Retro Sixth Boro 23

Coastline Girls and many other names including Gage Paul Thornton and  ST-497, the 1944-build now sleeps deep in Davy Jones locker,  and was not an intentional reefing.

It’s been a while since I last saw Mcallister Sisters, shown here passing the Esopus Meadows light.  If I’m not mistaken, she’s currently based in Baltimore.

Ten years ago, this boat had already been painted blue over orange, but she still carried the June K name board.

Socrates, classic lines and a classic name, has since gone off to Nigeria, riding over in mid-2012 on a heavy lift ship called Swan.

Urger on blocks in Lyons . . . one would have thought then that she’d run forever.  These days she’s back on blocks at the eastern end of the Canal.

And February 2010 was the time of prime iceboating, and that’s Bonnie of frogma.

James Turecamo, with its wheelhouse down as I rarely saw it, works these days upriver as far north as Albany.  Photo by Allen Baker.

Brandywine and Odin these days spend most of their time on Gulf of Mexico waters.

Gramma Lee T Moran straining here as she pulled the tanker off the dock.  She now works in Baltimore.

In the foreground, East Coast departs the Kills;  I can’t say I recall seeing her recently,but AIS says she’s currently northbound north of the GW.    In the distance and approaching, June K, now Sarah Ann, and she regularly works in the sixth boro.

All photos, except Allen’s, WVD, from February 2010.

I have to share back story about getting that top photo.  I was on foot on Richmond Terrace walking east toward Jersey Street when I saw the Coastline tug and Hughes barge.  I didn’t recognize the profile and realized I could get the photo ONLY if I ran.  At the same time, I noticed an NYPD car had pulled over another car, and you know, it’s never a good idea to run for no apparent reason when the police are nearby.  But . . . you understand my dilemma:  walk and miss the shot, or run and maybe attract the curiosity of the police officer.  I ran, got the shot, and sure enough, the police called me over and wanted to know what I was doing.  Since I knew I’d done nothing wrong except appear suspicious, I gave him my business card and launched full tilt into my “new yorkers are so lucky because they are witness to so much marine business traffic, and why didn’t he too have a camera and join me watching and taking photos of the variety of vessels . . . .”  You can imagine the stare I got.  My enthusiasm failed to move him.  No handcuffs, no taser, not even a ticket, but an impassive gaze from a weary officer of the law possibly wondering  if I’d escaped from an institution or a time warp.  He wrote up a report and left me with this advice:  don’t run when you see a police officer nearby.  “Yessir,” I said, thinking . . . well sure, but I’d likely do it again if I again noticed something unusual transiting the waterway.  Since then, though, I’ve not had any further encounters with the LEOs, at least not on the banks of the sixth boro.

Retro Sixth Boro 10

In only ten years, a lot of changes have happened in the sixth boro.  I wish I’d started this blog 30 years ago to document even more, but 1988 predated blogs, the internet, and digital photography.  Wow . . . how did people relate back then?

Joking aside, let’s see some that have moved on.  On January 11, 2009 Kristin Poling, the 1934 tanker, still operated.

January 12.  Sun Right, built 1993 and already dead, moved westbound in the KVK escorted by Eileen McAllister.  What’s remarkable to me is how large the tug looks in compared to the ship in contrast to tugs today looking miniature on the stern of a ULCV.

Five minutes later . . . Odin.  Indeed I was smitten by this unusual vessel, which has since moved to the South and lost her ability to rise up as if on hind legs.  I’ve no sense of what it was like to work on her.

January 15.  Never did I imagine then that this Dean Reinauer would be replaced by this Dean.

January 18  The boro’s big story of January 2009, of course, was the plane crash in the Hudson.  Here the efforts to lift the USAir Flight 1549 out of the water have just begun.  Thomas stands by Weeks 533.

January 29  NYC DEP’s Red Hook had just arrived in the harbor, and it seemed she was escorted everywhere by James Turecamo. Sine then, NYC DEP has added a  whole new generation of sludge tankers aka honey boats.

January 31  Taurus has become Joker, another intriguingly named tugboat operated not in NYC but Philadelphia area by Hays Tug and Launch, with fleet mate names like Purple Hays, High Roller, Grape Ape, and more.

Let’s leave it there.  Happy new year’s greetings still ring in my ears, leaving me with an ongoing inexplicable smile and desire to treat all with respect.  Go out of your way to smile at someone today.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose smile gets hidden by a respirator whenever he goes into the archives on Tugster Tower.

 

Retro Sixth Boro 3

All photos today I took in May and early June of 2008.  Odin, configured this was in 1982, is now known as Jutte Cenac, after considerable reconfiguration.  You’d no longer look twice at her now, as you would back then.

Scotty Sky, the Blount-built tanker launched in 1960, was rendered obsolete on January 1, 2015  by OPA 90, and now calls the Caribbean home.

When I took this photo along the South Brooklyn docks, I had no idea that it was to become the Brookfield Place ferry terminal. 

I had no idea until looking this up that Joan McAllister is the current Nathan G.

Juliet Reinauer now works as Big Jake.

For Lettie G Howard, another decade is somewhat insignificant, given that it’s been afloat since 1893.  Currently she’s sailing up the St. Lawrence bound for Lake Erie. The NJ shoreline there has changed quite a bit, beginning with the removal of the Hess tanks there around 2014.

Crow was scrapped in 2015.  I caught her last ride powered by Emily Ann here (and scroll)  in May 2014.

And finally, back in 2008, this living fossil was still hard at work,

gainfully plying the Hudson. This Kristin was scrapped sometime in 2012.

All photos taken in late spring 2008 by Will Van Dorp.

 

Really Random Tugs 41

Sea Power has been lurking in and around the sixth boro the past few days, and I will continue trying to get some good photos of her, but on 9-22-16 Jack Ronalds up at the Canso Canal caught these photos of her as she headed into Lake Erie to pick up her barge constructed in Erie PA.

Remember, if you need photos of a vessel traveling between the Great Lakes and the west Atlantic Coast from the Maritimes southward, Jack’s your guy.   See some of his work (2440 photos) here.

4-24-08  Dean Reinauer passes NYK Daedalus.  This Dean left NYC for Nigeria in June 2011. 

6-16-08  Juliet Reinauer pushed oil a decade ago.  She’s still in the harbor working as Big Jake.

6-23-08  Odin . . . no longer has an adjustable wheelhouse and may be laid up, and ITB Groton, single-hulled tanker, . . . was sold in later 2008 to Nigerian interests first to ship grain and then returned to petroleum trade.  It was sent to Alang and scrapped in late 2013.

9-13-08  Viking seen here out of the notch has made its way to Kirby and is currently very busy on the Hudson.

9-05-10  Here’s another showing Viking out of the notch and all gussied up, and (it seems) terrifying W. O. Decker.

And finally, another from 9-22-16, a shot of Sea Power heading north through the Canso Canal and ultimately to Lake Erie to pick up its mated barge.  In the background is the 60+ year-old quarry now operated by  Martin Marietta Materials in Aulds Cove, where vessels like and including Alice Oldendorff pick up the aggregates.  Last year, four million tons worth of rock was shipped from here.

Many thanks to Jack for use of his photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp, who has learned that as of this morning, Sea Power is sailing for Charleston SC.

 

Aweigh 2017

It turns out, I’ve done a post like this once before . . .  in 2012 here.  When I took the next two photos on Tuesday, I’d thought all the fleet week vessels had already departed.  Well, wrong . . . there went LHD-3 USS Kearsarge . . .

which reminded me this would be

a good time to use a photo by a jolly tar back about 10 years ago.  Notice the long-gone, long transformed Odin bunkering LHD-3….

Mid afternoon Tuesday this was a sight to behold along the East River, here approaching the Williamsburg Bridge . . . whatzit?

It’s another of the fleet leaving town . . . USNS Yuma (T-EPF-8).  The photo above and next two come from an alert Tony A doing his commerce on the East River.  In the photo below, it’s the green-fronted UN Building along with river with Trump Tower (dark) rising behind it.

When I caught notice of this, I thought I could hurry to Fort Wadsworth to catch photos of Yuma with Manhattan behind it, but my underestimation of  EPF’s speed and the coincidence of hitting every stoplight on Bay Terrace meant that when I got to the Fort,

Yuma was already making almost two dozen knots and headed for Norfolk, a trip that took less than 24 hours.

The EFTs are a further evolution of the HSTs, which I posted about here. By the way, Alakai was renamed USNS Puerto Rico, but then later that name was removed, since there’s a new EFT with the name USNS Puerto Rico in the offing.   So is the former Alakai now nameless?

Many thanks to Tony A for sending along the East River photos. Thanks to JED for the Odin/USS Kearsarge shot, and all the others by Will Van Dorp.

Happy June!

Time Warp 2

I did this once before here.  This time I was deleting near duplicates to limit the size of my photo library to accommodate the many photos I brought back from the gallivants, and my mind quickly formed today’s post.  Enjoy all these from August through October 2009 and marvel at how much the harbor changes.   As I went through the archives, this is where I stopped, given the recent developments in Bella Bella BC.

For background on this tug, check here.

Notice also the Bayonne approach to the bridge.

IMO 8983117 was still orange back then.

King Philip, Thomas Dann, and Patriot Service . . .

…

Odin . . .  now has a fixed profile.

And these two clean looking machines — Coral Queen and

John B. Caddell — were still with us.

This is a digression to March 2010, but since I’m in a temporally warped thought, let me add this photo of the long-gone Kristin Poling.

Back to 2009, Rosemary looked sweet here in fall scenes.

John Reinauer . . . I wonder what that tug looks like today over in Nigeria.

And Newtown Creek, now the deep Lady Luck of the Depths, sure looked good back then.

And while I’m at it, I’ve finally solved a puzzle that’s bugged me for a few years.  Remember this post from three and a half years ago about a group of aging Dutch sailors who wanted to hold a reunion on their vessel but couldn’t find the boat, a former Royal Dutch Navy tug named Wamandai A870?  Well, here’s the boat today!  Well, maybe . . .

Another boat you can dive on is United Caribbean aka Golden Venture.

Photos and tangents by Will Van Dorp.

 

CMT Pike

Once upon a time in the sixth boro, there was a tug named Odin.  The photo below is from April 2010.

Yesterday, I first thought Odin had returned, although I know that is not possible.

Pike comes to CMT from the cleanup project up on the Champlain Canal.  Siblings of Pike back then were Hawk, Beaver, Otter, and Bass, some of which can be seen here.

For now, let me just say I love the color scheme.  For history on Pike, click here.

She’d be ideal for work on the Erie Canal, I’d think.

And if you never saw Odin, here are a few more photos from 2010, and

 

–is that a bell on the port rail?–

and one photo from September 2008, showing how high she could raise the house.  To see how low she went, click here.

Odin has since been completely (!!!) rebuilt and now looks like this, believe it or not.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Small Tankships 2

I should rename this post “Time Warp.”  I started it in May 2008 and this morning–in response to some Facebook exchanges–resurrected it.  Maybe I will begin a series called “Time Warp,” though, and any photos no more than 20 years old–to pick an arbitrary boundary and to keep the series from becoming ancient time warp which could be its own thing– . . . any photos you wish to contribute no more than two decades old would be welcome.   Maybe I gave up on this post six years back because I had too many unanswered questions.

Anyhow, to plunge back in . . . Robert Silva and Harold Tartell provided foto of Manhasset from way back, when it sported a flying horse on its stack . . . .  I assumed this vessel was long ago scrapped.  I’m also assuming the location of this shot can be pegged by the two LNG tanks in the background.

 

Here’s another shot of the vessel (1958) (or 1952) in transition, I presume, sent along by Robert Silva.

Here’s a photo I took in 2008:  a different small tankship Mostank (1950) maneuvers close to a tanker.  I don’t know if Galahad is still in service, and

Here in Arthur Kill to resupply, I suppose,  Mostank . . . M O S being Marine Oil Service.  Mostank shows up as registered until at least a year ago.  Emma Miller now serves the sixth boro.

Here’s where the time warp impinges on this post.  Great Gull was around still six or seven or eight years ago.  Time flies.  The Gull has flown south.

Back then, John B. Caddell was still working.  Is she still intact?

Nathan E. Stewart was still in town and here moving Mary A. Whalen to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The unique Odin still worked here, and

Weddell Sea was still known as Scott C.

 

All photos here by will Van Dorp unless otherwise attributed.

 

 

From the Line Locker 14

Here were 11, which clarifies the title . ..  I hope.

I’ve had these fotos from Seth Tane for quite some time.  I looked at them today while culling fotos from my library.  Foto shows Foss tugs moving the Sauvie Island Bridge span into position near Portland, Oregon.  Foss tugs visible are (I believe)  the larger PJ Brix and Jim Moore.

This foto also shows Daniel Foss. The bridge move happened in late December 2007;  see page 6 of this Foss publication.  Looking up info on the Sauvie Island Bridge, I stumbled on the clever Flickr assemblage of fotos with the string “island bridge” in the name.  Try playing with it to see bridges with those two words juxtaposed from everywhere.

Like I said, I was scrolling through and culling my 2008 fotos.  Joan McAllister . . .  haven’t seen it in a long time.

Ditto Crow.  Has she been scrapped?

Here’s a summer 2008 treat, tandem pushing Aegean Sea and Caribbean Sea, although still on Roehrig colors.  The K-Sea colors on both have yet to come and by now both have been repainted.

Later in summer 2008 I took this, M/T Great Gull . . . now operating near the Panama Canal.

And  . . . last one for today, Odin passing the stern of ITB Groton, also sold foreign. ITBs like Groton, obsolete now, were technically catamaran tugs.  Just forward of where the stream of water is exiting the hull is the “bow” of the tug;  look above it and you’ll see the “seam” where tug and barge conjoin.   I posted about ITBs here back in late November 2007, and since

I’ve been enhancing my fotos on this blogs, let me add a few to that post here.  Here I’m looking between the “hulls” of the catamaran and toward the stern.  Note the portside prop.  For scale, note the size of the “lift basket” and yard worker.  The aftmost portside portion of the “barge” fits into the groove.

Here’s the aftmost port starboard side of the barge.  These two fotos were taken in the Brooklyn Navy Yard GMD November 2007.

Thanks much to Seth for starting this 2007/08 flashback.  I feel like a veritable John Titor after this glance back at how much the harbor has changed in five years.  All fotos except otherwise attributed, are mine.

And totally unrelated . . . prepare to laugh yerself buttless  bad lip reading the NFL.   This one is a guaranteed laugh-producer too . . . what they really said in the first debate.

Random Tugs 47

Random and a little of everything.  Fotos look better enlarged, so doubleclick on them.

Let’s start with Viking’s  Dolomite II (1978) from Verplanck, NY.

If we follow the push knees back down in the sixth boro, then here’s the shape-shifting Odin (1982).

If we follow low clearance, we get to this unusual arrangement on James Turecamo (1969) with house down.   Foto thanks to Allen Baker.

Random . . . well, assisting Liberty Service (1983) and Energy 1104 out to sea, here’s Shannon Dann (1971), and a few minutes earlier the crossing of

Laura K. Moran (2008)  and Mister T (2001) with Danish product tanker  Nord Goodwill (2009)in the background.

Thanks again to Allen Baker for James Turecamo, house low, foto.  All other by Will Van Dorp.