Retro Sixth Boro 37 B

I’m away from the sixth boro, so here’s another from the vault, archived May 2011.

 Twin Tube back then still had her lighter stick.  Lichtenstein now sails as Mr Tigris. 

Sand Master, the sand miner, had not yet gone to South America.

A company called K-Sea still existed, and Norwegian Sea still sailed.

The 1976 tug now sails as Miss Rui for Smith Maritime Ocean Towing and Salvage.  She’s currently in Amelia LA.

Colleen McAllister was still in salt water;  she’s now on Lake Michigan but not in service.

Stena Poseidon is now Espada Desgagnes, sailing the Saint Lawrence, where I saw her less than two years ago.

In late May, the first attempts were made to load a half dozen tugboats onto Blue Marlin,  the heavy lift ship, but I talk more about that when I open the vault next month. Blue Marlin still sails the seas with unusual cargoes, currently between the Philippines and Shantou, in SE China. 

And this boat, the 1951 Dorothy Elizabeth, begging to be captured on a painting, imho, was still intact.

All photos, WVD.

 

 

 

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 34 a

It’s January 31 or -1 February.  since it’s a short month, it needs another day.   The temperatures where I’ve been have been colder than -1 centigrade.  So let’s do it . . . photos from a decade ago, February 2010.  See the crewman in the netting dangling over the side of tanker Blue Sapphire?  He appears to be touching up paint on the plimsoll marking.  I wonder why I didn’t add this to a “people on the boro” series,  which started in July 2007 with this.  Today, the tanker is northbound along the west coast of Malaysia, and sailing as Marmara Sea.  Oh well, stuff changes.

Here’s a fair amount of dense traffic:  Norwegian Sea is eastbound, Conrad S westbound, and an Odfjell tanker is tied up at IMTT.   Looking at my archives, I have a “dense traffic” series and a “congestion” series that probably should be collapsed into one series.  May I’ll do that on a snowy or a rainy day.  Dense Traffic goes back to February 2012 here, and Congestion series started in March 2011 here.  Norwegian Sea has been renamed Miss Rui and sails for Smith Maritime Ocean Towing and Salvage Company.  Conrad S is now Iris Paoay, leaving Davao in southern Philippines.

Cape Bird is getting lightered (or bunkered??) by Elk River and barge DS 32.

This was a congested scene as well;  note beyond Cape Bird  APL Sardonyx and Eagle Service with Energy 13502.  Eagle Service is now Genesis Eagle (which on the radio sounds like Genesis Sea Gull).  The 1995 APL Sardonyx is now just Sardonyx and is tied up in Taiwan.  Maybe at a scrap yard?  The 2003 Cape Bird is now Tornado and tied up in Lagos.

Crow is no more . . . having been turned into scrap like that loaded on the scow she’s pushing here.

Ever Dynamic is inbound under the original Bayonne Bridge, with Laura K assisting on the Bergen Point turn.

Gateway’s Navigator was a regular towing submarine sections between Rhode Island and Virginia. 

Here’s Navigator towing Sea Shuttle, which may or may not have something under the shelter on the barge.  Navigator is now Protector, out of New Bedford.

Arctic Sunrise was in the sixth boro for a Greenpeace “show the flag” event.  Since then, she spent time detained in the Russian Arctic . . . the Pechora Sea.  Later released, Dutch authorities took the detention to the World Court, and Russia was fined 5.4 million Euros over the detention.

All photos were taken by WVD back in February 2010.

Retro Sixth Boro 14

I hope you all are enjoying these glances back a decade as much as I enjoy putting them together.  If you weren’t paying attention back then, this hints at how much the traffic in the harbor has changed, just as it has on the roads.  If you were watching back in spring 2009, you might have this same appreciation at the changes;  In addition, you might be amazed how quickly time has passed.  Maybe you’ve forgotten about some of these boats.

Pegasus, quo vadis?  I’ve heard some ominous scuttlebutt, the kind you’d hear about any 112-year-old vessel. Your project site is still up.  Here she was in front of the Hoboken Terminal, which opened the same year–1907–as Peg was launched.

 

Starboard view and port .  . it’s the 1968 McAllister Girls . . . if she’s still around, I’ve not seen her in quite some time. In the background over near the Jersey City river’s edge, Clipper City and Pioneer sail toward each other.

Ditto the 1977 Sisters.

Ellen (1967) and Amy C (1976) are still active in the harbor, but it’s been years since APL Cyprine has called here.

The 1978 Mary Gellatly has been sold up down east, and last I knew, working as Alice Winslow for Winslow Marine Inc.  out of Southport Maine.

The K-Sea fleet in the sixth boro in 2009 was quite large.  Norwegian Sea was a workhorse on the Hudson;  now she’s Miss Rui operating for Smith Maritime. 

Houma (1970) has been scrapped.

Taurus (1979) recently reappeared here as Joker.

Onrust was launched into the Mohawk River in May 2009, and I believe she will again be sailing out of Essex CT.  Her splash up and over the riverbank trees was quite spectacular.

All photos a short 10 years ago by Will Van Dorp.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 13

April 2009 . . . a decade ago but it’s still palpable and present.

How could I not remember the morning before work I stood on the Elizabethport dock wishing the punch-in clock mechanism would slow to a pace slower than McAllister Responder and McAllister Sisters helping Eagle Boston ooze toward her Linden berth . . .   Some who don’t take many photos might not be able to fathom how those moments stick to the memory.

Or the unmistakeable Norwegian Sea light and going for fuel near IMTT .  . at dawn;  it’s unforgettable.   I was hoping there’d no delays on the rest of my way to work that morning.

Another day, I took lunch break in Elizabethport, thrilled that Laura K and Margaret were escorting Seoul Express away from Howland Hook . . ..  backing her down.

And here’s one . . . I recall my pain this morning as I walked north along HRP, conflicted between the hurt of betrayal and the chill of being under-dressed, since I’d crept out early on a Saturday morning thinking that sun in April translated into warmth ..  . and the throaty sound of Melvin E. Lemmerhirt distracted me from all those things.

Also from that dock in Elizabethport, I watched Rosemary McAllister and Responder ease Hyundai Voyager boat toward the dock in Howland Hook . . .

The scene here is harder to recall, but from l to r, it’s Nathan E. Stewart, New River, and –the uniquely named– Gramma Lee T Moran . . .!

In April 2009, I commuted into work early a lot,so that I could catch the likes of this . . . John Reinauer moving a barge southbound on the Arthur Kill… not knowing that a few years later, that equipment would travel across to the South Atlantic.

Scott Turecamo . . .  this is the only photo in this “oldies” set that could have been taken in 2019 as easily as in 2009, except I’d have to photoshop in the current Manhattan skyline in the distance . . .

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes he’s still fit to add to the archives in 2029 . . .

Norwegian’s in the Boro

Norwegian Sea seemed to leave town soon after it received its transformative K-Sea to Kirby paint job here about five years ago.  I can’t say for certain that she’s been back in between, but I spotted her immediately from several miles off, given her distinctive upper house support.  Note the Ikea barge there beyond her stern.

Here was a post I just happened to do earlier this month, as a glance back, that alludes to her lines.

She was hooked up to DBL 81   .  . .

Good to see you, Norwegian Sea.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Sixth Boro Seven Plus

Sometimes I like to start new categories so that the numbers don’t get so high, boats no longer extant or frequent get a second look, and we realize that time is passing pretty fast.  So all the photos here I took more than seven years ago.  Some have been on the blog before, but not together and not edited exactly as they are now.

Like Norwegian Sea, she used to be a wintertime staple running up the River, easily recognizable by her upper wheelhouse.

Juliet is still around but not very busy under her new name . . . it seems.

This boat, like her namesake, is gone too soon. Pegasus is still around but no longer looks this way.

Zeus was on the Great Lakes after working in the sixth boro, but I’ve lost track of her.

Volunteer, another unmistakable profile, now long time gone from here.

Zachery  . . . still around and still working. High Peace is now registered Vietnamese and goes by Pvt Dolphin.

Just to break the pattern here, here’s a photo I took of Zachery a few days ago.

Take my word for this last photo . . . the distant unit I can’t identify although I’m guessing a Reinauer boat, but the closer vessel is outrageous.  Actually I mean Outrageous.  That’s the name.  Click here (and scroll) for a previous photo of Outrageous, which I believe used to be based in the sixth boro.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Nola Tugs 4

Despite the distance and the fog covering the escutcheon,  I could immediately identify this tug–once a regular on the Hudson and in the sixth boro– on the Mississippi.

Let me end out this series with tugboats and other vessels:  Sydney Ann

and Brandi,

Mary Parker and

Port Ship Service Little Ray, 

David J. Cooper and

Bulk Guatemala with selfie-shooting watch stander,

Sonny Ivey and

Connie Z,

Moose, 

Jena Marie C, 

Capt CJ, and

fireboat Gen. Roy S. Kelley,

Jo Provel with the 9th steamboat named Natchez.

Now all of this has nothing to do with the photo below, which nevertheless deserves recognition . . . interactive art which really seems to have caught on.  Thanks, Candy Chang.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s even now in the cold NYC air plotting a return to

 

Nola.

Transformations

Kirbyfication, which looks

like this on Norwegian Sea, is only one transformation, although if you asked me to personify and interpret, I’d say Norwegian looks positively

mortified in these fotos.  “OMG!!  I can’t bear bare   . . .

myself, can’t bear to see this,” she seems to say.

Here’s the changes from Barbara C (October 2010) to

Arabian Sea sand stack decorations (March 2012) to

this past weekend.

Others, like Miss Yvette take things much more in stride from  here (third foto down) to June 2011

to yesterday.

Heron transforms from this March 2011 foto to

this one last week.  And a year from now, as she plys waters off Equatorial Guinea . . . what will that look like?

Sun Road was clearly not always known that way, although

one of my sources was of no value.

For a thrilling transformation story, check out The Skipper & the Eagle, which relates how Horst Wessel became Eagle back in 1946.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

If you like to hear Jefferson Airplane, click here:  their lyric based on a John Wyndham sci-fi novel goes “Life is change.  How it differs from the rocks . . .”

Stacks 1

This could be called “How to identify a tug:  start by recognizing fleets.”  Long neck and short stack . .  or vice versa.  Bound for  the North River are McAllister Responder with tall ringed stack and Norwegian Sea with tall orange-tipped house and mustard stack.

The height of wheelhouse matters not:  tall orange-and-black house here–along with the black stack–makes it a Hornbeck, and this case, it’s Gulf Service.

Short red-and-white ringed stack–it’s Ellen McAllister.  And the baby-blue stack with DT on it is Dann Ocean Towing’s Comet.  By the way, I haven’t seen Dann’s Allie B since her departure for Rumania late last winter.  Anyone spot Allie B?

Black stack with a bold M . .  it’s Moran.  In this case, it’s Miriam Moran, out to rustle up a ship.

In this case, the mustard stacks identify this vessel as a K-Sea . . . .it’s Falcon, with her low stern.

The stack color on Reinauer boats has much the same mustard color–at least in this light–but the addition of the diamond and the red . . . is unmistakeable.  In this case, it’s Christian Reinauer.

Most prominent feature of this vessel–foto taken in the drizzle yesterday–is not the stack at all, but the color and superstructure shape. Anyone know?

It’s Cheyenne –or Crow–of course.  In this case Cheyenne.  Close up of Cheyenne‘s stack soon.

Last one . . . has no stack at all and I’ve run it before.  It’s a mystery ship taken by bowsprite about a month ago and we’d love to get an identification.  Help?  Foto was taken from Lower Manhattan looking toward Jersey City;  vessel headed upriver.  Aliens . . . discovering the river, perhaps?

All fotos except the mystery ship by Will Van Dorp.

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.