Uncrewed 2

Look what Bjoern at New York Media Boat observed in the the New York Bight

surveying the hithers and the yons of Ambrose Channel and other locales last week.

First, have a good look at the communications “superstructure,” with a FLIR camera, radar, four regular cameras one pointing in each direction, nav lights, lots of solar panels, bunch of other antennas, and who knows what’s inside the hull   Next, a query, which I’ll answer later in the post:  who controls these unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and where is the remote pilot located?

You might recall I was following UI #15 and #19 via AIS also a few days ago, and you may recall

then I mentioned that wherever the USVs were, a small boat named Free Time was near by. 

Later, Bjoern caught the one of the vessels out of the water and had a closer look.  Below, that’s the bow of the trimaran.  The instruments and generator are located in the center hull.  Propulsion comes from a one-cylinder diesel generator.  Diesel fuel capacity is 80 gallons, and I’m not sure what the range is.   

You’re likely wondering what they are doing:  according to Ocean, it’s called forward scouting, and as has been the case for most of this blog’s “exotic” posts, it’s related to offshore wind farm planning. 

For specs, click here.

Below, note the orange propellers on the ground.   Also, the solar panels, removed and leaning again the hull, can provide a minor amount of power.  With very little sail, these units, of which about 20 exist worldwide, can operate in winds up to 50 knots.

 

I’m guessing this cluster at the deepest draft of the vessel includes the sensors and transponders. 

With props and thrusters, a precise chosen course is followed.  

All photos, thanks to New York Media Boat.  Any errors of interpretation or reporting, WVD.

And  . . . the vessels are piloted/remotely monitored by pilots in the Ireland control center.  Maybe you noted Belfast as registry on the stern.  Free Time is a safety boat, required in the US.

More from this article:  “XOCEAN isn’t the only company riding this wave. There is L3Harris, whose unmanned vessels have been used by the US Navy, Saildrone which has collected data from the Arctic to the equator as part of environmental research, and Ocean Infinity, which is spearheading the development of larger uncrewed vessels.”

Newest Hull in the Sixth Boro 15

Here’s the newest, following directly from 12 for Sandy Ground and 10 for SSG Michael H. Ollis.  Or how about a redux for both. 

Now unless ferry and tug travel on a maglev frictionless cushion of air when offshore and distant, this is just the fata morgana effect when the vessels are seen a ways off, in this case, about six miles.   In the photo below, there’s a hint that Sarah Dann is riding on a foil board, 

and that the ferry has a dreadnought shaped hull.

Well . . . I’m just messin’.  These were photos of yesterday’s arrival of the third of three new ferries.  Note New York Media Boat out to snap their first welcome photos. Photos of the christening down in Florida happened months ago here.

Here the tow enters the Narrows, and the ocean called the Upper Bay, where Dorothy Day will transport hundreds of thousands and even millions of passengers in the next decades.

Ellen McAllister moves in close, not to provide the assist but rather to convey photographers needing to confirm that the vessel is in fact a ferry for the City of New York.  confirmation provided andn documented.

 

All photos, WVD, who’s ridden aboard MHO but not yet Sandy Ground. 

For reportage on all three newest ferries, check out this report from New York Media Boat here.

 

Meeting the Fleet 2022 B

I’m just observing, not criticizing, but the vessel turnout in 2022 seems quite small. I understand that lots of other things are happening globally.   Following USS Bataan, USCGC Sycamore (WLB-209) and HMS Protector (A-173) arrive.  They are both about 20 years in service and have both done assignments in the Arctic.

Sycamore made a run up to the GW before turning around. I saw her here in the sixth boro just over a year ago.

Protector did not begin life as a UK Royal Navy ice patrol vessel.  Rather, it was built as the 2001 Polarbjørn in Lithuania for GC Rieber, a Norwegian company based in Bergen, a port I visited way back in 1985, on one of my early gallivants.  Unfortunately, in those days I traveled sans camera.

 

 

USCGC Dependable (WMEC-626) built at AmShip in Lorain OH and commissioned in 1968,  is over the midcentury mark and still at work.  AmShip Lorain-closed since the early 1980s-  built some icons, several of their lakers still very much in active service.

 

Most of the medium endurance cutters of Dependable‘s cohort-Reliance class– are still in service, either in the US or elsewhere.

 

 

USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) was commissioned in 2015.   Like Sycamore and Dependable, she was built on the Great Lakes

Four years ago here, I visited the Marinette Shipyard town where Milwaukee came into existence. Some products of Marinette include Sycamore–above–and Ellen McAllister, also involved in Wednesday’s parade into the sixth boro. Katherine Walker, part of the welcoming committee Wednesday, is another Marinette product, as are some of the current Staten island ferries (Molinari class) and some ATBs, like Brandywine and Christiana that pass through the port now and then.

 

As Milwaukee steamed upriver, she slowed and spun a 180 turn much faster than I imagined possible for a 378′ vessel.   I wish I’d been on shore just off her improvised turning basin when she did so. Was anyone there and can send photos?

A sister of Milwaukee, USS Duluth (LCS 21) was commissioned in her namesake city only earlier this week.

All photos, WVD, who hopes to get in some more Fleet Week sights this weekend.  If you’re reading this and arrived in the sixth boro–aka the primary boro–of NYC, welcome. 

 

 

Meeting the Fleet 2022 A

Scouts?  Patrol?  Search pattern?  First and foremost, it’s to honor our war dead, and there are too many of those, even the walking wounded and dead….

Thanks to New York Media Boat, I caught the fleet from a different angle, all while respecting the safety zones.

Note the unmistakeable red of a McAllister tugboat on the starboard bow, along

with a handful more McAllisters and the other fleet vessels following.

The USACE and USCG always take part . . .

USS Bataan (LHD-5) was the lead ship, and

it docked in the Hudson River Passenger Terminal.

More WVD fleet week 2022 photos tomorrow.  Lots more photos of the LHD can be seen here.  A guide to Fleet Week activities can be found here.

Previous tugster fleet week posts can be seen here.

 

Sixth Boro Sampler 5

Count them . . . at least four very different vessels:  Saint Emilion with barge, JRT waiting to assist, Grace D shuttling people and supplies, and a sloop. 

Here’s more from hither and yon around the sixth boro:  Navigator at “old navy” topping off the ferry reserves, 

Popeye fishing in front of Ellis Island, 

Meagan Ann taking the stern of this interesting sailing trawler,

another sloop passing the Statue line, a Circle Line boat, as well as a Statue Cruises vessel,

and a NY Media Boat touring RIB.

Yes, I’m back to that trawler.  It’s called Briney Bus out of Miami, but besides that, I don’t know much.  My guess is that, like many boats, it’s heading for the  NYS Canal system, which opened two days ago.

The parting shot . . . Meagan Ann.

All photos and any errors, WVD.

 

Cranes: Flo-Sweet 2

Floating cranes have been featured here before, but never have I posted photos of a crane so sweet.  Let me explain.

For starters, though, Brendan Turecamo had the barge alongside

and was headed up the North River along my same route.

I hadn’t much of an idea what their destination was until

I saw this sign, name or not, but it told me where it was going.  Double click on the image if you must.  Flo-Sweet 2 could have only one goal, as there’s only one place left in the greater sixth boro for sweet commodities. Sweet nothings, of course, have a place everywhere, but I digress.

beyond WTC1 to ASR in Yonkers.

All photos, WVD, who wonders whether any western Louisiana sugars get further processed along the hudson.

 

Statsraad Lehmkuhl

Ambrose Channel late morning yesterday

saw the arrival of this vessel, 321′ x 41′ and with that pennant flying from the masthead at 157′.

Launched in 1914 in Bremerhaven, and having changed national registry many times,

Statsraad Lehmkuhl is on its One Ocean Expedition, having left Norway in August.

New York is one of 36 stops it will make on a 55,000 nm circumnavigation worldwide.  Hop aboard via their FB page here.

 

By noon yesterday

she had anchored, basking in sunshine

just off the Statue.

All photos, WVD, with conveyance thanks to New York Media Boat.

The three-masted barque visited the sixth boro back in 1964, and maybe since then as well.

More photos and inside information can be found here.

More info about its multiple changes in ownership since 1914, here.

For other posts about visiting tall ships, click here.

 

22Rivers Epic

See the man on the pier using his cell phone to get a photo?  I wonder what he imagined he was looking at, other than a group on the water on a spectacular December day.  Did he know he was witnessing the culmination of an odyssey?

The Columbia, Snake, Clark Fork, Missouri, Mississippi, [to saltwater] Mobile, Tombigbee, Tenn-Tom Waterway, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Kanawha, Allegheny, Chadakoin, Lake Chautauqua, Lake Erie, Erie Canal, Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk, Hudson . . .  [I may have left one out].  What do they have in common?

Neal Moore‘s paddled them stringing together a path on his 675-day canoe trip along his 7500-mile route of inland rivers from saltwater Astoria OR to the saltwater Statue of Liberty, an extreme form of social distancing during the time of Covid.   Photos of the last several miles follow.  

Note that the other paddlers traveled to the sixth boro of NYC to join him for the last few miles,

just as they–“river angels”– had during different segments of the 22-month trip.  Some elites of paddling enjoyed the sixth boro yesterday.

From Pier 84 Manhattan to the Statue and back, they rode the ebb.

 

Why, you might be wondering?  Moore, a self-described expatriate who wanted to explore the United States in the reverse order of the historical east-to-west “settlement” route, sought out to meet people, find our commonalities, our united strength.  Some might call that direction “the wrong way.”

After one circumnavigation of Liberty Island following his paddling up and down all those watersheds, the journey was done.  After unpacking his Old Town canoe, he scrambled

with assistance onto the Media Boat, triumphantly but humbly.

 

He stepped over onto a larger vessel in the NYMB fleet, for interviews and a trip back to terra firma,

22rivers’ goal completed, for now.

All photos, WVD, thanks to New York Media Boat conveyance.  I have many, many more photos.

For Ben McGrath’s New Yorker piece on Neal Moore, click here.  Also, check out Ben’s book Riverman.  Let me add two more references:  another McGrath article and a book Mississippi Solo here.

Of course, Neal’s whole epic can be traced at his site, 22Rivers.

I first learned of 22Rivers from Bob Stopper, who met Neal in Lyons NY two months ago, and I and posted about it here (scroll).

More links as follows:

Norm Miller, Missouri River guide

John Ruskey, lower Mississippi River system guide who was on the Hudson yesterday.  He’s also the founder of Quapaw Canoe Company.

Tom Hilton, Astoria-based Fisher Poet, whom I met last night.

And at the risk of leaving someone out, here’s a longtime favorite of mine, an account of a rowboat from Brooklyn to Eastport ME by way of New Orleans . . . Nathaniel Stone’s On the Water.

Who’d I leave out?

Sixth Boro Details 10

I’ve been meaning to ask about this lumber on the piers at Red Hook container terminal.  Not quite a year ago an unusual looking vessel called Mozu Arrow deposited these bundles of lumber.  Here‘s another shot showing all the bundles.  All through the stories of lumber being outrageously expensive,  this lumber stayed here.  In some places, the coverings have ripped off leaving the wood exposed to the weather, wasting away.  Can anyone tell me the story of this lumber and why it hasn’t moved in 11 months.  As of this writing, the lumber carrier is traveling between South Korea and British Columbia, light maybe, having deposited lumber on piers in Busan perhaps?  On second thought, would this vessel travel sans cargo across the Pacific?  What cargo might it be carrying to Canada?

Brendan Turecamo is a regular on this blog;  behold about nine feet of the boat you never see when she’s working.

Here’s a limitation of gantry cranes;  if you have a container ship loaded higher than the cranes can accommodate, getting a last box in place means lifting to the height and then sliding it in aft to fore.  Understand what’s happening here?  The box was lifted farther “back” than the empty slot, and now the crane operator is sliding it in laterally, toward the right in this photo.  Is this a common occurrence on these “tall ships,” to give a new meaning to the phrase?

Do you remember “you go girl” graffiti on a ferry just west of the Bayonne Bridge?  Well, clearly it has shifted over toward the Bayonne, New Jersey, side and is showing a different and more corroded side.  I wonder where she goes next.

From this angle, there appears to be quite a few Reinauer tugs in their yard.  While we’re playing an Andy Rooney and asking questions about everything, has anyone learned more about the WindServe Marine toehold within the Reinauer real estate here?  Isn’t it hard to believe that Andy Rooney has been gone for almost a decade now?

Getting back to the warehouse sheds in Red Hook, is it possible this very experienced tow truck is there to prosecute any violators who choose to trespass and/or dock?  I saw a more intimidating sign and sight in Belfast ME some years ago in the second photo here.

To show location of these signs and the antique tow truck, note it in the wider view photo below.

Shall we leave it here?    I suppose.  All photos, WVD, with conveyance from the New York Media Boat.

 

Sixth Boro Sampler 3

Gene Chaser appears to be a sister of Ad-Vantage, which appeared here a year and a half ago.  Click on the link at the beginning of the first sentence and you’ll see some interior shots of this 55-meter yacht support vessel. At some point, yacht support vessel Ad-Vantage was available for charter for a mere 67,500 Euro per week.

The script below the name Gene Chaser puzzles me, especially since I see signs for multiplication and addition.  Maybe someone can translate?

Shooting into the sun from a low-on-the-river angle provides this unsatisfactory image. 

 Shooting down from Brooklyn Heights, as Claude Scales did for this shot, gets this image.  Is that a submarine near the stern of Gene Chaser?  In case you were wondering about the name, it makes sense when you consider the vessel below is the annex to Dr. Jonathan Rothberg‘s Gene Machine, currently off Connecticut. Rothberg is an American chemical engineer, biologist, inventor and entrepreneur. His business involves developing a high-speed “next-gen” DNA sequencing process.  I think these vessels make him a polymath on the seas, an early 21st century version of Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo.  

On the west side of Manhattan North Cove the other day, I walked past this eye catcher . .  .

The cockpit of this “center console” Alen Yacht 45 is quite narrow and not enclosed,

but don’t underestimate this

Turkish beauty.

And to go to the other end of the tech and financial spectrum, what’s the story with the heavily loaded red 16′ Old Town Penobscot Royalex canoe?  The paddler is not yet IN the sixth boro, but heading this way.

It’s Neal Moore, heading 7000+ miles from Astoria OR, city of the fisher-poets, TO the sixth boro, with an ETA of . . .  whenever he gets here, but likely in December or January, depending on the assistance of “river angels” and relying on his own fortitude. As of this posting, he’s paddling the Erie Canal somewhere east of Lyons and west of Oneida . . . .  That trip is longer than and tougher than the Great Loop.  Technically, the Erie Canal is closing soon, but it’ll be open for him.  Wave if you see him.

t o

Check out his website for lots of photos and articles like those excerpted below.

 

Many thanks to Claude and to the webmaster at 22Rivers for their photos;  all others, WVD.