Retro Sixth Boro 12

March 2009 . . . Stephen Scott here passes Port Ivory, near my old job, pushing RTC 70.   I’m still looking for Stephen Scott photo is her new profile, sans upper wheelhouse.  Port Ivory was an intriguing place name for me when I first moved here;  once a North Shore Branch of the SIRR even had a station there.

Kimberly Poling already had the color scheme, but adding a few more teal stripes to her current appearance is a big improvement.

Lettie passed by once while I scheduled my lunch break.  As of today’s posting, Lettie G is in Mobile AL!!  If she continues, she could end up back in Lake Erie by way of the great loop.  Is that what’s happening?  A few months I caught her at the top end of the Welland Canal here.

More Port Ivory area, Specialist was around, then called Specialist II.

So was the huge K-Sea fleet, which included Falcon.

This post should be called “sixth boro and beyond,” since I took this photo of Justine with RTC 120 up near Saugerties.  Back then,

was that a red canoe along her portside rail?

Side by side  in the Rondout 10 years ago were Hackensack, the 1953 colorful one, and Petersburg, 1954 vintage and still in the general area.  Last I knew, Hackensack was in Guyana pushing molasses barges.

And going  farther out, it’s Allie B pulling Goliath on a cargo barge Brooklyn Bridge out of Quincy MA, with assistance from Vincent D. Tibbetts Jr and Justice.

Here’s a closer up of Liberty.  For the entire reportage on that journey to Mangalia, Romania (!!), click here.  Damen operates the crane in their shipyard there, the largest shipyard in the Damen collection.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you enjoy these looks back as much as I do.

Ice Work on the Hudson

Ice . ..  white gold for some.  Imagine the videos you’ll find at the end of this post.  Imagine tugboat Cornell powering through it:  two soundtracks being a smooth 16-cylinder engine and stuccato crunching of ice.

A tribulation for others.  And like many dangerous things, ice can be beautiful, reminiscent of  Thomas Cole. 

Through this, your petroleum products must flow, safely.  Here Sturgeon Bay cuts a trail for Davis Bay and DBL 28, loaded with 30,000 barrels of home heating oil, but

on a cold day, the ice chunks have already started to re-freeze before the square-fronted barge gets there.

Passing us is Justine McAllister pushing a light Reinauer barge, RTC 120 past the small village of Port Ewen, once home to Sojourner Truth.

Davis Sea‘s path here is flanked by Thunder Bay (port) and Sturgeon Bay (starboard).  Each of these 140′ USCG icebreakers has a bubbler system that makes the hull slippery, preventing a “plug” of ice from building up around the hull.  When you watch the video on Cornell, notice the plug moving forward in front on DBL 28, impeding progress.

At breaktime yesterday, Davis Sea, having delivered its load to a local oil distributor, comes out of the notch to raft up with Cornell.  Elise Ann Conners . ..  dates from 1881!  Consider that Cornell dates from 1949 and Davis Sea from 1982!

All part of getting your home heating oil to the burner in your basement.

See a tugster video below.

and a video by Harold Tartell below showing progress of Taurus southbound through Poughkeepsie.

Unless otherwise attributed, all fotos by Will Van Dorp.

And a year ago tonight, recall this ice adventure?