A to P 10: People Carriers

Tuira II anchors west of Perico.

Different sites related to Canal and Bay Tours say this boat was built by Wiley Manufacturing of Port Deposit MD, makers of sixth boro’s Patricia,  Norfolk’s Hoss, and Erie Canal’s Capt Alix, but Wiley history doesn’t reflect this.  Any help?

Also in the Canal and Bay Tours fleet is this vintage 1912 wooden vessel in Neponset MA by Lawley & Sons, Islamorada.  A claim is that Al Capone once owned her.

Here she shares a lock at Miraflores with a bulker. More closeups of the locks and tugboats soon.

Below is the same Islamorada  I took in mid-March 2012;  that’s a range marker in the foreground to the right.  I prefer the 2012 color scheme.

Fantasía del Mar, here docked in Gamboa and alongside Atlas III, is the third of three US boats operated by Canal and Bay Tours . . . and said to be built by Eastern Shipbuilding of Boothbay, but I know of no such yard.

Las Cruces . . . she could be US built, but again . . . no info.  I thought it looked US built, and thanks to readers and some following up on my part, I can say it is a 1961 Blount vessel still carrying its original name.

Safari Voyager, not flagged US but operated by UnCruise Adventures, is definitely a US bottom, built in 1982 in Salisbury MD, the yard where many of the recent Vane vessels originate from.   That’s also the shipyard that has built American Cruise Line vessels.

Wind Star, featured here just recently, was built in France in 1986.

And finally . . . in the background one morning was Maasdam, heading for Mexico, launched from a Fincantieri yard in Italy in 1993.

The green trimaran–I’ve forgotten the name–was super light and fast, heading for the Marquesas.  She transited the Panama Canal maintaining the requisite minimum of 6 knots with an outboard!  According to her owner, she can make 5 knots in 2 knots wind.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And again a repeated request:  Please send me a photo of your seat.  What I mean is this:  I’d like to do a post on captain’s and/or pilot’s chairs.  I’m looking for the luxurious all the way to decrepit or basic.  Email me a photo of the chair and identify the vessel. You don’t need to be sitting in it.  I’ve got photos of two seats so far, but I’d like a half dozen before doing a post.

 

 

A to P 9: Fishing

A half decade ago I posted photos of Peg Wallace, a 37.6′ x 6.8′  Hooper Island drake tail fish boat.  Click here (and scroll) for some of the small fish boats between Ocracoke and Hatteras.  Long, narrow, upswept bow for the seas . . .  This one below has the delightful name El Avispon (hornet).

The major difference between the dead rise boats of eastern US and these is the location of the shelter.  The one heading for the market is Mi Novio (my boyfriend).

 

At the fish market, one boat was hauled out for some repairs and repainting.  Long and skinny.

Many more were either transferring necessities or anchored.

Norma Edith II might be a coastal cargo boat as well as a buy boat.

The fish market is located between the old and new cities.

Dona Martira J  . . .  another buy boat?

Kojira . . . a small purse seiner? The name sounds a bit like the Japanese word for “whale.”

and two larger purse seiners:  Kljubica (2014) and Lautaro (1982), now both out fishing.   These larger purse seiners sometimes carry small helicopters on the cabin roof to spot schools of fish.  And that upper observation station, it raises the height of eye as does the upper wheelhouse on tugs.

Martina C is in the port of Balboa, possibly still getting repairs.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who offers this recipe for delicious ceviche.   Click here for the any sixth boro fishing posts on tugster.

And a repeated request:   Show me your seat.  What I mean is this:  I’d like to do a post on captain’s and/or pilot’s chairs.  I’m looking for the luxurious all the way to decrepit or basic.  Email me a photo of the chair and identify the vessel. You don’t need to be sitting in it.  I appreciate it.

A to P 7: Yachts

By the way, A to P, if you suffer from CRS as I do, expands to Atlantic to Pacific, across the skinny continent of Panama.  Today’s post makes me want to create a “crew finder” profile, as this would be a way to gallivant across the Pacific in style, in exchange for less work than young Melville was expected to perform.

Let’s make this a numbers post.  Yersin, launched 2015, cost $70m.  I don’t know my cabin cruisers that well, but the boat in the foreground with an overload upforward has US boatbuilder lines.

Yersin, when launched, was set up for 20 crew and 20 guests.

Yacht Lionheart runs a cool $150m.  Forty crew attend to 12 guests.

Andiamo is “low end”:  12 guests and 6 crew.  Ice-class hull, she was offered for sale in 2012 for $20m.  I believe I’ve seen her on the Great Lakes or the Saint Lawrence or the sixth boro, but that could be just a common name.

Joseph Conrad (ex-Saturn) dates from 1916, with a major refit in 2004.  She can run with 8 guests with 5 crew.  Priceless.

Azuleta, a Turkish gulet, is also priceless here, and works charters out of Panama City.  For some other gulets for sale, click here.

Rocinante, 2008 with a 2015 refit, has 32 crew for 12 guests.  She recently changed hands for $128m.

Constance dates from 1986, and 10 crew serve 10 guests. Previous names are PAMINUSCH, MONTEATH, MONTIGNE, and JANA.

Wind Star, launched 1986, accommodates 148 passengers with 101 crew.  I recall the excitement back 30 years ago when she was said to be the first commercial sailing vessel of this size built in over a half century.

Dorothea III, $50m, was launched in 2007 and can have 10 crew for 8 passengers.

Lalamanzi is a St Francis 44 cat, crewed by a couple from South Africa, heading home across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

And finally, Belle Ourse (Pretty Bear) wins my prize for the best name.   She hails from Montreal.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  And the grand total is . . . a lot of dough!  But while I’m looking over the fence at stuff owned by the Vanderbilts of our era,  I encourage you to read this thoroughly fascinating article about a private jet broker, Steve Varsano, who sells to the same social segment as can afford these yachts.

 

A to P 6: Small Craft

Gatun Lake, slightly less than half the area of the Salton Sea, sees diverse traffic: ships, yachts, and small craft.  Below is a Canal security boat, of which we saw several in our transit.  That’s a range marker in the trees.

Twenty-something miles of the transit is across the Lake, named for a village on the lower Chagres River.  Given the amount of dredging in the Lake, crew boats are common.

Ecotourism boats are common in some areas  . . . these boats operating near Gamboa.

The Panama Canal Railway runs along the waterway in places, carrying mostly containers, a few passengers, and in this case repair equipment.

OK . . . this is a digression.

Given the traffic through this intersection of the oceans, pilot boats abound,

as do launch service boats.  The one above and below work on the Pacific side here.

This particular morning we saw a wave of SUPers.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has many more photos in the hopper, including the expedition yacht above.  Any identification anyone?

 

A to P 5: Whole Lotta Dredging

The “enlargement” of the Panama Canal involved a lot of dredging in Panama, as well as in ports served by the Neopanamax ships:  deepening approaches, widening channels, and even eliminating islands in part or whole in Gatun Lake.  I put the ” ” there because it’s more accurate to say “creating a third set of locks,” two sets were built a century ago.  To illustrate click here;  in the fifth photo, Atlantic Polaris is in set 1, and Nord Snow Queen in set 2.   Try again, in the same post, the fourth photo from the end, Bow Summer is in the first set, and Ever Dynamic in the second.   The third set construction site was visible back in 2012 here in the fifth photo, on the hill beyond Water Phoenix.

To dredging then, on the Atlantic side, DEME is busy with a fleet

that includes D’Artagnan heading up the efforts, a cutterhead suction dredge that can work down to 114.’

A category I’d not seen before is a self-propelled hopper barge, such as Pagadder and

Sloeber, although the latter was behind a dock that obscured most of her.  On the photo above, see the split midships on the bow;  that’s how she bottom dumps, as a dump scow would.

Quibian I is Panama-flagged and working in Lake Gatun, which is really the dammed up Chagres River.

 

The tenders alongside include (far to near)  Diablo, Espada, and Diablo II.

Drill barge Barú, proudly christened in 2006,  is one of the dredge-related vessels operating near the Culebra Cut. Barú, named for a Panamanian volcano, seems an appropriate name for a vessel whose mission is to drill holes so that charges can be set.   Back in 2012, I got these photos of charges detonated after being set deep by Kraken, over in the Arthur Kill.

The tender above and below is Chame II.  She followed us toward Culebra Cut while she was on a run to load more explosives.

Over on the Pacific side, dredging is performed by Jan de Nul, a Luxembourgois dredging firm.   Filippo Brunelleschi ran day and night dredging the Pacific side approaches;  a trailing suction hopper dredge, she can operate down to 124 ‘!  To digress, I’m not sure which tugs were there off the stern and in front of Taboga.

Not surprisingly for a European firm, Jan de Nul (JDN)–like DEME–uses self-propelled split hopper scows.

The two here are Magellano 1800 above and Verrazzano 1800 below, both flagged Mauritius (Port Louis) like the JDN tug we saw here.

And finally, that’s Filippo B in the distance coming back in toward the Pacificside locks, passing Maggie M.  I’m not sure why Maggie M was anchored here.

All photos by Will Van Drop, who suggests these places to celebrate the green saint’s day.