Random Ships 103

The sixth boro always provides lots to look at and wonder about.  USNS Watson and Regulus, both are getting some service at Bayonne dry dock. 

Heroic Leader, 7500-car capacity, departs with “who-knows-what” in her hold.  She’s currently approaching the Panama Canal

Ever Front arrived soon after 

Ever Fame had departed.  There are a total of 20 Ever F-class vessels, including the now unfortunate but now operating again Ever Forward.  At least half the class has already appeared on tugster.  Note the differences between E Front and E Fame . . . look at the house and the stacks.  I should do a post about this.

CMA CGM Columba has appeared on this blog before.

Let’s hope the tanker Merapi  does not go the way of its possible namesake?  And might the bulker Stoja be named for the singer?

Once again with Pacific Jade, we see the big LNG tanks that seem to be increasingly common in the sixth boro.  Alongside is Andrea, appearing here for the second time in this post.  Find the other?

CMA CGM Magellan has been here before, always making me think of Mactan. 

Frankopan has the distinction of a Zadar registry.  Know where that is?

All photos, any errors, WVD.

Here’s the answer about Zadar. 

 

Winter Light 2023

If it seems I have a dirty lens, I don’t, but this winter has been a season of the good light and my schedule not coinciding.  No matter . . . the subject just looks grayer than I’d like much of the time.

When this ULCV arrived the other day with Mary Turecamo as one of the assists, I was reminded of how high the deck is on these ships, and they’re getting ultra-larger and higher.  In this post, Mary’s upper house was way above deck level on the tanker. 

Will this nose be superseded by Marco‘s style of nose?

Janet D was sharp, but note how hazy the distant shore is.

HMS Liberty is appreciably closer than Barney Turecamo, and therefore is sharper, until 

Barney gets closer. 

Enjoy these others:  Jillian Irene, 

Horizon’s Edge (a newby in the boro?) and Regulus, 

Schuylkill, 

another shot of Liberty, 

Crystal Cutler and Patricia E. Poling, 

and finally Margaret. 

All photos, WVD.

Mackie and Ellis Island

Below is a variation on the photos I posted yesterday, showing a bit more context to the west.  Let’s recap identifying right to left:  Regulus, Teresa with Acadia, and GLDD tugboat Douglas B. Mackie and dredge barge Ellis Island.  

I’ve posted other GLDD dredges in the past:   Padre Island here, Terrapin Island here, Dodge Island here.  GLDD trailing suction head dredges have “Island” in the name, but they are only some of GLDD’s dredging machines.

Mackie is huge:  158′ x 52′ x 27.3′ draft, and powered by two Mak 12M32C-T3, 7,831HP each, turning controllable pitch propellers. The dredge barge has its own power for the pumps.  See some stats here, and more  stats here.

Note the black hull of Mackie and the red of Ellis Island. 

Ellis Island measures 433′ x ’92, can dredge down to 122′ and has hopper capacity of just shy of 15,000 yd3.  Dredge spoils can discharged through the bottom of the hull over a designated dump site.

She’s been working off Sandy Hook. I believe this is the only ATB trailing suction hopper dredge in the US.

All photos, WVD, who supposes she came in for protection from rough seas;  as of this morning, she headed back out to the work area.

 

We Get Rainbows

If you focus on national weather, you might imagine snow has fallen to the extent that we’re back in the ice age, but I decided to walk out to the fishing pier near Owl’s Head, and 

voila!  there were Unico’s Teresa with Acadia as well as Regulus, bathed in rainbow light. Likely it was raining in Manhattan, but not on me, nor was it snowing.

More photos from my walk tomorrow, but I’m guessing Regulus is in port because of big seas out where she’s been working in the Bight. 

All photos this morning, WVD, who has previously seen rainbows in the boro here. 

 

Exotics 24

I’m always thrilled to see these specialized vessels in the sixth boro.  I’d seen Regulus before, but see how her deck machinery back in November 2019 was different than it is now.  Versatility is key.

That red T identifies her as a Tidewater boat, a PSV (platform supply vessel), one of hundreds of speciality vessels operated around the world.  The link in the previous sentence provides lot of information about the company, its history back to the mid-1950s, and its boats.  Most Tidewater boats have a two-word name, the second being “Tide”, eg., Desoto Tide or Ebb Tide, which launched the company in 1956.  See a photo of Ebb Tide here. 

The fact that Regulus does not indicates she came from the Gulfmark fleet, which Tidewater absorbed.

 

I’m out of my depth here, but I’d wager there’s a “moon pool” directly beneath the red tower, an opening in the hull though which subsea equipment can safely be lowered or retrieved.  Scroll through this link to see a great photo through the moon pool and into the deeps.

The A-frame on the stern can also be used to lower/retrieve instrumentation, here inside the yellow frame.

 

 

If you didn’t notice in the links above, the dimensions here are 272′ x 58′ and powered by a total of 10250 hp.

As is true of many of the “exotics” in this blog, the impending wind farm construction explains their presence here. 

As of sunrise this morning, the Jones Act Regulus has headed back to sea.

All photos, WVD. 

 

Exotics Convergence

Polling has not yet ended, the clock goes on for two more days now, since I got a bunch of votes last night. With all certainty, though, polls will close on December 21 . . .  earlier if two days elapse without a single new vote.  Your votes and suggestions –in comments and in emails–have already influenced the design of the calendar.

Many thanks to David Silver for this photo . . .  can you guess where it was taken?

You might want to see where previous photos shared by David Silver were taken here.   You can find the answer at the end of this post.

While you’re trying to figure out the answer using the title and the night pics, have a look at the project of converting a Responder class OSRV into a new Sandy Hook Pilots “mothership”.

For a complete Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC) equipment list, click here.

As I understand it, Maine Responder was sold out of MSRC because it was considered excess.   Maybe someone can confirm that.

Here’s the wheels.

Have you guessed where David took the top picture?  The answer is .  . . Elizabethport, NJ.  In the darkness are three exquisite exotics:   Regulus, Kelly Ann Candies, and Highland Eagle.  Kelly Ann came into the sixth boro yesterday just before dark, but it was so foggy in the Narrows that in the 500′ or so visibility she was as invisible to someone there as she’d be 500 miles at sea.  And then, she left before good light this morning.  I caught Kelly Ann entering Guanabara Bay almost six years ago.  Regulus I caught in Bayonne earlier this fall, and Highland Eagle I caught in northern Lake Huron this summer, where she was doing some sounding work.

Many thanks to David for this photo.  The others by Will Van Dorp, who is eager to see how the ex-Maine Responder evolves.

 

Exotics 16

Here the previous posts on exotics, vessels not typically seen in the sixth boro.  I take the label from birders, as they use it to classify birds.

Regulus is a 2014 product of Thoma-Sea in conjunction with TAI.

She left to go offshore yesterday, but she’d been at the Bayonne dry dock at least a few weeks.  I believe that red derrick was not mounted on the afterdeck when she arrived, but I’m not certain of that.  Anyone help?

Click here for more specs.  Most likely that derrick is mounted over a moon pool, as would be the case with a DP2 OSV.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who could classify this as a specialized vessel as well.

 

Exotics 15 and 16

I could be wrong, but a raft of unusual vessels coming through the sixth boro recently is related to priorities set and now contracts signed by a NYS agency created in 1975 called NYSERDA.  Three organizations you’ll be hearing a lot from are Equinor Wind US, Ørsted A/S, and Eversource Energy, and their projects Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind.  Click here for a map of the target areas.

Geosea is one of these vessels.

She has accommodations for 70 crew, 

some of whom you see taking photos as they enter the Narrows.

 

As of this posting she’s in port in Elizabeth NJ.

 

Also in port this morning–and hence the rainy photo until I get a better one–it’s Regulus, a US-flagged platform supply vessel.

Here’s another, taken earlier from a slightly different angle.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s always welcoming of others’ photos, particularly now in relation to wind farm related developments in the sixth boro.

Click here for my series related to the already functioning offshore wind farm along the NE coast, Deepwater Wind.