To Bayway, from Point Tupper

You saw a different version of this photo last week, NS Leader being assisted into Bayway.  This begs the question . . .  from where did NS Leader come?  Where did it take on the cargo discharged at Bayway?

The answer for NS Leader and lots more crude tankers is Point Tupper NS, where there’s a NuStar Terminal.  Maybe you’ve seen that on AIS.

Sailing a tanker from there looks a lot like here, although the Strait of Canso is quite a bit deeper than the Kills.  That’s Eagle Varna, a VLCC,  at the dock.  Smaller Eagle tankers (AET) used to call in the sixth boro, as in here and here, although I don’t recall seeing them recently.

Here Point Chebucto and Point Valiant assist Suezmax tanker Eagle San Antonio.

Here London Spirit departs the dock

with Point Chebucto and Svitzer Montreal to port and Svitzer Bedford to starboard.  NYK “Spirit” tankers used to call regularly in the sixth boro as in here,  here and here, and maybe they still do.

Stena Weco tankers call in the sixth boro frequently as well:  Stena Concert, Stena Contest . . .  come to mind.

Here Switzer Bedford and Point Chebucto assist Stena Conquest

out to sea via the Strait.  Svitzer Canada is a towing branch of Maersk with a network of hundreds of boats.

Many thanks to Jack Ronalds for these photos.  More of Jack’s photos soon.  If you want to see some of them right now, click here  for his Marine Traffic snaps and here for his general photos, not limited to maritime shots.

Once US citizens are again welcome in Canada, I hope to make many trips, including one up his way.

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.

Random Tugs 177

Here’s an Ocean tug I left out of yesterday’s post . . . one of the Trois Rivieres’ fleet, Andre M.  She has a distinguished past as the former Foundation Valiant, of the company made famous in Farley Mowat’s classics Grey Seas Under and The Serpent’s Coil.

Svitzer moved into Montreal recently, named one tug for the port and

another for 17th century gallivanteur bretonais.  Click here for some backstory on Montreal and here for  . . . Cartier. 

Denis M, a port tug, is an oldie from 1942.

Michigan and its barge Great Lakes is

Indiana registered, and it appears to be Andrie-managed for US Venture.  Here are some specifics.  To my surprise, other Andrie-managed (?) vessels may include G. L. Ostrander and Samuel de Champlain.

Boatman No. 6 seems to operate as a one-boat harbor service vessel.

Since Everlast has captured my imagination, I was happy to see it again just upstream from Montreal.

Has anyone seen a photo of her as Bilibino?  Some of her interesting worldwide history can be found here.

And the last boat for today is Qimu, which

is a rare sight for my southern eyes because of the script on the stern and bow.  It’s Inuktitut, written in a Canadian Aboriginal syllabic script.   Over a decade ago and before I had the habit of carrying a camera, I saw a general cargo ship in Red Hook Brooklyn with its name written in similar script.  I no longer recall the name of the ship, but it looked like this one.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And unrelated but in closing, here’s a information request from Michael Pak, which you can also see in the comments section to the left above, where you can also post your answers:  “Hello, I’m wondering if anyone here can help me find out any information about my great grandfather John Maitland Adams, a tugboat captain on the Hudson in the thirties and forties I believe. He is mentioned in the March 1947 National Geographic magazine in the story “Shad in the Shadows of Skyscrapers” along with ‘river veterans, Captain, Fred Truax, Harry Lyons,Floyd Clayton and William Ingold.’  My grandmother and great uncles spent their early years on the river, they hauled coal and lumber up and down the river. He retired from the river and became an engineer on the Hudson River West Coast Line. He lived out his life on the river dying on his boat in Edgewater, I think. In his obituary they refer to him as ‘Pop Adams.’  Any records or info about him would be greatly appreciated.”  MP.

Anyone help out with leads?

Here’s more on shad fishing in the Hudson.

And since we’re on research requests, does anyone know which tug would have been towing cargo barge Columbia Boston in Cape Cod Bay in February 1992 when it lost some containers?  Here’s a reference to that event in a Bangor paper a year later because of  flotsam.

 

North Bound 8

As we head upstream into Montreal, an orange dawn greets us from beyond Sainte-Anne de Varennes Basilica.

Closer to Montreal, a line of ships awaits, three at anchor and two down bound.

 

 

Ocean Intrepide switches the pilots.

If I’d been sleep-deprived, my first sense of Biosphere might have been a nearby planet beyond Buffalo-built  American Mariner. 

I recognized Balder immediately, new name notwithstanding.

And the raised metal confirmed my suspicion.

I was not expecting to learn of this direct link to a distant archipelago rich in lobsters and road salt, but one of these years, that’s a trip I’d love to do both for the destination--Îles de la Madeleine–and the journey.

I have no photos to prove it, but I wanted to experience Lachine Rapids, so I took a surprisingly enjoyable tour in one of these get-very-wet boats.

I wanted to see the rapids, because without this perceived barrier to reaching China from here, Montreal might not have become a city.

Because we tied up at Bickerdike terminal, we had the good fortune to see these Svitzer tugs and

 

Oceanex Connaigra, 

here passing the Clock Tower.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who comes to the end of the actual trip with this post and who will now recap the same trip with some of the details left out.