Old Years 2022

I’m back and just in time for the last day of the year, which –as explained in previous years— in my Dutch tradition is a reflection day, a time to if not assess then at least recall some of the sights of the past 12 months.  A photo-driven blog makes that simultaneously easy and hard;  easy because there’s a photographic record and not easy because there’s such an extensive photographic record to sift though.

A word about this set of photos:  these are some “seconds” that did not make the final cut for my 2023 tugster calendar.  The actual calendars are still available if you’ve not ordered one;  find the order info here. I’m ordering a bunch myself. 

One windy day last January I caught a Pilot No 1–the old New York–doing drills under the VZ Bridge.  Just recently I met one of the engineers on that boat, a person with epic stories about the sixth boro.

A warm day in February, I caught JRT Moran assisting QM2 into her Red Hook berth. 

March I spent a delightful day on Douglas B. Mackie observing the water side of a Jersey shore beach replenishment project, thanks to the hard-working folks at GLDD. 

April . . .  I caught Jane McAllister heading out;  correct if I’m wrong, but my sense is that soon afterward she made her way down to South America to join the expanding ranks of US-built tugs working on various projects on the south side of the Caribbean. 

As a member of the Canal Society of NYS, I had the opportunity to see Urger up close and sun-warmed on the bank of the Oswego in Lysander NY. 

A clutch of Centerline tugboats waited for their next assignment at the base just east of the Bayonne Bridge.   Note the fully foliated trees beyond them along the KVK.

From the humid heat of western Louisiana and onto the Gulf of Mexico, Legs III–shown 

here spudded up just east of SW Pass, afforded a memorable journey on its way up to the sixth boro.  Thx, Seth. 

Back in the boro, later in August, a Space X rocket recovery boat named Bob–for an astronaut– came through the sixth boro.  More on Bob–the astronaut–here. 

In September, I finally got to my first ever Gloucester schooner race, thanks to Rick Miles of Artemis, the sailboat and not the rocket. 

Icebreaker Polar Circle was in the boro a few days in September as well.  Now it’s up in Canada, one hopes doing what icebreakers are intended to do. US naval logistics vessel Cape Wrath is at the dock in Baltimore ready and waiting a logistics assignment. 

Ticonderoga certainly and Apache possibly are beyond their time working and waiting.  I believe Ticonderoga is at the scrappers in Brownsville. 

Passing the UN building on the East River, veteran Mulberry is currently out of the army and working in the private sector.  I’ve a request:  for some time I’ve seen a tug marked as Scholarie working the waters west of the Cape Cod Canal;  a photo suggested it might be called Schoharie. Anyone help out?

And finally, a photo taken just two days ago while passing through the sixth boro during what can hardly be called “cover of darkness” it’s Capt Joseph E. Pearce on its way to a shipyard on the mighty Rondout to pick up some custom fabrication for a Boston enterprise. Many thanks to the Stasinos brothers for the opportunity.

I’d be remiss in ending this post and this year without mentioning lost friends, preserving a memory of their importance to me personally . . .  Bonnie of frogma–first ever to comment of this blog so many years ago and a companion in many adventures– and Mageb, whose so frequent comments here I already miss. 

I plan to post tomorrow, although I may miss my high noon post time because I hope to post whatever best sunrise 2023 photos I can capture in the morning.  

Happy, safe, and prosperous new year to you all.  I’m posting early today because I want my readers who live much much farther east than the sixth boro to get these wishes before their new trip around the sun begins. Bonne annee!  Gelukkig nieuwjaar!

New Exotics, New Names

I’ve done “new hulls, new names” and “old hulls and old and new names” and “new hulls, lines, and liveries.”  Sorry I could not have come up with more streamlined nomenclature.

But I hope, as always, you enjoy these photos all taken on an ideal last day of summer.  If summer has to end, this is the way to see it . . . no wind, low humidity, and clear skies.  Polar Circle came in two days ago here, and I was too far away and detail was lost in the early afternoon haze, but yesterday I caught her before she returned to the Long Beach anchorage.

I’m guessing she took on supplies here after an almost seven-week voyage from Busan.

She’s big but Cape Wraith tempers that size.

Miss Madeline came in on Prometheus just over a month ago, although she had a different name then.

As I said, yesterday was the perfect time and place to see her close up.

 

Welcome, Miss Madeline and crew.

 

All photos, last day of summer 2022, WVD.

 

Exotics 33

This exotic is extraordinarily exotic.   Any guesses based on appearance of  the red and white vessel below?

I’ll give a little more time to study while you prepare your guess.   Given her specs, which I share below, she’s not for offshore wind or the sixth boro, unless we have extraordinary weather  ahead.

I wish I’d been able to get closer, but 

that’s why I have a distance-shrinking lens.

Built in 2006 by Vard Langsten in Tomrefjord Norway with some construction at the Vard yard on the Black Sea in Romania, for the Russian Federation, the 243′ x 56′ icebreaker (technically, icebreaking tug) Polar Circle sailed into the sixth boro in 86-degree F weather.    The Vard facility in Romania is about 40 miles up the Danube from the Black Sea.

Previously she was home-ported in Kholmst, Sakhalin, formerly Maoka in Japanese Sakhalin.  At some recent point, she left there, registered Maltese (or maybe she was registered Maltese while up in eastern Russia, and she arrived in the sixth boro after a month-and-22-day voyage from Busan Korea.  Click here for more info and great photos of her in ice.  A previous name was Polar Pevek, “Pevek” being a settlement on the “north coast” of Russian, above the Arctic Circle.  

I’m wondering if there’s any connection between her arrival here and the “embargo” on Russian gas/oil.  Here her Norwegian owner lists her as available for charter. 

 

 

All photos, yesterday, WVD, whose previous major ice breaker photos are listed below.

Fennica and Nordica here and here.

Mackinaw and Polar Star and Sea.  I never did get closer photos. 

And a surprising set, scroll through for Soviet-era icebreakers built in St. Louis MO!!