From the Line Locker 28

Recently reefed . . .   Jane.  I took this photo from the Arthur Kill in September 2016.

Built in 1939 at Pusey and Jones, she went from Jane to Adam J to Jacklyn to Erica to Jane . . . and now to the bottom as a fish house off Jones Beach NY;  she lies in 51′ of water.   Here‘s the story.

Hoss (1962 and ex-Chauncey and Sharon C and sister of Patricia and Kristy Ann Reinauer) was put down off Ocean City MD less than a week ago, 81′ down, I’m told.  Here‘s a link, but it’s on FB.  I took the photo below near Norfolk in January 2011.

Information catch-up . . . A couple weeks back I did a post on the 2001 Great Noith River Tugboat race, and there was a question about the Class 1 winner.  Powhatan won according to the

trophy.

See it upper right side.

However, to further complicate matters, Rich Violino writes:  “ I along with Steve Munoz was aboard the Janet McAllister. On the trip back to the yard, we were told that the Z-Two had been declared the winner. But as the trophy attests, that was not accurate.”  With such a contentious result, I’m happy there’s not millions hanging on the results.  It is, after all, a fun day out . . . at least I think it is. 

And below . . .  over by South Reach, the green icons is CMA CGM Panama;  she certainly has a record for the number of escorts.

And finally, from a post I did five years ago with photos from Harry, check out what a harbor crowded with recreational boats looks like . . .   Click on the photo for the context.

Photos from HT, Steve Munoz and WVD.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro NYC Tugboat Races 5

Call this “thanks to Steve Munoz 20:  the 9th Annual North River Tugboat Race September 2, 2001.”   As Steve writes,  “The tug race on 9/2/2001 was  nine days before 9/11/2001. I was on board the tug Janet M McAllister for the race. My son was on board a Seabulk oil tanker docked in Bayonne and he could see the Twin Towers from his cabin porthole. As the tug headed up the Upper Bay I was going to take a picture of the Twin Towers and decided not to since I had so many already. Little did I, or anyone else, know that they would not exist nine days later. I wish I had taken a picture.

[Participating] include tugs McAllister Bros, Janet M McAllister, Empire State, J George Betz, Mary L McAllister, Irish Sea, Dory Barker, Powhatan, Dace Reinauer, Beaufort Sea, Resolute, Growler, Z-TWO, Janice Ann Reinauer, Katherine, Amy C McAllister, James Turecamo, Kathleen Turecamo, Emil P Johannsen;  also, includes fireboats John D McKean, John J Harvey.

I’ll not identify all the boats here.  As you know, some of these boats, like Dace Reinauer, look quite different now. Also, many boats here, like Janet D. McAllister and Powhatan,  are no longer in the sixth boro,

Z-Two is now Erin McAllister, and in Providence RI.

Emil P. Johannsen is laid up, I believe,

in Verplanck NY.

 

Beaufort Sea has been scrapped.

There were tugboats to port and

tugboats PLUS a fireboat to starboard.  Two things here:  I love the water thrusters deployed from Z-Two.  And Powhatan is now a commissioned Turkish naval vessel known as TCG Inebolu;  as such it was involved a month ago in the tow of a Bangladeshi corvette, BNS Bijoy, which had been damaged in the explosion in Beirut harbor.

 

 

 

Again, many thanks to Steve Munoz for taking us back to September 2, 2001 with these photos.

A different series of tugboat races happened decades earlier, as attested here.  An indicator of how different the world then was is the fact that back then, a rowing contest was included, and crews of ships in port took part.  Those days of break-bulk cargo had ships in port for much longer periods of time,  and “port” included places along the Hudson.

 

Random Tugs 300

The year 2007 spawned this series here.  Since you’ve stayed with this blog, I’m celebrating a milestone . . . the 300th post in this series.  Thanks for continued visits to tugster.  To honor this event, I solicited photos from you, particularly photos that’d never previously appeared on this blog.  I threw some of my own unusual ones in to round out the post.  Thanks to all who sent in photos, or thought about it, and added some explanation.  Since the internet allows quick and easy photo exchanges globally, I’m always interested in folks sharing photos of tugboats and other workboats from everywhere.  Vladivostok?  Karachi?  Baku?  Port of Spain?  Paramaribo?  Douala?  Luanda?  Umm Qasr?   I hope you get the idea.

Tim Sansom wrote:  ” taken at Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter in December 2016, showing the tugboat Koraki and the cement barge Marsden Bay.  Koraki, built in 1985, regularly hauls cement barges between Auckland and Whangarei for Golden Bay Cement. The Wynyard Quarter is a redeveloped part of Auckland harbour between the ferry and cruise ship terminal and the marina, and usually has a few fishing boats tied up as well as ferries to the Hauraki Gulf islands, one of which you can see in the background.”

I took this one of Elizabeth Anne at the King’s Point dock in 2015. That’s the Throg’s Neck Bridge in the background.  The 1980 tug was donated to the US Merchant Marine Academy in 2014.

I took this on Oneida Lake NY in November 2016.  My platform was craneship Ward’s Island, now fish and other aquatic life habitat, but then was doing one of its last seasons plucking channel markers from the NYS Canals portion of the Lake. Tug Syracuse, 77′ x 20′ , has worked exclusively in NYS Canals since spring 1934.

William Mitchell took this photo of Donna and Charlie Costa’s Hobo in Wickford RI.

Jan van Sluisweg took this photo of the 1976 Arion, 94′ x 30′, towing City of Dubrovnik and approaching the lock in IJmuiden in 2014.

From Kyle Stubbs:  “Brusco’s Capt Bob Campbell hasn’t appeared and  offers a fun connection to Lindy Marie seen in your post Columbia River Tugs. Both the Lindy Marie (as  Fireball) and Capt Bob Campbell (as  Warrior), were in-house products of the Smith Tug and Barge Company of Rainier, Oregon. Founder Wilbur Smith had been witness to a number of accidents on tugboat decks, and as a result embraced a design philosophy that eliminated blind spots on the deck as seen from the pilothouse. The result was a series of tugs with unique, sloped deckhouses that earned the company the nickname of the “Studebaker Fleet” in reference to that automaker’s distinctive models of the 1950’s.”

The Studebaker fleet . . . I love that.  Kyle took this photo at Grays Harbor on the Washington coast.

From George Schneider:  “Maybe this one is too wee to count, but she’s the tug Elsa.  She was built back in 1955 by the Welding and Shipbuilding Company of Costa Mesa CA as their hull #1, and to my knowledge, the only vessel built there.  Her original owner was Francis P. Jones of the Jones Tug & Barge Company of Long Beach CA.  At the time she was 50 ft in length and rated at 290 HP.  Jones later lengthened her to about 60 ft. (58 ft registered) and HP was increased to 600.   Jones closed shop in the 1980s.  Since then she’s moved bunker barges in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, and is now owned by Global Marine Transportation Inc. of Los Angeles.”

Another from George, not so wee: “Here’s my next , a Gulf tug.  She was originally built as Abdon Martin by Halter Marine at their New Orleans yard in 1976, and ownership was always listed as Halter Marine Inc, although Andrew Martin Sea Service Inc. appears to be a separate company who operated her.   In 1985 she was sold to the N. J. Guidry & Sons Towing Company, who remained listed as her owner while named Harvey Trojan, showing Harvey Gulf Intl. markings.  When Harvey Gulf decided to concentrate on supply boat activities, they sold her in 2014 to Signet Maritime Corp, and since then she has sailed as their Signet Trojan.”    If my info is correct, she’s 110′ x 34′ and rated at 13,500 hp.

From Antonio Alcaraz:  “VB Andalucia [built in 2004 and 97’x 36′] underway service Algeciras port.”

One of my own from Block Island, it’s Petersburg in October 2015.  The 1954 107′ tug was recently used in a movie.

Another of mine from February 2016, Sea Wolf A in Havana harbor.  The 1996 tug was built by Damex Shipbuilding in Santiago Cuba.

And in the sixth boro, I took this one of Paul T Moran.  Currently the 1975 built 138′ x 40′ 150′ x 49′ behemoth is in Mobile AL

Westbound in the East River, it’s Thomas D. Witte with Powhatan alongside.  My record keeping for the period is scrambled, but i believe I took this is 2005 or 2006.  As of this writing Powhatan, now operated by the Turkish Navy as Inebolu A590 is on the Turkish Black Sea coast between Trabzon and Samsun.

Again from George Schneider, who took it in June 2014 on Portrero Reach, Richmond CA on San Francisco Bay:  “One class of tugs you may not have seen in the Sixth Borough are the recent tractor tugs from Jensen Maritime Consultants.  They’re a widely respected group, evolving since Bay Delta put the first one in service in 2007.  Since that time, some of the majors have chartered these from Bay Delta, including Foss, Crowley, and AmNav, and once the quality of the design was recognized, companies have also gone directly to Jensen’s to have them built.  Bay-Delta began congealing as a company in the early 1990’s with second-hand tonnage.  They remain small, but obviously have been a leader in tug development.   This shows Delta Cathryn, built by Nichols Brothers in 2009.  She’s the second Jensen tug by that name, the first is now operating for Crowley as Vigilant.   In 2019 the first hybrid tug of this series, Delta Teresa,  was completed and also immediately chartered to Crowley.”

I took this photo of Ocean Henry Bain in Quebec City in March 2017.  The 2006 z-drive measures in at 95′ x 37.’

From Maraki, a Chinese built tug Pino, working in Colombia then off Cartagena.

Many thanks to Tim, William, Jan, Kyle, Antonio, George, and Maraki for these delightful photos and text.  I’d love to do this again, maybe at the 400 mark, or maybe sooner.  My editor is very easy-going.

 

 

 

T-ATF 172 USNS Apache 1

Click on the image below and you’ll see how I posted it just over five years ago.  So what do the big blue tug Powhatan below, Ellen McAllister, USCG Katherine Walker, ATB Brandywine, ATB Dublin Sea. and the Staten Island Ferry Spirit of America (as well as ferries Molinari and Marchi) all have in common?

For starters, the Menominee River in Wisconsin.   And from that, given corporate acquisitions, an “in-law” relationship exists with Fincantieri vessels including Costa Concordia as well as the caissons that’ll try to re-float her.

But closer to home, the list above was built at the same Wisconsin shipyard as seven fleet ocean tugs, four of which are active in Military Sealift Command today.  Click here for the 2012 MSC vessels poster, one fifth of which is reproduced below.  MSC operates over 100 vessels today using 5500 civilian mariners.  Civil servant mariners!!

The DonJon Marine Powhatan above has since 2008 become Inebolu A-590 of the Turkish Navy.

The Powhatan-class T-ATFs hare huge, by New York tugboat stands:   226′ loa x 42′ x 15.’

And they do long, large tows.  Here about a year ago, Apache begins to tow a decommissioned USS Nassau to join the reserve fleet  in Texas.  Click here for more context on the foto, taken from USNS Grapple, another MSC vessel that may appear on this blog soon.

Thanks to Birk Thomas, I have a few more fotos of Apache in New London.  Note the towline . . . attached to a sub in this 2010 foto, and  . . .

light in 2011.   Here’s a question I do NOT know the answer to:  Apache visited NYC before 2001, but I don’t know when.  Does anyone recall this?  Have a foto of this?

In the next post, we look inside Apache.  Next question . . . does this marlinespike seamanship have a name?  Would this have been original to this 1981 vessel?  By the way, Apache’s 31st b’day (technically d’day . . . D for delivery)   is late July.

Only the first and last fotos are by Will Van Dorp. The second and third from last are thanks to Birk Thomas.  All the others come from Military Sealift Command.   Many thanks to Susan Melow, MSC Public Affairs Officer,  for setting up a visit and to Apache Second Officer Michael R. Rankin for guiding the tour.

Click here to see Apache towing USS Forrestal.  Here she is in St. Petersburg.  Finally, here she deals with Atlantic Ocean pirates.

Finally, once again, does anyone remember when Apache visited NYC?  Is there an archive online for vessels visiting during Fleet Weeks going back to 1982?

More Tugging 4

Study the foto below snapped about a week ago on the East River. How do you interpret it? The vessel in the foreground is 226 LOA and can have a crew of 40.

 

It’s Powhatan, an ocean/salvage tug of Donjon Marine. What looks like a pilot house on the after deck of Powhatan is actually what’s moving the larger vessel toward the Upper Bay, Donjon’s Kendall P. Brake. I can only guess at the reason.

 

Here’s a link to another still-active “Powhatan-class” Navy tug. If you want to scroll about 3/4s down to Powhatan class fleet tugs, click here. Certainly, I could call this post a “second lives.”

 

Above is another Donjon tug, Atlantic Salvor, same company, big tug.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.