You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘North Sea’ tag.
I was unsuccessful in seeing the spectacular aurora, but I’m sure you’ve seen others’ photos or maybe you even saw the Northern Lights yourself. I was out very early and it was the Eastern Lights that astounded me.
The ferry’s orange pales in comparison.
I was not the only one out.
Discovery Coast was moving. Victoria Glory was taking on fuel before heading out to sea and Houston shortly after sunrise.
Ibsa solo sailor was coming into port. More on Transat CIC in a later post.
That eastern light before sunrise is more delicious than mango sherbet.
Name that tugboat?
All images, any errors, WVD.
The emergence of offshore windfarms has brought “exotic” vessels into the sixth boro and other East Coast ports, such as the ones I took in New London the other day. Zee Bart has spent some of his life working on the North Sea, and periodically he sends along photos of what he sees. Recently in Dundee Scotland (on the Firth of Tay) he caught these photos of another large offshore energy rig coming in, energy in this case of the fossil kind.
The 1998 rig Valaris 247 was coming in for layup. Any guesses how many souls can be accommodated on this rig? Answer follows.
Four tugboats assist it in docking, but one is obscured beyond the rig to the left. The ones you see here are (l to r) Kittiwake, Corringham, and Balmarino. All are part of the Targe towing fleet. Expanding this fleet was part of the impact of Brexit. Guess the number of berths on the rig?
Many thanks to Zee Bart for sharing this looking over the horizon. When I say “some” of Bart’s experience has been on the North Sea, here’s a post I did in 2009 based on one of his hitches that began in SE Asia. Bart is also the force behind the website UGLYSHIPS.
Here are specs on Valaris 247, which has accommodations for 140 persons.
An interesting digression: one of the folks who worked on the Great Lakes ships with me last summer has taken a housekeeping position on a rig this season. I’m not sure of the particulars like –where–yet.
Off Campobello Island, the Eastport pilot boat North Sea waited to retrieve the pilot as we headed for sea. It was April 26, 0540… This first pilot had been a walk-on before we left Eastport.
April 27 at 0530, Portland pilot boat Spring Point came to meet us as we approached.
At 0538, the pilot stepped aboard.
At 1753, the same boat followed us out to retrieve the pilot as we headed into the Gulf of Maine.
On April 29 at 0551 Halifax pilot boat Captain E. T. Rogers met us outside the harbor.
Transfer was accomplished safely.
Port of registry listed on this pilot boat is Saint John.
At 1842, the same pilot boat followed us to retrieve the pilot when we were safely out to sea.
The next pilot was April 30 at 1340 off Canso NS, landed from Strait Falcon.
Registry here is given as Halifax.
This pilot would get us safely through the Canso lock.
May 1 at 0529 I almost missed the pilot off Charlottetown, since they appeared not to be on AIS.
Pilot boat JRG was at the dock when we arrived.
Serious winds delayed our departure from Charlottetown, and when we did depart, a walk-on pilot took us as far up as
just past the Confederation Bridge, when pilot boat Bridge Lady
retrieved that pilot. Waterway there is the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait.
I missed the next pilot pickup on May 4 at 0’darkest off Les Escoumins, but caught the moment half a day later where pilots exchanged places just before Quebec City.
The fresh pilot stepped aboard on May 4 at 1221, and
moments later the overnight pilot stepped off and
Ocean Guide sped him ashore.
Just downstream of Montreal on May 5 at 0754, I caught the next exchange . . . Ocean Maisoneuve II did the delivery and pick up.
Note the muddy water, ie, strong currents, and absence of green on the trees.
Ocean Maisonneuve II has an unusual orange fender built into its hull.
Exchange complete, she speeds off. Notice Montreal upper right in the distance.
Several other exchanges happened in the SLSW locks, but as we approached Lake Ontario at Cape Vincent, we exchanged pilots one last time before Toronto . . .
with the quite new Seaway V doing the honors.
All photos, any errors, WVD, who loses sleep to get photos like these.
Maybe someone can help me with details: is the series made up of Laurentian pilots, District 1 US river/lakes pilots, and then port-specific docking pilots? Any others?
You’ll understand if I say this is a wicked quick post. Bear with me. At the appointed hour, albeit Campobello time rather than Eastport time, we cast off and made for sea.
Once away from town, the pilot departed, back for the Eastport station aboard North Sea.
We rounded the light off the top of Campobello as a fishing boat worked the same area. I wonder what the catch was.
Making our way SW out of the Bay of Funky Funky Fundy (yes, that was an autocorrect 2X!) and into the Gulf of Maine, we passed Storm Rider. Note the crewman looking our way between the house and the curtain on the stern deck. Yes, this song came to mind.
At daybreak this morning we took on a Portland pilot from Spring Point.
Ram Island Ledge Light, I presume.
I’ve lots of other lighthouse photos, but as we made fast, we were alongside the Portland McAllister fleet: l to r, Roderick, Nancy, and Andrew.
Heading into town for some supplies, I had to photograph this sign.
All photos, wicked fast, any errors because I’m too wicked fast, WVD.
Another quick post . . .
sardines once made this a prosperous port.
Traces linger.
A handful of boats are already way down at mid tide.
Too bad I wasn’t here on December 31 for the sardine and maple leaf drop! Check the Tides Institute website here.
Here’s more on Old Sow Whirlpool.
My guess . . . sardine fishing boat . . .
All photos, not that much info . . . WVD, who departs tomorrow and doesn’t know how soon the next post will happen. Stand by.
A decade ago, the split-hulled trailing suction hopper dredger Atchafalaya was in the sixth boro. These days in 2023 the 1980 vessel in the St. Johns River of the Alligator and Sunshine State. I don’t believe it actually worked in the sixth boro.
The west side walkway made for a lot of photography on my part in spring 2013, like Asian King here making the turn at Bergen Point with assist from Gramma Lee T Moran. The 1998 RORO today goes by Liberty King and is located between Hokkaido and Honshu. Gramma Lee is working in san Juan these days.
Evening Tide is currently in chrysalis state in Brooklyn.
Pretty World had to be “dead-ship assisted” into port 10 years ago. The assist tugs (l to r) are Margaret Moran (I think), Marion Moran, and Gramma Lee. The 2007 tanker now goes by a much more prosaic Central and is in port off Ivory Coast. Marion Moran is now Dann Marine’s Topaz Coast.
Click here for the latest in the French frigate Aquitaine.
No comment needed on this tale of two cities.
Maersk Ohio is currently in Norfolk.
The US-flagged Maersk ship is assigned on the northern Europe run.
Superior Service is now Genesis Vision, currently in Lake Charles LA.
The 1971 Fred Johannsen, usually mostly up the Hudson, came down in April 2013 to do-si-do back upriver with Taurus, now Hay’s Joker.
Ellen McAllister is still Ellen McAllister. But from this angle, a proto-drone view from the Bayonne Bridge, she appears more rotund than I usually imagine.
Marion Moran focuses on giving the 1996 HanJin San Francisco an extra amount of shove to round Bergen Point. I believe 4024 teu container ship has been scrapped.
And finally, North Sea is now Sause’s Kokua, now working around Maui.
All photos, any errors, WVD, who loves these opportunities to look back at all the changes that have transpired.
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.
Happy 2020, so let’s go a decade back, and see a selection of photos from January 2010.
Ross Sea escorts Rebel eastbound past Atlantic Leo in the KVK.
Lucy Reinauer, bathed in morning light, approaches Howland Hook in the AK.
Miss Gill and Lucky D head for the smaller Bayonne Bridge and Goethals Bridge, off to the west.
Athena is way out of Block Island Sound, here doing winter work in the sixth boro. Little did I know back then that I’d soon be taking my first ride to Block Island aboard Athena.
North Sea is on the hard in Kingston NY.
My favorite winter harbor fishing vessel passes Robbins Reef, leaving
the rest of the fleet farther to the NE in the Upper Bay. Note how different the skyline of lower Manhattan was then.
Doris escorts a tanker into the KVK.
Davis Sea crushes her way into the Rondout with a load of heat.
It was, as all these “retro sixth boro posts,” only a decade ago, but so much has changed.
All photos in January 2010 by Will Van Dorp. Happy 2020.
Let’s start with Marie J. Turecamo (1968). And then let’s look at others out around this springtime morning:
Like Joan Turecamo (1980), built near the confluence of the Hudson River and Erie Canal,
heading out here with James D. Moran (2015);
Caitlin Ann (1961) doing a recycling run;
Emerald Coast (1973) leaving the U-Haul;
North Sea (1982) heading for the Kirby yard;
Robert E. McAllister (1969) heading out for a ship;
Quenames (1982) moving a barge alongside;
Crystal Cutler (2010) getting some maintenance; and
that brings us back to Marie J. Turecamo and a photo taken only a minute of so before the lead-off photo in this post.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
OK . . . I fail here. Which Moran and which McAllister are those in the Sunday morning chop?
Quick post: Shelby 1978.
Evening Tide 1970.
Jay Michael 1980 doing a re-enactment of my December 15, 2012 post here (scroll to third foto).
Long time no see . . . Superior Service 1981.
North Sea 1982.
Laura K. Moran 2008.
Resolute 1975 and Discovery Coast 2012.
All fotos taken in April by Will Van Dorp, who’s feeling it’s significant that so many of these are stern shots . . . i.e., I’m struggling to keep up today.
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments