LL Series of Pilots

Off Campobello Island, the Eastport pilot boat North Sea waited to retrieve the pilot as we headed for sea.  It was April 26, 0540…  This first pilot had been a walk-on before we left Eastport.

April 27 at 0530, Portland pilot boat Spring Point came to meet us as we approached. 

At 0538, the pilot stepped aboard.

At 1753, the same boat followed us out to retrieve the pilot as we headed into the Gulf of Maine.

On April 29 at 0551 Halifax pilot boat Captain E. T. Rogers met us outside the harbor. 

Transfer was accomplished safely.

Port of registry listed on this pilot boat is Saint John.

At 1842, the same pilot boat followed us  to retrieve the pilot when we were safely out to sea.

The next pilot was April 30 at 1340 off Canso NS, landed from Strait Falcon.

Registry here is given as Halifax.

This pilot would get us safely through the Canso lock.

May 1 at 0529 I almost missed the pilot off Charlottetown, since they appeared not to be on AIS.

Pilot boat JRG was at the dock when we arrived.

Serious winds delayed our departure from Charlottetown, and when we did depart, a walk-on pilot took us as far up as

just past the Confederation Bridge, when pilot boat Bridge Lady

retrieved that pilot.  Waterway there is the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait.

 

I missed the next pilot pickup on May 4 at 0’darkest off Les Escoumins, but caught the moment half a day later where pilots exchanged places just before Quebec City.

The fresh pilot stepped aboard on May 4 at 1221, and 

moments later the overnight pilot stepped off and 

Ocean Guide sped him ashore.

Just downstream of Montreal on May 5 at 0754, I caught the next exchange . . .  Ocean Maisoneuve II did the delivery and pick up.

Note the muddy water, ie, strong currents, and absence of green on the trees.

Ocean Maisonneuve II has an unusual orange fender built into its hull.

Exchange complete, she speeds off.  Notice Montreal upper right in the distance.

Several other exchanges happened in the SLSW locks, but as we approached Lake Ontario at Cape Vincent, we exchanged pilots one last time before Toronto . . .

 

 

with the quite new Seaway V doing the honors.

All photos, any errors, WVD, who loses sleep to get photos like these.

Maybe someone can help me with details:  is the series made up of Laurentian pilots, District 1 US river/lakes pilots, and then port-specific docking pilots?  Any others?

Port of Akureyri

I’ve done a few dozen “port of” posts in the past few years.

I won’t tell you where Akureyri is yet,

but the geography is a clue.

So is the name of this pilot boat, which was built in this port.  Sleipnir was built in 1995, with dimensions 52′ x 16.4′ and is powered by a single 700 hp Cummins.  Mjolnir is slightly older and smaller.

Last chance to guess . . .

And the location of Akureyri is midway east-west along the north shore of Iceland, and about as far from Reykjavik as is Boston-New York.  Sleipnir was built here.

Many thanks to Klaus Intemann, whose site is here.  Klaus is looking eagerly for photos from NYC that relate to the departure this spring of Peking for Germany.

Did you recognize the name Sleipnir, an appropriate name for a pilot boat . . . ?

Answer is here.

 

Pilot No. 1

Since noon it’s been raining, but the sunrise brought this sequence:  CSAV Romeral outbound for Baltimore and one of the most beautiful work vessels of the sixth boro inbound.  Also, that’s Vane’s Magothy in the distance.  And for outatowners, way in the distance is Coney Island, home of the mermaid parade on the summer solstice.

Pilot No. 1 New York first splashed into the waters in May 1972.

She’s 180 feet loa,  gorgeous, and “related” to a good dozen varied regulars in the sixth boro.

Here she passes between  European Spirit and Fort Wadsworth light.    Given that New York comes off a Great Lakes shipyard

in the tiny town of Marinette, Wisconsin . . .

she shares that Green Bay/Lake Michigan place of origin with

Vane’s Brandywine and three Staten Island Ferry vessels (Spirit of America, Marchi, Molinari).  See tugster posts features the following Marinette constructions.  Katherine Walker, Apache, Jennifer Miller, and Ellen McAllister.  Here’s Marinette’s current website.   Here’s Strong, another Marinette product I never expect to see, but clearly a forerunner of the Brandywine type tug.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who would love to see contemporary fotos of the vessels built in Wisconsin that made their way  into the navies of Vietnam, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Here’s my post-Sandy New York Pilot No. 1 foto.

Pilots 3

For a low-emissions all-weather pilot boat, the Dutch port of Rotterdam  looked . . .  to the US.  Kvichak has built for many ports.  Fotos courtesy of Fred Trooster.

So would that be a Dutch pilot in middeck with the bare-shoulder uniform?

Sandy Hook Pilots, serving the port of New York, have gotten some of their boats, like Yankee,  just up the Sound at Derecktor Shipyards in Bridgeport.

Docking pilots travel in  . .  tugs like Laura K. Moran.

Click here for a link to vessels carrying pilots in a number of East Coast ports.  A highlight of 2011 has to be the ride on an Edison-Chouest C-Tractor, thanks to JED.

Unless otherwise credited, fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Pilots 2

Previous pilot boat fotos show vessels of Interport Pilots here,  Chesapeake pilots here, Charleston harbor here, Newport here, and New York areas ones here.  Below, Sandy Hook Pilots vessel Yankee heads out two months back when Blue Marlin lingered in the harbor;  on or about August 4 Blue Marlin will return.

The white speck in front of the Yonkers sugar plant is a Hudson River Pilot, operating out of Station Yonkers.   Universal Amsterdam offloads sugar while the nearer vessel, Ocean Titan, prepares to accept a pilot as it heads upriver .

Outside Mayport Naval Station, a pilot steps from the outbound vessel onto the pilot vessel.

St Johns River Bar Pilot heads out to meet an incoming container vessel CSAV Loncomilla.

On the eastern tip of Dodge Island, vessels of Biscayne Bay Pilot wait.

Vessel Biscayne returns to  the station between Miami Beach’s South Pointe Park and Fisher Island.

Vessel below was docked on the Key West waterfront;  this is all I could find on pilot boats here.

Vessels of Schaefer Pilot Transfer Service–Miss Kitty and Betty S--tie up at the shack under the Rte 213 bridge over the C & D Canal.

Scroll thru to see fotos of the launches in service near the end of this link.

…. which brings us back to the sixth boro.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s a 20-year-old article about Sandy Hook pilots from the NYTimes.

From today’s Times, here’s an article about a canoe trip on the Salish Sea and one about a veritable NYC monster, a 200-ton cutterhead in … er . .  under . . .  the town.

Enjoy this wild pilot compilation.  And another.

And here’s a whole blog devoted to pilots.

Thanksgiving Snow on the Delaware

Fundraiser notice Dec 1, 2010 for the tug Pegasus!!

I give thanks for the doomed ships getting a (maybe temporary) reprieve, although there’s no denying that Olympia does NOT rise and fall with the tide.  Here she clearly rests

on Delaware bottom.  The draft numbers there suggest a countdown . . . til drydocking and rescue?

While it lasted, the snow seemed more appropriate for Christmas than Thanksgiving.  Timothy McAllister moves upriver, as does

Captain Dann, seeking a load for an empty Lockwood 2002 barge;  see the loaded barge . . . tomorrow.  In the background, Castlegate takes on cargo, after having left New York just Tuesday.

Crew of SKS Tyne fotograph each other as they leave Philly and

Camden and their skylines and

waterfront work and

mothballed vessels. SKS Tyne, goodspeed for whatever your next destination and next ….

Pilotboat Overfalls heads south, and

no matter the day, the harbor beat goes on.

All fotos, Thanksgiving Day, by Will Van Dorp.

Soon afterward, I went out for a Thanksgiving lobster.  Speaking of, read this great article about the Pilgrims and their Thanksgiving eels.