Retro Sixth Boro 8

One satisfying thing to me about these retro posts is noticing how much the local fleet has changed.  All these photos I took in November 2008.  Coral Queen was scrapped at least eight or nine years ago.  Maersk Donegal has had two name changes since 2008, now know as Santa Priscila, and no longer calls in the sixth boro.

SPT Guardian, still under the same name, is currently operating out of Lome, Togo.  Note the NJ State Police boat alongside.  I don’t know if they are still using that boat.

ITB Groton is gone as well.

The huge K-Sea fleet in the boro has dispersed.  Solomon Sea is now Emily Ann,

Falcon, I believe, is still Falcon but wears Vane livery,

Davis Sea still has the same name but Kirby colors and operates in the Gulf,

and Aegean Sea carries the same name but works for Burnham Associates in my old stomping grounds north of Boston.  NYK Diana has moved to the Pacific to the US West Coast.

This Rosemary McAllister has been replaced by another Rosemary McAllister, and has spent only part of one day in the sixth boro.

Stapleton Service takes the prize for the greatest number of name changes, three since 2008.  She’s now Michael Miller.

Buchanan 15 has become Dory, although I’ve not seen her in a while.

Coral Queen‘s smaller fleet mate was John B. Caddell, which became a hurricane Sandy victim:  grounded, sheriff auctioned, and scrapped.

I made a jaunt upriver aboard the only and only Half Moon–now sold abroad– in November 2008, and saw

Champion Polar but she’s now

–ice bow and all- dead and likely scrapped,  as well as

a more intact Bannerman’s Castle.

All photos by Will Van Dorp in November 2008.

 

 

Names 9 and Kafka

Channeling Galahad, Tennyson wrote: “My good blade carves the casques of men,/My tough lance thrusteth sure,/My strength is as the strength of ten,/Because my heart is pure.”

Mostank delivers the lubrication.

Diana plays lead romantic interest in my own personal mythology. In foreground, the tug Lee T. Moran walks her Norwegian tanker like a dog on a leash, or vice versa.

Daedalus, who built some really imprudent toys for his son, otherwise plays hero in my imagination. The tiny workboat Becky Ann zooms chooses not to linger nearby like a tool.

Hero was the ancient engine guy whose work we’ve mostly all seen.

We all know about Poseidon, although it might seem arrogant of titanic proportions to name a ship so. But where’s the Kafka?

Recently a good friend inspired me to pick up a Franz Kafka anthology, and I saw a short piece called “Poseidon.” Dedicating this to kennebec captain, whose blog about a recent voyage I’m really enjoying, I quote the first and then the best lines from Kafka.

“Poseidon sat at his desk doing figures. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. He could have had assistants, as many as he wanted–and he did have very many–but since he took his job very seriously, he would in the end go over all the figures and calculations himself . . . ”

For all the hilarious set-up, the ending disappoints me: “Poseidon became bored with the sea. He let fall his trident. Silently he sat on the rocky coast and a gull, dazed by his presence, described wavering circles around his head.” Only Kafka would imagine the seagod as a frustrated pencil pusher.

Click here to read the short Kafka but complete text.