Small Craft 10

Here were previous installments.

And below are a set of small craft I’ve seen in the sixth boro and further environs so far this month . . . .

The colors look familiar here, but

This one I have noticed before . . .

Wolf River used to be everywhere in the harbor until it got shipped–literally–to some far distant

dredge projects, like this one on Guanabara Bay in summer 2013.

The KVK is not the regular route of pilot boat Yankee.

Now here is the small craft that could and DID . . .

and got a presidential letter for it. Click here for more Long Island boat building traditions.

Dobrin . . . is a 65′ Swiftships-built survey vessel.

Click here and here for other Swiftships vessels that have appeared on this blog.  Swiftships have also supplied vessels for the reconstruction of the Iraqi coastal navy.

Can anyone identify the manufacturer of NYSB-3.  I’m guessing this is one of several identical vessels in the USACE NY District fleet?

And here’s a clue . . . Vane Brothers currently has a crew boat in the harbor!  Christian was formerly owned by Kirby, K-Sea, and others.

And to end where we started but we a quite different attitude . . . given the tender carried over the stern.  I don’t know this boat.

Let me postscript in another closer-up photo . . .showing a Rhode Island registry . . .

All photos taken very recently by Will Van Dorp.

Meditations M

M . . . mast.  I love the wikipedia disambiguation pages, where a range of contexts for words like mast or masthead defies expectation.

Cornell sports its mast toward the stern; running lights there convey information about vessel size, type, and activity.

Clearwater, a sloop, has a one mast topping out at about 110 feet.

On City of Water Day, USACE Drift Collection vessel Hayward sports code flags on its mast and a sampling of collected debris on its foredeck.

Pioneer, a schooner, has two masts, the mainmast topped out at just under 77 feet.

Sandy Hook Pilots vessel Yankee has units (besides the radar and GPS) on its mast I can’t identify.

Bunkering tanker Capt Log‘s foremast carries a red flag, signaling fuel.

So does barge DBL 76.  Mast height on Adriatic Sea is 85 feet, if airdraft equals height of the highest mast or antenna.  I fear I might be blurring a definition here.

Volunteer, air draft of 114 feet and pushing DBL 105, meets Turecamo Boys assisting Seven Express out to to sea.

USCG WPB67356 Sailfish, not surprisingly, carries mast gear not readily identified by a civilian like me.

Miriam Moran, assisting with docking, keeps the upper portion of its mast safely lowered where flaring bows cannot damage it.

Masts can signal information but of course sometimes signaling is optional or even undesired.  Masts allow things to be seen, but one has to know what should remain unseen.  An effective mast needs strength, and sometimes that means it is flexible.

Both submarines and whaling ships have masts.  For some good fun, check out this six-minute video of  a struggle between Captain Ahab and Moby Das Boot.

Also, just for fun:  How might you complete this sentence:

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  Send me your original sentence completions.

Meditations I

I . . . illusion.  [I know I skipped “H” and trust you’ll understand in a few days.]  Remember, click on a foto to enlarge it.

Illusion . . . bedevils me . . . and lots of other folks.  I sometimes create pain for myself by believing the “truth” I want rather than what my senses (including hearing) tell me.  Clinging to such illusions might confound lots of people;  illusions might also doom groups of people.  “Group-think” has led more than one vessel–real or metaphorical–onto the rocks.

This post is then intended to have fun with potential illusions of the optical sort.  The tall white chimney directly above the house of Pilot No. 1 New York stands at least 300 feet from the vessel.  I tend not to photoshop my fotos, but if I removed the hint of foliage between vessel and chimney set back on the shore,  I could get SeaBart kind of excited.  By the way, what is that chimney?   And, anyone know the place/date of construction of Pilot No. 1 and 2?

While on the topic of pilot boats, recently I caught Yankee and USCG Wire (WYTL 65612)  milliseconds from what appeared to be collision.

Some Native American myth calls the North America continent “turtle island,” since the “bedrock” of the  continent was in fact a gigantic turtle where a hapless “sky woman” had created a new life for herself.  In the foto below, a clamshell dredge seems to fill a vast barge on which a metropolis with a skyline greatly resembling Manhattan’s also exists.  I guess that could suggest “barge island” as a synonym for that boro.

I’m an admirer of Don Sutherland’s fotos and sense of humor.  Twice in the past year, using the magic (ok . .  illusion) of juxtaposition, he has created fun compositions.  In one, Ruth Reinauer seems to have the Statue of Liberty loaded onto its afterdeck.  In another, an unidentified tug seemed to carry a zigzag ladder on its boatdeck to reach grant access to the Weehawken cliff.  Here’s my version:  a ladder from the top of buoy 13 almost directly to Franklin Reinauer‘s upper house.

Finally, (and NO this blog is not transforming into a pet gallery but if my friend Peter can link to a LOLcats version of Moby Dick, then I feel licensed to proceed) the foto below shows the same green bird that appeared so regal and calm in yesterday’s post.  The image is a video still showing said-bird’s displeasure with a video camera.  Might this illusion give rise to a sixth boro version of the Montauk monster?  Which is the true nature of the bird–this view or yesterday’s.  Or . . . am I my truer self on one of my best–or worst–days?  Maybe the possible choice is just the real illusion.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp except the one of the illusory evil parrot, taken by Elizabeth.