Random Tugs 119

First . . . this foto by Bob Dahringer of Katherine (1979 in Louisiana).  As of this writing, Bob is back upriver playing with Hudson River ice cubes.

Next . . . this foto from Key West, thanks to my sister, who’s gotten a camera upgrade.  Yay!  A few years ago, I was snorkeling–sans camera–off a Key West beach and came up to notice two tugboats that looked a lot like these.  My first thought then was–wow!  K-Sea tugs in the Conch Republic.  My second thought was . . . I have no camera and therefore no one will ever believe me.  I’m now pretty sure I saw Titan (1974 in Long Beach, CA) and Ocean Atlas (1964 in San Diego, California).

Brian DeForest took this foto of Marjorie B. McAllister (1974 in Louisiana) last week of a very icy sixth boro.

And recently . . . in a springy waterboro of NYC, Brendan Turecamo (1975 in Louisiana) assisted a tanker on its way out to sea,

Doris Moran (1982 in Louisiana) assisted a chemical tanker into port, and

Miss Niz  (2003 from Alabama) moved some dredging equipment around.  Note the survey boat–Michele Jeanne–reading the bottom contours over on the Bayonne side.

Thanks much to Bob, Maraki, and Brian for use of their fotos.

Crazy Patterns 2

Here was the first of this series, from over four years ago.  And what’s this?  whose wake prints?

Answer?  It’s the flotilla assisting Hanjin San Francisco into Port Elizabeth.  Four months ago I caught San Fran outbound . . . here . . . scroll through.

Let’s do an anatomy of wakes on a curve called Bergen Point.  That’s Marion Moran on the stern quarter, a New Jersey State Police boat overtaking on the port side.  Click here to see a now/then foto of Shooters, the island just beyond the container vessel.

Marion clings, presses while moving “sideways” through the water.

Laura K passes.

In the same general time frame, surveyboat Michele Jeanne

and lube tanker Emma Miller scribe the surface with their own signature, as

does Ellen McAllister and as

a commingling with

Catherine Turecamo.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Small Craft 3

Small craft to come, but first . . . the missing foto from yesterday’s post . . . how DID the heaving line get through the eye aka “closed chock”?  Hope this foto helps;  I do believe I see the monkeyfist flying upward from the crewman at the rail;  crew on the upper level passed it to the crewman forward of the chock?

It’s been over two years since I’ve used this title. Small craft  come in many shapes,

are operated by professional mariners,

respond to emergencies with versatility,

and shuttle specialists between shore and much larger craft.

This one I first thought was transporting booms but now I think had some festive mission, given what appears to be a sizable bouquet over the engine compartment.

They operate for many agencies,

commercial entities,

government services, and

and law enforcement groups.

They work in diverse

weather, all

year round.

Enjoy a few more:

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who apologizes for not knowing who operates some of these small craft.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’

One day Atlantic Coast moves the scow, and the next it moves what would scoop sixth-boro-bottom into  the scow.

Michele Jean does pre- and post-dredging surveying.

An eight-leg stand bucket (?) in autumn light is as beautiful as a spring daffodil about to open, a bud just quivering with excitement.

Fin Kennedy has its niche.

More buckets  . . . er quivering petals.

Red Rogers has its niche.

Bowsprite’s favorite is the cutter head, fierce though it be.

See the fine print on the hull midships . . .  it’s another survey boat.

and two barges loaded with buckets and cranes over by Atlantic Salt.  More on this soon.

Not a very good foto of Seis Surveyor, but I did catch it as an unusual profile about a mile and a half away.  Read all about this transient here.   Here are her fleet siblings.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Note:  all these fotos were taken in about a four-hour period over two days in the past week.  More dredging than typical in fall?

I wonder if Little Richard  would substitute “dredgin'” for “shakin,'”  THE anthem of the dredging world  then.

If you want to see some of the 92,754 steps in building one of the world’s largest dredgers, click here for Leiv Eiriksson.

Postively Posterior

Lord Byron’s poem “She walks in Beauty” might eventually be parodied  rather updated in this post.  If you’ll click on this link, you’ll get the entire poem AND a Botticelli Venus.  I admit I had a long discussion with Botticelli about this work while he was creating it:  have her turn around, I pleaded.  Oh well.  I long ago gave up trying to argue with Sandro’s about anything.   Meanwhile, seeing how bows got us to Dolly Parton, who knows how an examination of sterns might lead, how it could descend . . . or rise.

The name’s the thing sometimes like here or

here:  behold ex-Jaguar.

Sure, it’s  fuel barge bow but a survey stern.

Look upon ex-Exxon Empire State.  Why is Responder on recycling duty so much?

uh . . . ?  Anyone help?  [Thanks to Jeff and James:  Psara meaning “of fish.”]

Check out Doris Moran and Cable Queen.  Anyone know the Cable Queen story?

Catch a glimpse of Ruth M. Reinauer, class of 2009.

Drool over John J. Harvey.  By the way, to learn more about this legendary fireboat, come hear author Jessica DuLong read at Atlantic Gallery on October 21, or read her book My River Chronicles.  I immensely enjoyed it.

Relish the lines on what for 40ish years has been the sixth boro’s very own mostly stay-at-home some of the time flat-bottom, Pioneer.

Marvel at Maryland, as she wonders about this island.  Yeah, and wanders about it, too.

Oh . . . posteriors.  Send in your favorite.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

By the way, Patricia Ann bounced me around quite a bit, I hung on, but I haven’t seen her since.

KVK Sampler

An adjective I’ve not heard of late and would like to resurrect is “many-splendored.”  That word captures my sense of the KVK, aka Kill van Kull.   If you live anywhere near the sixth boro, you can get up close by coming to the maritime fest at the Atlantic Salt yard.  I’ve not found much info about  them, but this is a space where salt is stockpiled for safe driving on icy roads, not savory eating in spite of your doctor’s wishes.  One post I wrote about this place is here.  Anyone share a link for more Atlantic Salt?  For example, I know salt comes from multiple places;  anyone help with provenance info?  On the building poster, the red-white-blue mound behind the orange ferry is a tarp-covered salt pile.

I caught this prep work happening at Atlantic Salt yesterday.   The Weeks barge carries the universe of waterpod.

Atlantic Salt lies near the east end of KVK;  Norwegian Sea here enters the west end. That’s Shooter’s Island behind Norwegian, and behind that, reaching even higher than the upper wheelhouse, those are the gantries at Howland Hook.

In almost the same location, sometimes referred to as Bergen Point, Oleander shows how a container ship lists in a turn; I imagine “slaloming” past a marker at the inside of a channel turn.

John B. Caddell is a regular on the KVK, as

are assist tugs Ellen McAllister and

Gramma Lee T. Moran.

All fotos taken this week by Will Van Dorp.  This September is a many-splendored month;  two big, nearly-climactic,  halfmoonthly installments –we hope the channeling efforts work–coming up for HenrysObsession, the creative non-fiction and art project by Bowsprite and Tugster.

Some announcements:

This Sunday into Monday . . . Flinterduin will enter the sixth boro.  I reiterate the foto contest of this many-masted motor vessel entering the harbor delivering the many-splendored sailing barges.

September 6:  the 17th annual running of the sixth boro’s tugboat race.

September 12thish:  Waterford Tug Roundup.  Note that voting for “people’s choice” tug is long underway.  Anyone can vote ONCE.  I already did.

Two Ships and a Tale

So that I avoid being labelled too much of a tease, I’ll start by saying . . . this post features two ships and a tale, but I do NOT know the tale of the two ships,  which in themselves are related only in that they both traversed the KVK yesterday morning in opposite directions.  The tale comes at the end, but before we get there, imagine loading a large population of boro6’s historic vessels onto a ship for a festival on another continent. for example, suppose the groups and people responsible for Pioneer, Lettie G. Howard, Pegasus, Shearwater, and Adirondack agree for their treasures to be –literally–shipped to South America for a festival.  Visualize the emotional cargo making its way to the south.  (Btw, if you don’t know these vessels, type the names into the search window on the left side of this blog.) And I’ll get back to this.

Now let’s learn some taxonomy (tjalk, aak, jol, botter, hoogaars, skutsje) and some place names (Lemster, Giethoorne, Zeeuwland).   Ponder those words;  I’ll get back to them too.

Here are two more shots of Sea Miror, also depicted in yesterday’s post.

Judging by the stains on the hull, I’m guessing this bulk carrier, its previous life betrayed by the paint job on the stack, transports a building material like cement.  Anyone help with this?

Moving toward my point, I gave a big KVK welcome yesterday to MV Marneborg, a general cargo ship registered in

Delfzijl, up near the North Sea border between Netherlands and Germany.  This area serves as setting for one of my favorite sailing books:  Riddle of the Sands (1903),  by Erskine Childers, author, sailor, and Irish nationalist executed by the British in 1922.  I love the sailing and intrigue in the book.

Marneborg has the profile of contemporary northern European general cargo carriers;  actually, she looks not unlike Flinterduin, featured here a few days ago.  I’ve duly noted that the extraordinary orange survey vessel betrays a desire to follow Marneborg here. That’s Brooklyn in the hazy background.

So, when Flinterduin arrives in less than a week, it will treat sixth boro watchers with some quite unique and historic Dutch sailing vessels.  Some examples:

Sterre (translated “Stars”)  a tjalk built in 1887!

Vrouwe (Lady) Cornelia, a tjalk built in 1888.

De Goede Hoop (Good Hope) , a staverse jol.

Delfzijl, a modern port.  Lemster, once a traditional Zuyder Zee fishing village.  Giethoorne, another tiny water village.  Zeeuwland, a province along the southwest coast of the Netherlands.  The list could be very long, but the point is that coastal Netherlands, like coastal US, has places each associated with various boat types.  For example, Jonesport lobster boats, Cape Ann schooners and dories, Chesapeake skipjacks . . . .

More tales on this later, as my excitement for September builds.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp and imaginary gnomes.

Remember the foto contest:  material prize for the best foto of Flinterduin entering New York or making its way up to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on or about August 31,  As of dawn August 27, tracking shows Flinterduin NW of the Azores, about halfway across.

An Extraordinary . . .

In mid-August 1609 Robert Juet wrote in the log of Half Moon–that Half Moon— . . “we killed an extraordinary fish . . .”  Nothing more in the way of explanation or description or taste did he write.  That makes me want to speculate all night and all day . . and start a game like . .  what extraordinary thing else might they have killed or at least experienced.  Check out the extraordinary catch I witnessed today in the KVK.  They pull and

they strain and

bring up a most extraordinary . . . cement block.  “Part of a sediment sampling monitoring program,” I hear.  Although Kenneth Biglane is a locally-based EPA vessel,  I’ve never seen it until today.  Incidentally, the vessel’s namesake studied oil spill containment in many places including the Torrey Canyon spill in 1967.

Earlier in the morning, a most extraordinary orange boat, previously depicted on this blog, crisscrosses the KVK as part of a sampling of sediments, I’m told, that

are no longer there as well as what’s left below where the silt is no longer there . . . or something.  Michele Jeanne sampled away until it had to get out of Sea Miror‘s way, and then

Tomorrow, another day, I’ll go off in search of more extraordinary . . . .  Join along?  By the way, Sea Miror is ex-Maritime Pearl, 1990.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Meditations V

V . . . void is my head.  Well not entirely.  Vent . . . French for “wind” which was as abundant as rain today.  And I came up with Radio Veronica, the iconic 1960’s pirate radio station in the North Sea.  And V. and Vineland, novels written by one of my favorite writers, Thomas Pynchon, who has another book out soon called Inherent Vice . . . another V.   Pynchon, the reclusive writer, was born in Glen Cove,

New York.  The vessel here (1975) also carried the names Philadelphia and Capt. Danny once.

But on this foggy then stormy day, I’ll go with “vacation.”  Even if I tried hard today, a desire for vacation would slow me .  But . . . I took all these fotos today.  I’d never seen Great Lakes Thames River before.  Thames (1980) is ex-Lorrie S.

Margaret Moran pushes past Miriam Moran, who had just assisted Marinoula into a foggy berth.

Laura K, also part of the Marinoula assist, retrieves the docking pilot.

Turecamo Boys feigns pursuit of the small boom boat.

Michele Jeanne swings by, possibly to verify some dredging? and

appears–only appears–to make herself vulnerable in  the process, as Baltic Sea slings in a barge,

drops it, and then hurries off to other business.

Vacation . . . we all need it.  I have vacated some things/thoughts/goals/pursuits this summer, but others have possessed me.  Maybe I don’t want to vacate them and therefore will accept a degree of possession.  And these preoccupations will serve as my security  blanket, despite the cost.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, to–foggy–day.

Click on an image to enlarge it.

Boats in the Day

Bowsprite and I have neologized . . . coined another new term:  “tanlogging” from collapsing “tandem blogging.”  By the way, if any has a more elegant conflation of the two words, please suggest it.

Anyhow, she recently did “Ships in the Night 2,”  and since we strive to be, among other things, the yin and yang of sixth boro waterbloggers, I couldn’t resist a reply.  Yin and yang you wonder?  Well … some  personal disclosure :  when I telecommed with her recently at dawn while drinking my go-to-work coffee, she was about to call it a night!!  We occupy opposite watches.

Anyhow, all fotos below were taken between dawn and work yesterday:  the cheery orange Michelle Jeanne was returning at dawn + one hour  from surveys.

Wanderer, the pilot built seven years ago in Mamaroneck, was –of course–wending along its 24-7-365  routes throughout the sixth boro.

NS IV, stealing seaward while the undifferentiated urban mush starts to awaken–or call it a night in some cases–I know you’re a crew boat I see all the time, but I don’t know your people.

Now here’s a day boat I’d love to learn about:  over in the transition of Arthur Kill and Newark Bay . . . what were they doing?

Enough for now . . .  ships in the night lead to boats in the day.  One set gets observed by the watchkeeper of the darkness and the other by he of the daylight, and yet between us we miss an immense amount.  And the sixth boro, non-stop, never ceases to amaze and delight.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.  More tanlogging soon.  Please someone coin a better word for “tandem blogging.”