Replenished Rockaway

Aug 31.  A late summer day at the beach, where a new “towel drying rack” has been adopted and a bumper crop

of sand awaits the erosion of winter, perhaps?  All photos here taken by Barbara Barnard.

Sept 1.  A tug (Trevor?) moves a crane barge to where the “drying rack”/piping needs to be fished out for transport to the next job.

Sept 13.  The remaining pipe on the beach, no longer serving to dry swimmers’ towels, awaits dismantling and

allows for closer inspection.

This Rockaway series was of course motivated by Hurricane Sandy and the photos of Rockaway by my friend Barbara in the past 12 months.  Barbara, many thanks.   Here was my Nemo to Flag Day post, which started with a mystery house.

And now it looks like the Nola “make it right” rebuilding plan is coming to the Rockaways.  Click here for the design for “resilient house.”    Here’s an earlier article.

Click here for a project/business entirely created by the devastation of trees during the storm.  It’s not maritime, water,  or even specifically landthreshold related, but is quite interesting.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 12

Here’s where the “leverman” sits for a twelve-hour shift as the C. R. McCaskill slews port to starboard 400′ once each three and a half minutes.   Another way of saying that is  the dredge moves using a five-point mooring system: two swing anchors, two breast anchors and one stern anchor to move forward or back.  A different configuration uses a spudded idler barge;  in this case, the “swing” is longer and takes more more time.   Food gets delivered so that the leverman aka dredge operator can monitor all these screens and respond so that dredging can proceed 24/7 as long as equipment and conditions permit.  More on food later.

Slewing . . . drawing on cables attached to positioned anchors and pivoting on a stern point . . . requires that the 30” diamater hose be able to flex.  Hence, the easy curved slack before the piping to the beach.

The crewboat in the distance alternates between hydrographic survey work and other tasks.  More on that in a moment.  More crewboats in a future post.

Attachment at the stern is a ball and socket joint . . . like your hip.

Here’s the starboard GE engine, part of the power supply to the dredge.

Here is another view of the two huge hull-mounted pumps that do the work.

Another task of the crewboat is illustrated here:  recreational boaters sometimes allow their curiosity to override any sense of danger caused by a busy, slewing dredge.

The helicopter happened to be here on assignment to photograph the work from the air.

About the food, here’s  mission control presided over by Edwina Arthur, a member of the 30-50 person crew.

Food rules and pecking order are clearly posted.

Captain Randy Guidry, my host for this tour,  proudly displays the builder’s plate, Corn Island Shipyard in Indiana, where the hull was constructed.

As I stated in the previous post, McCaskill’s part in the dredging/beach replenishment has now ended and vessels and crew have moved south for the next job.

Many thanks to Captain Guidry, Jan Andrusky, and all the other fine folks at Weeks Marine for this tour.

All fotos, text, and (any inadvertent errors) by Will Van Dorp.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 11

Here and here are previous posts on a Rockaway Beach replenishment dredging operation that has now ended.   Sea Wolf is still local, but the vessel on the horizon (“atop” the red buoy) has now moved to southern NJ.  Remember, for most fotos, doubleclick enlarges.

Weeks’ Trevor was assisting in this project.

Also assisting was George W.

But here’s the powerhouse, the dredge.  Let’s take a tour.

In spite of about 16,000 total horsepower, C. R. McCaskill is not self-propelled.  To see what towed the dredge to the south, see the foto at the end of this post.    All that power moves the cutterhead on the submerged arm (called a “ladder”) that extends to the sand at the bottom of the Channel here.  At the top end of the ladder are two huge pumps (you could stand inside the pump housing) that suck the sand and whatever else off the bottom and send it as a slurry to a point on the beach some miles away.  Click here for a pdf that shows the beautiful (ok . . . roll your eyes) virgin red cutterhead with green teeth.    Each tooth weighs around 35 pounds!

Here inside the dredge are some interesting astounding facts about the machine.

See the sand colored building on the horizon off the stern of McCaskill?  That’s the area around 105th St. Rockaway Beach where the sand is headed through piping powered by this vessel.  The first few fotos in this post were taken at that beach.  There’ll be another Rockaway post soon.

Candace towed C. R. McCaskill south.  I missed her when she was in town, but John Skelson caught her here.  Click on the foto to see John’s complete shot.  Many thanks to John for use of that shot from his Flickr page.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except for the one shared by John Skelson.  For more info on each of the Weeks tugs, click here.  More McCaskill tomorrow.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 9

Here’s a followup on the Rockaway sand pumping, and there’s gold in those sands, over $36 million worth.   Notice the dredging/pumping vessel upper right.

This was the fountain this morning.

Once the slurry exits the mouth, water flows back into the ocean and sand is pushed up the beach.

This repurposed container is project headquarters.

The top foto comes thanks to Barbara Barnard;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

Whole Lotta Dredgin’ 8

I’m back, with lots of gallivanting to catch up, but first . .  a whole lotta fotos from this morning in the sixth boro.  Any ideas what’s going on here?  What is that gray blur in the center of the foto and why are the gulls so frenzied?  Be forewarned . . . this post has so many twists/turns . . . it’s divided into parts, even though I took all these fotos in the span of less than an hour.

Part 1

Answer:  It’s how over three million cubic yards of sand is being added to Rockaway Beach . .  at least for a while.  Here’s what the NY Daily News says about it.  Here’s an article and video from Dredging Today.

And here . . . off in the Rockaway Inlet are the machines mining and pumping the sand, seen closer up in this recent  tugster post.

Part 2.  Notice  the piping coming from the stern of McCaskill.

I could not resist wondering about these birds whose name rhymes with “lovers.”

Part 3.  Follow this sweep of fotos as I turn to the left.

An Atlantic City billboard on Far Rockaway?  Is a mixed up sense of geography part of Sandy’s legacy?  I keep turning left.

A Potemkin village and that’s an A  Train station to the right?

See the silvery cars of the A train?  It’s a Boardwalk Empire set in the wasteland of eastern Rockaway Beach . . . . I was hoping to buy some of that food at those prices!

Of course, I had to look behind.

I half expected to find some Aral Sea boats back here too.

Part 4.  Once back on the boardwalk, I saw this fishing boat about a quarter mile from shore.  I’m guessing it’s unrelated to the sand piping and pumping, but   . . . who knows.

All fotos today by Will Van Dorp.

Shear Legs

title sounds provocative?   Well,  I’ll subtitle this “whole lotta dredgin’ 6.”  It’s been almost three years since I’ve used this title, but .  .   . when Sabine‘s this close to the beach and

there’s a tube in the water, there must

be a shear leg  or

two lurking nearby, although I wonder if these are shear legs . . . technically speaking.

I’m not positive what Sea Wolf

George W, and

and Trevor were doing  . . . other than arranging the dredge spoils pipe,

with Sabine  monitoring . .  .

ut it has to do with the mother dredger ship some distance away.  Fotos of her .  . tomorrow.  And if there’s a dredger’s rainbow and someone gets a pic, I’d love to see it.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who found a reason to lurk awhile along NYC’s Copacabana/Ipanema . . . .

Groin Yanking 2

I happened to be down near the Rockaways aka Lenape “rack-a-wak-e” yesterday and stopped by for another look.  The orange loader to the right has a mouthful of yanked groins.  In the background, note the surfers.

I wouldn’t surf or swim or kayak here even without a sign.  Rockaway is expansive enough to go elsewhere.

But I found the answer to my lingering question . . . who is doing the yanking . . .

It’s Platinum Marine Services.

I still failed to notice the name of this workboat, but

I have more posts coming from NYC’s Copacabana and Ipanema rolled into one.  And notice how the grass is growing in between the old supports for the boardwalk?  Compare with the second and third fotos here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Groin Yanking

No . . . despite the title, this blog has not turned to commentary on recent developments in the “five boros” mayor’s race.  And no again . . . the focus has NOT shifted to the machines referred to water scooters aka PWCs.  I took this foto on Tuesday after the two guys here seemed to coordinate with the crew of

this vessel, which seemed distinctly intended for work.

A little while later, I saw this, although at the time I didn’t know the project until yesterday in the NYTimes I noticed the pic associated with

this article about the removal of “death sticks for surfers.”

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who says . . . yank away!  Anyone know more about whose equipment this is?

Rockaway Nemo to Flag Day

This is NOT Rockaway or Queens or any other boro of New York City.  This residence is a post-hurricane structure.  The location will be identified at the end of this post.

For the previous installment in this series . . . Sandy to Nemo . . .  from four months ago, click here.

Here’s a March foto taken by Barbara from her 7th floor terrace, showing water/land edges in southern Queens.  In fotos farther down, you’ll see this reinforced building now painted greenish yellow.

Early April 2013.

Mid April.

The rest of these fotos I took today at sea level.  Note the lifeguard on duty, bundled up for morning 60-degrees beach.  In the foreground beyond the fence is one of the concrete supports for the boardwalk Sandy peeled away.  Maersk Denver, anchored on the horizon, will serve as a reference point.   When Nemo happened, this vessel was in port in Taiwan.

And now in situ are the bathrooms that Ashley send a foto of about a month ago here.   Foto looks roughly north.

Same bathrooms, looking roughly south.

Beachside view of the bathrooms and yellow structure housing life guard offices/concessions-to-be . . . looking northeast.

Click here for more info on the artwork created from portions of Sandy-splintered boardwalk.

Looking southwest.

Where once a mosaic covered cetacean I dubbed “rockawhale” resided,

construction trailers now stand.  A geodesic dome marks the intersection of Shore Parkway and Cross Bay Parkway.

A closer look showed it to be part of another artistic response to Sandy’s devastation.  I wonder what will happen after June 30.

I took the top foto in this post in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, where the Make It Right project is attempting to do just that.  I hope we make it right too.

Rockaway Sandy to Nemo

Click here to see fotos Barbara took from her apartment on three or so successive  days about three months ago—before, during, and after Sandy.

The next two fotos she took this morning–here of snow on top of post Sandy transformation– after our first significant 2013 winter storm in the sixth boro.  For outatowners,  Barbara’s apartment–on the beach–is within the limits of NYC.   In the sky, that’s a midmorning sun.

Double click enlarges:  on the rightside horizon, that’s the anchorage off Long Beach (NY) and vessels might include Nord Inspiration, Seoul Express, Kurohio Express, Crown Mina . . . and others.

Click on the foto below to see where I got it . . . but to me, Nemo is the guy who drove that vessel out of the imagination of Jules Verne and into mine a half century ago.

Barbara . . . thanks for the top two fotos, and as for the one of Nemo’s ride, you can make it your wallpaper as I made it mine.