Non-Random Tugs 15

By numbers of boats, Vane Brothers has the largest fleet operating in the sixth boro, or maybe it just seems that way because the boats appear uniform, but there are subtle differences in size, power, vintage, and some of you know what else.  It helps to think of this fleet as several classes, not all of which are shown in this post.  The classes here are Elizabeth Anne, since 2015; Patapsco, since 2004;  and Sassafras, since 2008;  here I’ll abbreviate these classes as  EA, PTS, and SAS. 

Elizabeth Anne is now part of the Vane NW fleet working on the Salish Sea aka Puget Sound.  Both Patapsco and Sassafras, now Steven Wayne and George Holland, respectively,  have been sold out of the Vane fleet.  

Nanticoke was launched in 2004, 4200 hp,  and 95′ x 43.’  These are common to all/most PTS class.  Assisting here is Fort McHenry, 2016, 3000 hp, and 90′ x 32,’ standard for SAS class. 

Philadelphia dates from 2017, 4200 hp, 95′ x 34,’ standard for the EA class. 

Wye River is a 2008 PTS-class boat, 4200 and 96′ x 34.’  I’m not sure of that 96′ loa number. 

Choptank is a 2006 PTS boat. 

Elk River is a 2009 SAS boat. 

New York is a 2017 EA boat.  I took this photo in the Black Rock Canal, in Buffalo. This is the only non-sixth boro image in this post.

Cape Fear is 2018 SAS boat.  Fort McHenry in the distance has been mentioned above. 

Charleston is 2018 EA.

Pocomoke is a 2008 PTS.

Fells Point is a 2014 SAS boat. 

Kings Point is SAS, 2014.   Jacksonville is a 2018 EA boat. 

And to close for now, Fort Schuyler is a 2015 SAS boat. 

All photos, any errors, WVD.  Transiting the sixth boro now and then and some stick around, Vane Brothers has at least three other classes of boats in their fleet.

A previous all-Vane post can be found here. 

 

Down and Up the Black Rock Canal

This is the same story as yesterday’s, but the perspective is different, thanks to a Great Lakes mariner.  New York slides the 509A into Black Rock Lock, a USACE facility.  By the way, Black Rock was a town that once rivaled Buffalo.

The photo above looks downbound, but the one below looks back toward Buffalo and to the stern of the tug.  Depending on conditions, one or sometimes two tugs are used.  To the left it’s Vermont;  to the right, New Jersey.    Vermont dates from 1914;  New Jersey, 1924.  It boggles my mind that one of the assist tugs is more than a century older than tug New York, launched 2019.

Here the unit heads down to Tonawanda.  Note New Jersey and Vermont. 

After discharging 50000 barrels of 300-degree hot asphalt, the unit turns back upstream.

Straight ahead here is the Niagara River and the speedy current this unit might never climb;  Black Rock Lock is off to the left.

When the 509A is loaded, it’s deeper in the water;  when it’s light, it’s way high.  Notice how little of the rocky margins of the Canal you can see. 

By this point, we’ve gotten south of the Peace Bridge;  a few more zigs to port and zags to starboard . . . and we’ve back into Lake Erie.

That’s the Buffalo skyline back there, as seen here in a previous post.  The barge goes onto the wire if the conditions warrant, and it’s Detroit bound, ETA 36 hours or so.

All photos, thanks to a Great Lakes mariner.

 

Tug New York and Double Skin 509A

I hope you read my latest article, about Vane Brothers expanding to the Great Lakes.  Here tugboat New York pushes Double Skin 509A (A for asphalt) into the Black Rock Canal (or channel) near Buffalo.  Great history and aerial photos of the area can be seen here. 

In the photo above, the Vane unit came off Lake Erie just beyond the Buffalo Breakwater Light on the white pedestal.  Click here for the history of that light, that one in place since only 1961 because the previous was hit by Frontenac.  GL tug Vermont, a strong and youthful product of 1914!!!, provides the assist.  There are multiple turns in the Black Rock Canal, and bridges

such as the 1927 Peace Bridge. 

 

The waterway is tricky because of the turns, bridges, and rocky sides.  Of course, those factors can be controlled much more easily than the factors just west of the canal, the Niagara River which has currents up to 10 knots.

 

Past the lock, which you’ll see in the next post, it’s downstream.  Vermont continues downstream, since it’ll be needed to assist in turning around at the terminal in Tonawanda.

I took these on a cold day in mid-December.  Taking photos with a zoom outside is an excellent way to socially-distance.  Others’ photos of this run and trade soon.

Click here to read an account in Vane’s Pipeline publication.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 34 b

This secret lake had great ice for these old boats like Ariel, Ice Queen, Whirlwind, Genevieve, and others.   I was asked not to tell then, and by now I’ve forgotten exactly where this Shangri-la was, but

the ice boating was ideal.  Has anyone heard of Hudson River Valley ice boating happening this year?  The temperature is perfect, but that doesn’t always mean the ice surface is.  I checked here and it doesn’t look favorable.

Evrotas was getting an assist from Amy C McAllister.  Evrotas is currently St. Eustatius-bound from Texas.  Amy C is in the Mariners Harbor yard, and I’ve not seen her in a while.

Amazing, which has to be one of the most amazing extraordinary names for a bulk carrier, was discharging salt.  Currently she’s anchored off Gelendzhik in the Black Sea.  The ice of February 2011, the heat from oil, and the need for salt of the roads interrelate.

Then, as now, the sixth boro was busy with (l to r) dredge New York, GL 501, MSC Yano, Horizon Discovery,  K-Sea’s Maryland, DBL 17. I may have left someone out there.  To choose two of these, the originally Esso Maryland is now Liz Vinik.  Horizon Discovery was scrapped in Brownsville in February 2015.

Ipanema heads out to sea in the rich morning glow.  She may have sailed into her sunset as Norsul Ranaee, unrelated to this photo.

Irida discharges salt.  She appears to have been scrapped.

MOL Partner is inbound on the Con Hook range. That’s a GLDD mechanical dredge at work and (maybe) some Bouchard tugboats in the distant left.  MOL Partner is passing the Aleutians between China and Tacoma.

We leave it here.  All photos from exactly a decade ago, to the month, WVD.

 

Random Tugs 316

Bobbie Ann departs the sixth boro with some GLDD equipment. 

Little did I know at the time that Bobbie Ann had left the sixth boro a decade ago, then as Vera K.

Ernest Campbell wrestles along a double hull bunker barge. I wonder why the Centerline Logistics lion has not yet been added to her stack.

When tugs like Mary Turecamo assist a deeply laden tanker, the perspective from the upper wheelhouse is so much different than when assisting a ULCV, with their much higher freeboard.

Sometimes the 46′ x 15′ Rae is just the right size.  Recall Rae‘s role in getting Wavertree back into her berth after the big renovation?

One of the newest tugboats in the boro, Cape Canaveral, 105′ x 36′ and generating 5000 hp, has the most evocative name.

She has two siblings, Cape Henry and Cape Lookout.

Again, is it me?  I don’t believe I’ve seen Justine in a long while. She’s also 105′ x 35′ and 4000 hp.  She has an elevating wheelhouse, which you can see here, scroll.

This is crowded:  (l to r) Diane B, Saint Emilion, Meredith C. Reinauer, Lois Ann L.  Moran, and Pathfinder.

 

Escorting from a distance astern, it’s Kimberly.

And finally, a photo from some time back, Vane’s New York, now working on the Great Lakes, Vane’s only freshwater unit . . .  that I know of.

All photos, WVD.

Random Tugs 273

I’m always on the look out for new tugboats in the harbor, and Camie mostly fits that bill.  A bit of research, though, finds she’s been on the blog a few times already, however.

Here, l to r, it’s Polar Bright, Ava, New York, and Stephen B.

Robert Burton here is tending a rock scow in front of the very busy Bayonne background.

James Brown moves some scrap barges . . . likely in the direction of the East River.

Weddell Sea stands by with Penn No. 90, demonstrating all the components of “push gear.”

Maybe someone can clarify here, but it appears No. 90 has cargo heating gear.

 

Helen Laraway moves a scow toward a morning.

And Fort Schuyler heads straight for us–I’m zoomed in–away from a marine/industrial Brooklyn background.

For the last day of November 2019, all photos by Will Van Dorp.

And finally, click here for Paul Strubeck’s Vintage Diesel Design blog post on tugboat Luna in Boston.  It expands a post I did on Luna here almost four years ago.

 

Random Tugs 272

Excuse the branches and tendrils reaching out over this dense pack of tugboats:  five Bouchard boats plus a Harley behind Denise and a Genesis on the drydock.

Crystal Cutler here in profile is heading for the Kills;  this photo prompts me to wonder how this wheelhouse “window” configuration has worked out.

Stephen B assists Fells Point leaving IMTT with Double Skin 302.

Marie J Turecamo heads east on the KVK.

I can’t recall now whether this is my first time to see Vane’s New York, here with Double Skin 53.

Seeley moves a scow eastbound.

Mount St. Elias goes west here.

And finally . . . J. George Betz heads east, possibly to pick up a barge.

All photos and interpretation by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for content . . .

Ice 7

Twin Cities tug North Carolina (1952)  breaking ice.  Next two photo thanks to Paul Scinocca on FB.    As I said yesterday, fresh water reacts differenttly than salt water to extreme temperatures.

American Mariner in Twin Cities Ports (Duluth MN and Superior WI)  harbor on what has to be the last run of the season.  Thanks again to Paul.  Here’s more on recent temperatures in the Twin Ports.  Click here for photos I took in Twin Ports a half year ago.

And here, from the FB group Erie Shipping News, a photo (l to r)  of tug New York (and Dorothy Ann and Elizabeth Anna) from December in Erie PA,

and from a few days ago . . .  .  Here’s more on recent weather in Erie. GL tug New York is over 100 years old.

Thanks to the folks at Erie Shipping News and Paul Scinocca in Duluth for this glimpse of early January elsewhere.

Tagster 3

Here were previous installments of this.

These images are intriguing.  They challenge the brain.  Have I seen these before somewhere?

In a dream maybe?

These are on a building near the midtown cruise terminal.

But here  . . . recognize these on a building along the major avenue?

They conjure up historical Assyrians passing laws?

And this, a pensive monster or a befuddled one?

What context is there for a fragmented horse and human?

What provokes a playful crow and evolved wolf reading about fig or olive branches, or is it something else like an herb in a cookbook?

It’s all surely not comprehensible but

the animals in both places

command attention.  They may be shards of a half-remembered nightmare, or

parts of an undiscovered heritage.

Photos of a repositioning from NYC to Chicago by Will Van Dorp.

 

Charles W. Cushman

Earlier this month gothamist.com ran an intriguing set of photos taken by Mr. Cushman.  Here’s his entire archive.  Here’s a good selection.

The warehouses on the opposite side of the river from red vessel below are the current location of Brooklyn Bridge Park.  That makes the pier location a little south of piers 16 and 15. South Street Seaport Museum’s boats today.  Could that be Ollie, the stick lighter currently disintegrating in Verplanck?

I’m not sure what we’re looking at here, but the Cushman identifies it as 1941.  According to Paul Strubeck, it’s likely an express lighter–a category of self-propelled vessel I was not aware of–possibly operated by Lee and Simmons Lighterage.

And finally . .  I wish this photo–dated September 1940-– had been framed differently.  Phillip’s Foods is still around, although I’ve never eaten at any of their restaurants or if this is even the same company.  Royal Clover . .  . I can’t find anything about that brand.  And seeing all those cartons in Jeff and the barges, today there’d be a few containers and you’d have no idea of the contents.

You can search Cushman’s archives here. I call these “fifth dimension” i.e., time added, photos.

For another treasure trove of photos of old New York harbor, click here.