On Turning 86

The 1931 bridge has been so prominent on this blog over the past decade plus that the past few years of construction and now deconstruction mesmerize me.  Just look at the header photo I’ve not changed since 2006.  I’ll never change it now.

I spent a few hours watching the work yesterday and share some of the photos here today and tomorrow.  Photo 1 was taken at 06:49 before work began, from what I could tell;  I’m the observer only and speculate sometimes because I’m not privy to the communications.  NY is to the left and NJ to the right.

06:54 … NJ side.  A safety and planning meeting?

07:01.  Workers use various means to venture out to the severed transverse beam (?) to begin its removal.

07:30.  Similar activity starts on the NY side.

07:52

08:25.  Almost imperceptibly slow, the movement of the transverse progresses.

08:28.  And then it speeds up.

08:36.  A flatbed trailer has backed into place to receive the beam.

08:38.  Meanwhile, over on the NJ side, a similar evolution has begun.

08:39.

Meanwhile, at 08:43, a container vessel is rounding Bergen bend  and headed for sea, after “threading the needle,”  …  well, not really, it made it in with those beams in place . . .

08:43, and we’ll pick up the evolution here tomorrow with MSC Kolkata   . . .  Note the crewmen on the bow?

I’d like to give a hat tip to all the Bayonne Bridge workers who work with such skill and safety in this enormous project, one of at least six bridge projects happening simultaneously in the greater sixth boro.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Dead Ship

Stuff happens.  Like cars and trucks, ships too sometimes need a tow.  Pretty World needed a tow to the repair facility a few years back.  Here’s Horizon Crusader towed to the scrap yard.  Here’s CV-60 USS Saratoga getting a tow to the same end.

Thorco Hilde found herself at the end of this tow line in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

I caught the tow just as I went for a walk along the water’s edge.

The zoom told me they were surely attached. As of Monday morning, she was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard getting fixed.

The lead tug here is Marjorie B McAllister, featured in many previous posts indexed here.  In this role, she reminds me of some of Farley Mowat’s best, his novels about salvage tugs, a role once played by the tug below, now dissolving in the Arthur Kill, as she looked when I took her photo in August 2011.  In April 1945, the salvage tug below assisted in towing the torpedoed Atlantic States back to safety in Boston for repair and reuse.

Many thanks to Thomas Steinruck for use of the top photo.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Random Ships 53

Big sky and small ship?  Actually it’s among the largest ships currently serving NYC, at 1063′ loa, or almost 2.81 times loa of Peking and 3.3 times the beam.

Actually, Hyundai Jupiter is the first of HMM’s “Earth-series” that I’ve gotten any sort of photo of.  My recent attempt of Hyundai Pluto was lost in the snowstorm a few weeks back.  As of this writing, Pluto is off western US, Mars is off western Mexico, Saturn … off western Korea, Neptune … traversing Tsugaru Straits, and Hyundai Earth … between Madagascar and Cape of Good Hope.

She’s among the biggest in the port, 1062′ x 155.’

 

Other ships calling recently include Bow Jubail, here assisted by

Turecamo Girls.  By the way, did you even notice the assist tugs on Hyundai Jupiter above?

Shrike loaded scrap,

APL Yangshan and Hamburg Sud Monte Rosa transfer boxes, and

Polaris waits at anchor.

To return here to the tugs visible on the Hyundai ship, they were Robert E.  and Erin.

 

Invisible but assisting on the starboard side was Ellen.  And as of this writing Hyundai Jupiter has tied up in Norfolk, doing a steady almost-20 its much of the way.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Congestion 3

Here  are the two previous posts by this title, and more.

Juxtaposed boats invite comparison, allow perception of subtle difference, here between Marion and Doris.

It also gives a sense of the random traffic patterns, here about to pass the impatient Peking are (l to r) Michael Miller, Charles Burton, and way in the distance Robert E. McAllister.

Here , a few seconds later, Charles Burton‘s barge CVA-601 is about to obscure Chandra B–on a ship assist?– and Miriam Moran.

 

Here, from l to r, it’s Sapphire Coast, Charles Burton, Evening Mist, Ellen S. Bouchard, Robert E. McAllister, Scott Turecamo, and Erin McAllister.   

And a quarter hour later and from a different vantage point, it’s Stena Companion, Cielo di Milano, a Miller launch, Maersk Phoenix, and NCS Beijing.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Old Year 2016

This is my Janus post . . . which I’ll start with a photo I took in January 2007 of an intriguing set of sculptures, since licensed to Trinity Church in Manhattan.

Since I’ve tons to do today, comment will be minimal.  The photo below I took near the KVK salt pile on January 14, 2016.  Eagle Ford, to the right, has since been scrapped in Pakistan.

The history of Alnair, photo taken in Havana harbor on February 4, 2016, is still untraced.  It looks like an ex-USN tug.  Click here for more Cuban photos.

This photo of JRT Moran and Orange Sun I took on March 12.

This photo of Hudson was taken in Maassluis, very near where my father grew up,  on April 4. Many more Maassluis photos can be found here.

Sandmaster I photographed here on May 6.  since then, she’s moved to Roatan, I’m told, and I’d love to go there and see how she’s doing.  Maybe I can learn some Garifuna while I’m there.

June 1, I took this, with Robert E. McAllister and an invisible Ellen escorting Maersk Idaho out the door.

July 14, I saw GL tug Nebraska yank bulkier Isolda with 56,000 tons of corn through a narrow opening and out the Maumee.

August 23 I caught Atlantic Sail outbound past a nearly completed Wavertree.  And come to think of it, this is a perfect Janus photo.

September 9 at the old port in Montreal I caught Svitzer Montreal tied up and waiting for the next job.

October 18, I caught Atlanticborg and Algoma Enterprise down bound between Cape Vincent and Clayton NY.

November 4, while waiting for another tow, I caught Sarah Ann switching out scrap scows in the Gowanus.

And I’ll end this retrospective Janus post with a mystery shot, which I hope to tell you more about in 2017.  All I’ll say is that I took it yesterday and can identify only some of what is depicted. Anyone add something about this photo?

I feel blessed with another year of life, energy, gallivants, and challenges.  Thank you for reading and writing me.  Special thanks to you all who sent USPS cards !  I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2017.   Here’s what Spock would say and where he got it.

Here was my “last hours” post from 2015.  And here from the year before with some vessels sailing away forever.   And here showing what I painted in the last hours of 2013.  And one more with origins “oud jaardag” stuff from the finale of 2011.

ButterPosa

or “marifly.”  These two tankers have called here for some years now, but I always wondered whether they were one and the same, given that their names refer to the same critter.  Maybe other vessels in the fleet have names like Paruparo and Borboleta.  Anchored over in Bay Ridge was Mariposa, while doing short-time in Bayonne

was Butterfly.

After finishing up business in Bayonne, Butterfly flitted off

 

with Robert E. McAllister lined up port side

 

 

while Charles D. McAllister took care of her port.

Think they have caterpillars on board?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Rounding Bergen Point 3

Before returning to bends around points on other rivers, I want to share some photos I took yesterday, first in a while at Bergen Point.  Here’s the set-up out of Newark Bay.

I’d love to know the tension of the line up from Marjorie.

Ellen pushes on the port stern quarter, and

Robert counters on the opposite bow.

It’s gusty.

But someone calling the shots up there knows how

to rotate

just right.  A year from now, it’s possible there will be gaps in that lower roadbed, if any of it left at all.

 

I’ve no idea what the clearance was yesterday, and I’m eager for that walkway to be re-opened.

 

Another job is almost complete here as of late morning Friday, but the work never ceases, as traffic into the port can be said to

be ever lining up.  There are 30 (I believe) of these Ever L ships, liberal, lasting, lovely, loading, lifting, lucid, laden, lucky, loyal, linking, and more.

Lambent left Shanghai in early November  and will be back in Panama Asia-bound late next week.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.

 

Equinox 5b

Given the glorious sunshine, the transition from summer to fall begs another series.  Let’s start with Maule, 

2/3s of her escort, and

a fraction of her crew.

Following in Maule‘s wake, Helsinki Bridge arrives, here with half its escort.

McKinley Sea traverses the Upper Bay and passes

UBC Mobile.

In the harbor was Cordula Jacob and Seastar, as seen from two angles.

with some ferries and a Miller’s Launch crew boat.

Caitlin Ann and

Miss Lizzy work the AK and in the

KVK, for the last day, there are two glorious ships with bright futures . . .

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

x

 

Chrononauts 1

I have more Saint Lawrence posts, but with a chrononautical weekend behind us, let me digress and report.  The mood for the first ship was set by the weather;  see what the mist did to my favorite downtown building–70 Pine.  Click here and be treated to a slideshow of views through time of boro Manhattan’s  tall observation cliffs, past present and future.

Looking eastbound up the East River, I saw her waiting, as

first one of her entourage arrived and

and then another.

The term “haze gray” was certainly demonstrated yesterday,

as was the vintage of this Liberty ship headed to sea, for a cruise.

 

Even the Higgins T-boat in the distance is a whole decade closer to the present–in inception– than Brown, although  yesterday all crowded into 2016.

 

It was a moving sight,

which I beheld,

only slightly regretting I was not aboard.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Sixth Boro 8

You’d have thought I use this title more often, but it’s been almost three years since it last appeared. I’m starting with this photo of the lightship WLV-612, because this is where I’ll be this evening for a FREE and open-to-the-public 6 pm showing of our documentary Graves of Arthur Kill.  Seats for those who arrive first.

Over the years I’ve done many posts about the WLV-612, but my favorite is this one.

Here’s a very recent arrival in the sixth boro’s pool of workboats . . . Fort McHenry, just off the ways, although just yesterday an even-more recent arrival.  more on that one soon, I hope.  I don’t know how new Double Skin 315 is.

Ships in the anchorage and waterways must think they are in a tropical clime, given the temperatures of August 2016.

NS Parade, Iron Point, MTM St Jean …  have all been here recently.

Robert E. McAllister returned from a job, possibly having assisted Robert E. Peary.

MSC Lucy headed out past

Larry J. Hebert, standing by at a maintenance dredging job.

MOL Bellwether, all 1105′ loa of her, leave into the humid haze, existing here along with

some wind to propel this sloop.

Finally, just the name, sir;  No need for the entire genealogy. This photo comes compliments of Bob Dahringer.

Thanks to Bob for the photo above;  all others by Will Van Dorp.