagged non-Jones Act vessel.

A bit later, more to the west, Davis Sea stands by to assist Taurus

and DBL 25 into a dock.  Taurus recently came to the boro from Philly as Joker.  Davis Sea is now Defender. 

The following day, Maurania III and

McAllister Girls sail British Serenity off the dock. Maurania III is now in Wilmington, and British Serenity is now Champion Timur and is in the Black Sea on a voyage that began in Indonesia.  Girls is laid up.

An hour later, Jennifer Turecamo assisted the big OSG 350 moved by

OSG Vision westbound.  Jennifer is in Tampa, and Vision runs in and out of Delaware Bay.

All photos and any errors, WVD, who notices the old Bayonne Bridge profile above.

For an update on Ever Given, click here.

And the answer to yesterday’s what and where:  Jay Michael off Bridgeport, CT….

Retro Sixth Boro (and beyond) 30

In fall 2010, deepening dredging was happening in the sixth boro to prepare for the ULCVs now so commonplace here,  after Panama Canal enlargement and Bayonne Bridge raising. These operations afforded me the chance to see a cutterhead close up.  The crewman wielding the hammer was trying to loosen a worn tooth.   By the way, those teeth weigh 35 pounds each.  Teeth . . .  dentist?

Then as now, Layla Renee was in the dredge support trade.  Right now she’s in Charleston.  She was only two years old at the time of the photo.

It looks that way, but W. O. Decker is NOT a dredge tender in this photo.  Here five people on Decker are catching the stare of the one dredge worker in work vest.

The entire K-Sea fleet has disappeared.  As of 2020, Falcon has become Carol and I’ve not yet seen her latest livery.  Houma was scrapped in 2017 in Baltimore.

Here are two of the McAllister tugs involved in easing MSC’s USNS Sisler (T-AKR 311)into Bayonne drydock as then-John P. Brown manages the door.  For many more photos of the event, check out “floating the door,” where you also see Allied’s Sea Raven, unlabelled.

I caught Growler at Mystic Seaport that fall.  Rumor has it that Growler has returned to the sixth boro under a new name and sans teeth, but is under wraps.

Also in Mystic at that time, 1885 steam/sail vessel Amazon (has nothing to do with Bezos), the 2000 Amistad, and the 1908 steamer Sabino.  Does anyone know the whereabouts of Amazon today?

My reason to be in Mystic that October was to work on Pegasus, seen here with Araminta and Cangarda.  What works of beauty all three are!

Deborah Quinn here is docked near where Jakobson Shipyard used to be located.  I believe that’s her location as of this writing.

Under the old Bayonne bridge, Maurania III assumes position to ease the 1997 Maersk Kokura around Bergen Point.  Maurania III is currently in Wilmington NC.

Back a decade ago, Day Peckinpaugh had some good paint on her, and Frances was like a cocoon in Turecamo livery.  There’s scuttlebutt of a new lease on life for Day Peckinpaugh.

Let’s end with dredging, as we began.  Terrapin Island was one of the regulars in the navigation dredging effort.  Terrapin Island is currently in Norfolk.

All photos, October 2010, by WVD.

Big announcement soon.

 

9/9/11

I’ve never “reblogged” before, but this is a good post and a good day to do it. Nine years on from this post, and 19 years on from the event that prompted this, I’d have thought we’d be more united.

tugster: a waterblog

Knowing what I knew, Maurania III headed up to the North River–where recently she raced– could only mean one thing, especially

given her accompaniment by Ellen and Elizabeth, also wearing the canvas frocks.  What it meant was that

USS New Yorkhad done its local doing and was

bound for sea.  We’re two days off the one decade anniversary of

quite the tragedy.

By the way, I’m with Bloomberg on this one: please stop calling it ground zero.  Let’s move on because time has moved on.

Also, for the record, we have a local election in my voting district, and I will hang up every time pollsters call and ask if I feel less or more secure now than before 9/11.  It’s a stupid question.  IMHO, be vigilant, but there NEVER is such a thing as complete security, although I’m grateful for those who endeavor to keep…

View original post 23 more words

Retro Sixth Boro NYC Tugboat Races 1

Like lots of things, the Great North River Tugboat Race is, as ws said in a comment yesterday, “alas  . . .  cancelled this year.”  So here’s some consolation, ws. . .  If you need a dose of racing, you can click here and get all the way back to tugster post 2006, or for a sampling from 2006 until 2011, follow along.  In 2006, I followed from W. O. Decker and had this view.  I’ll let you try to identify these;  if the group-source gets stuck, I’ll help out.

In 2007 . . .   of these, only Lucy Reinauer is still around here.

HMS Liberty is still around.

In 2008 . . .  throttling up releases some smoke . . .

 

In 2009, two of these are still running around the sixth boro staying busy.  The third was involved in a scandalous grouding and has been scrapped.

Meagan Ann has unique safety headgear, inspired by an ancient design.

In 2010 . . .  this was a motley armada, ranging from Atlantic Salvor to The Bronx.

Catherine C. Miller and Mary H were hurrying to the starting line here.

That year saw lots of pushing match-ups.

Vulcan III could be matched up with Viking later.

In 2011, THIS could be called the heat . . .  actually, it was a misting from one of the fire boats.

Pushing around happened all over the field for spectators on deck and photographers up high.

As always, getting a line on a bollard . . . just another event in the sixth boro games.

USMMA’s Growler is closing on the bollard as a crewman demonstrates a rodeo-influenced style.

More to come . . . all photos, WVD.  And if the last four photos above suggest a muddy Hudson, remember that 2011 had just seen Hurricane Irene flood the valley creeks feeding into the Hudson.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 26 b

Ten years ago . . .  it seems like a lifetime sometimes.  Minerva Joanna is still afloat, albeit at anchor along with dozens of other tankers off Lomie, Togo.  Laura K Moran, currently working in Savannah.

Mel E. Lemmerhirt is now Evelyn Cutler, currently anchored off the Palisades.

Cosco Panama is now called Minerva and working among the islands of Indonesia. She was a 2005 Blohm & Voss build, with capacity of 2702 teu.  She’s NOT to be confused with Cosco Shipping Panama, at 9443 teu.

Escort was still calling in the sixth boro. Now I understand she’s working in southern NJ, but I’ve not seen her in much at all since 2010.

Sassafras has left the Vane fleet; now she’s George Holland of Norfolk tugs, and again, not around here.

Colleen McAllister . . . she’s in the Great Lakes, although I’m not sure she’s working.

Maurania III is busy, now in Wilmington  NC.

I never did learn the name of this boat, not the manufacturer, but it has simple beautiful lines in wood.  Is it still around?  For sale?

And sailing . . .  I don’t think this’ll be happening this month in the sixth boro, given the number of passengers.

We’ll hold it up here.

All photos, WVD, who has begun going out by private transportation.   It really is somewhat odd to walk around this way, but it makes sense to me.