Retro Sixth Boro NYC Tugboat Races 4

2015 is the last year I saw the race;  in the following years I was working and away.  But 2015 Labor Day Sunday had beautiful weather.

Again, I’m not going to name each;  you can read the names either on the boats or in the tags . . .  and then match up. And in the photo above, the jetskis had no names, but I hope you noticed them.

I’ll make an exception for Sea Horse, the Linden-based Sea Scout boat.  Click here for more info on the boat.

 

 

See Harvey back at the end of the line?  It was 19 years ago that Harvey came out of retirement to assist when tragedy struck.

Both lead tugs here are nicely appointed with the colorful pennants.

Ellen certainly had the best matched “riding crew” that day.

Let’s hope the this race comes back in 2021.

All photos, WVD, whose fabulous ride was care of the NY Media Boat.  If you’re looking for something to do, click on the link and book a ride.

 

Random Tugs 264

The 1963 Patricia is always a head-turner, and she was especially so the other morning.  The longer I look at the photo below, the more I imagine it framed.

Her throaty sound catches the ear as well.  Am I mistaken or has that color scheme changed a bit?

Carolina Coast makes the sugar run all year round, but that billowing spinnaker clearly states the season.

 

Nathan G has been spending a lot of time of late on runs outside the VZ Bridge.

 

Here, a busy distant Bayonne port as seen from Owls Head, is Genesis Victory with barge GM 6506 and a very busy background, as

she gets assisted into a lightening position by Pegasus.

James D. Moran escorts a quite empty Leo C.

toward Port Elizabeth.

Discovery Coast here takes on Edwin A. Poling.  It amazes me that the sylvan shoreline beyond the unit is actually in New York City and masks a dense residential area.

Moments before she was headed in from an anchorage area.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who favors another shot of Patricia.

 

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Here’s a different perspective on the sixth boro, different from my more usual ones.  And in this morning light, Sarah Ann looks like a beauty as she heads somewhere past Robbins Reef Light and

well . . . along that island.

Let’s continue trying to get some different POVs.  Patricia has some fine lines here accentuated by the low light of dawn.

Elk River and Hunting Creek pass, with missions in opposite directions.

Evelyn Cutler moves product for somewhere up the North River.

Paula Atwell moves garbage containers past an incoming green new shipment, and

Julie Anne, a new one for me in the sixth boro although I have posted a “down south” photo of her here, moves a scow up toward the Passaic River.  Notice that until I got to the Norfolk tugs, there were no tugs with even a drip of red paint on them in this post?

And finally, Brian Nicholas is neither a huge nor a small tug, 72′ loa, but as she passes the stern of CMA CGM Nabucco, she

looks almost like a toy.  My first reaction was excitement  . ..  erroneously thinking I’d see either the elusive  Susan E. or Elizabeth Anna.  But don’t get me wrong, greetings to Brian Nicholas!

All photos and sentiments here the product of and/or the opinion of Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Random Tugs 247

Take a camera and an hour and a half,

hang out at some point along the KVK,

if it’s cold then bring some hand and boot warmers and a thermos with hot tea,

monitor the scan function on your hand held,

and wait.  Soon there’ll be some traffic. Snap away.

Winter is a better time than summer for photos because of the clarity

of the air.

A wise man once told me that New Yorkers don’t really have to travel, because the world

travels past them.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 238

Pacific Reliance (9280 hp) transfers cargo before heading to Texas . . .

with the 155,000 bbl barge 650-1.

B. Franklin Reinauer (4000 hp) passes by

with RTC 82 (80,000 bbl, if I read that right)

and Austin (3900 hp) eastbound here light.

Dean Reinauer (4720 hp) moves westbound under the Bayonne Bridge.

Foxy 3 (1600 hp) and Brooklyn (2400 hp) wait at the dock west of Caddell Drydock.  Foxy was previously Barker Boys, and this Brooklyn, Labrador Sea.

Brooklyn on her way to a job.

Delta Fox (1200 hp) and Morton S. Bouchard IV (6140 hp) tied up here  just east of Foxy 3 and Brooklyn.

Morton S. Bouchard IV makes up the next three photos here:  in front of a Saint Lawrence like eglise

against the Brooklyn skyline, and

and still more in front of T-AKR-306 USNS Benavidez.

And let’s finish up with Patrica (1200 hp) and Robert (1800 hp).

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who alone is responsible for any errors in info here.

 

 

Random Tugs 221

Just to reiterate . . . random in the sixth boro these are.  And the other day, I felt blessed for reasons you’ll understand by the end of this post.  Here Atlantic Enterprise emerges from the Arthur Kill and heads for home in Newark Bay.  That church, “a scaled down copy of the great cathedral at Cologne,” makes this seem quite a European-inflected image.

I took all these photos that weather day last week . . . note how the rain in downtown Elizabeth washes out the Union County Courthouse tower.

A bit later Mister Jim enters the east end of the Kills and then

feigns a ship assist.

The mighty Patricia travels east for a scrap run.

 

as Janet D moves in the direction

of her base.

Why did I feel blessed . . . ?  In the same but of morning, I saw both Atlantic Enterprise and Atlantic Salvor

although not in the same frame, they must have met up in the DonJon yard over in Port Newark.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Weather 11

Here are the previous weather posts.  Below . . . that’s easy:  it’s a local shower;  Evening Tide and Evening Light were in the rain, and I was not, yet.

But a half hour later at the opposite end of the KVK, the clouds were truly wild.  Is there a word for these conditions?  Again, it wasn’t raining at my location.

Air currents swirled beyond the busy waterway, l to r, Stolt Loyalty, Stone 1, Phoenix Dream, Kimberly Turecamo, and Hoegh Seoul assisted by Bruce A. McAllister.

The Stolt tanker passes Graecia Aeterna before meeting the wild swirl head-on.

Add one more tug to the mix.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’d like to know what you call this type of fast-moving dispersal of fog.

 

 

Random Tugs 202

Patricia was built in 1963 and works in the sixth boro here and here, and last I knew worked for C.H. Phoenix LLC of Green Cove Springs, Fl. . . .   I like the racing stripes.

Caitlin Ann was built in 1961 and has worked for DonJon since 2011.   Here, she and

Sarah Ann appear to be moving coal.  Sarah Ann is from 2003, working for DonJon since 2009.

Marion Moran has worked by that name since 1982.  I think that’s Katherine Weeks on the far side of the barge.

Bruce A. McAllister, 

Eric McAllister, and

Alex McAllister were all working from the Narrows the

other morning.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Random Tugs 163

I considered calling this “random vessels,” since I haven’t used that title in a while, but here is a tighter focus for a few days:  tugboats.  Here I also randomize the backgrounds and seek out some vessels infrequently seen.  Like the rare and exotic  Shelby Rose and

Jay Michael and Vicki M and

Patricia with her racing stripes up against the gantry arms.

Wye River and James E. Brown here cross the south end of Newark Bay, where

Sandmaster has been tied up for (?) nearly a year now.

Sassafras did a circle in Erie Basin recently, and

 

Thomas, the Weeks tug, strode into town, picked up a barge and headed straight for Texas!  The first time I saw Thomas was January 2009.  Remember what memorable event splashed into the Hudson around the middle of that month?

 

Buchanan 12 here is light and seen from almost her prop wash.  I hadn’t noticed the Boston registry before.

Quantico Creek stays local a lot, but Severn I don’t see much.

Here’s Tangier Island behind . .  yes, Gerardi’s Farmers Market. 

 

OK . . . that’s it for today.  All photos by Will Van Dorp.  More random tugs tomorrow.

 

NYC Tugboat Race 2015

Bravo to the organizers and participants of the 2015 NYC race.  It starts with a muster…

L to r:  Catherine Miller, Robert E. McAllister, Eric R. Thornton, Mister T, Buchanan 1, and Buchanan 12

which looks  different as you shift perspective.

Add Red Hook and Sarah Ann, with a jet ski for scale.

 

Add Thomas Witte.

 

Take a close up on Mister T with John J. Harvey in the distance.

It’s great to see race newcomers like Sea Scout Ship 243 out of Rahway NJ, and

Patricia.

By this point, some boats like Robert E. McAllister start to get impatient.

Muster then turns into a procession,  filing straight toward the starting line and

 

showing the colors

as some newcomers catch up.

James William used to be a Moran boat.

Next stage . . . it’s the tension on the starting line, feet digging into the starting blocks and muscles tensing, sort of.

There are 11 boats here, including Margot pushing a set of rock barges and not racing.

They’re off!

and water starts to cascade away from the bows…

froth by the ton.

 

But when the quick minutes of the race have elapsed, the first boat down the course is the impatient Robert E. McAllister.

And almost as in a triathlon, the dash down the course changes and the pushing starts.

 

All manner of paired struggle ensues.

 

And we need to leave.  All photos here by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to Bjoern and crew for my ride.