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Let’s jump back to May 2012. Over along the Manhattan side of the East River then, I caught this scene. Since then, there’s been some movement: Peking to Germany, Marion M to the Chesapeake, Helen McAllister to . . . rebirth as new steel.
Cheyenne has migrated to the Lake Michigan for now.
Twin Tube is still around but sans the boom.
Ellen McAllister is also still hard at work in the sixth boro, but I don’t see her doing much indirect towing as here.
Mark Moran was just passing through from the shipyard to Charleston.
Swan, built in 1981 and showing as her last movement three and a half years ago in China, has likely gone to rebirth as new steel.
But a decade ago in May 2012, she was here to move some used tugboats over to West Africa. Here she’s already down and BFT No. 38 with a crew boat strapped on has already been loaded, while
McAllister Sisters and McAllister Girls wait with three Crowley tugs,
Cavalier, Pioneer, and Mars.
After they are floated aboard, the tide turns the anchored Swan.
Socrates and Heron also float aboard, and
overnight, Swan gets deballasted and raises the hull, so that we can see their five-bladed wheels. More of the story here.
Also in the boro those days was Picton Castle, showing the flag and more, maybe recruiting some hands
before sailing away. Does anyone have news about her? Has she really stayed in Lunenburg since late 2020?
All photos, WVD, exactly 120 months ago.
Unrelated to any of this, read this May 2004 article by the late great Don Sutherland and reflect on how much change has occurred.
B. No. 90 is clearly a Bouchard barge, this one eastbound at lock E-17. Pushing it might be the 1946 Evening Light, but that’s just speculation. Evening Light has appeared in this series a little over a month ago as Margaret Matton et al.
I added this because this IS a miscellany post. I’d love to hear from folks familiar with the Barge Canal more than a half century ago, but how common were “loopers” or just long-distance recreational boats back then.
OTCO Newark was a 1943 barge. I can’t tell from this photo which of the OTCO tugs was moving it.
Colonial Beacon was a 246′ x 40′ tanker built in 1927 by Sun Shipbuilding of Chester PA. A history of her ownership extends through Ecuadorian interests in 1981. After 1981, I’ve no idea what became of her. With all that black smoke, would she have been steam powered at this point in this undated photo?
We end this post with a 1910 64′ x 17′ tug named Waterford built in Whitehall NY in 1910.
Socony 104 dates from 1920.
Here’s Waterford towing two barges of lumber quite late in the season. Can anyone place this lock? Lock E-3, perhaps and downbound?
All photos used courtesy of the Canal Society of New York. Any errors of interpretation, WVD.
My library for the time period January 1, 2012 until today contains 11,244 fotos. Starting from tomorrow, any 2012 fotos will be taken along the road. So I decided to choose ONE foto per month, quite subjectively and without regard for this foto having previously been featured here. I don’t claim these are the best of the month. Only 12 fotos, one per month.
January, Sandmaster . . . waiting to refuel. Today, Dec 22 . . . Sandmaster was out there doing what it usually does, mining sand.
February . . . Eagle Beaumont escorted in the Arthur Kill by Charles D. McAllister.
March . . . side by side, CSAV Suape and bulker Honesty, Pacific bound through the Miraflores locks, demonstrating graphically what panamax means.
April . . . red-trimmed Taurus west bound on the KVK, cutting past Advance Victoria. And just today, I saw Taurus, now blue-trimmed, heading north between Manhattan and Jersey City.
Choosing just one foto per month is tough, but for May, here’s Swan packed and almost ready to go hulldown toward Africa with these specimens of the Crowley, Reinauer, and Allied fleets.
June . . . Weeks Shelby tows shuttle Enterprise from JFK toward Manhattan.
July and an unforgettable 4th using Pegasus as subject under the rocket’s glare
August . . . and coal-fired Badger heads into the sunset . . . and Wisconsin.
September, and a parade of vessels including Urger and Buffalo leave the Federal Lock bound for Waterford. My inimitable platform here is Fred’s Tug44.
At the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner race, crew is setting sail on the unique tugantine Norfolk Rebel. In the distance, it’s Pride of Baltimore 2.
Coming into the home stretch from Montreal, it’s Atlantic Salvor delivering segments of the WTC1 antenna.
And December . . . it’s Stena Primorsk looming over the USCG vessels. At this time, Stena Primorsk was impatient to load that first hold with “north dakota crude,” only to experience the malfunction that has left her temporarily disabled upriver, its outer hull gashed open.
Tomorrow I hit the road . . . gallivanting and visiting season. I thank all of you for reading, many of you for helping me get these fotos, lots of you for correcting my errors and supplying missing info. Happy New Year and let’s pray for much-needed Peace on Earth . . . .
Outbound at 0800 this morning, Swan took a turn past the Statue before leaving. Foto by John Watson, who is himself outbound for a while.
Out of luck I was in guessing the timing, so I got this view as Swan was outbound for the port of Luba, I’m told. Luba is on the island now known as Bioko, which
I once knew as Fernando Po, a rare place in Africa where Spanish is the official language. I hope the Atlantic Salvor folks got some good fotos of Swan headed out.
Yacht Justice (1930) is an outstanding survivor.
I’ve know idea what this trio of military/interdiction go-fast boats are, bt they are turly out-of-the-ordinary.
Also, out-of-the-ordinary for the sixth boro is Dewaruci, in port early for OpSail, arriving here on Wednesday. Dewa Ruci appears to be a character in a wayang puppet story. I’m looking forward to their marching band. Over near the Red Hook side, that’s Pioneer.
And this is the start of leg 2 of the Atlantic Cup race, outbound for Newport this morning.
Over a dozen teams have entered boats.
Possible leader, pending resolution of a protest) at the end of leg 1 (of 3) is this boat.
Oh yes . . . out of focus! !@#@!! And I loved the composition.
And finally . . . these folks are really outbound to a place even less known . . . maybe than Luba.
I love the hammock and banana bunch here. For some fotos of Avatiu, click here. For really outstanding fotos from there, click this one.
Picton Castle stack logo is quite outlandish.
First foto by outbound John Watson. all others by Will Van Dorp.
We spend so much of our lives waiting. I guess it’s one of those unavoidables, like taxes and death . . . Ineluctable, if you want to be pedantic. Yesterday, while waiting for high tide, a helicopter dropped in on the beached fishing trawler. Click here for a bather flashing the crew. . . hey, if you live on Clifton Beach and want to meet the unexpected visitors, how else do you get their attention?
At high tide this morning, another attempt to pull the trawler off the beach resulted in another parted towing line.
Meanwhile, holding the lead is Port Arthur-built, Cape Town-modified Ocean Pride. Note the additions to make her beamier.
Here’s the muscle (Smit Amandla, ex-John Ross) that parts the towing lines.
Here crews of tug and supply vessel sort out the towing warp.
And 8000 miles to the northwest, Swan has not yet started loading. Prepping and waiting is still going on, four days after I took these fotos.
But with a name like Swan and this time of year,
waiting is intended to be productive.
South African fotos by Colin Syndercombe; sixth boro NYC fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Tugster does not strive to be a “shipping news” site, but each time I walk or ride my beat, I DO keep an watchful eye for change, novelty, well . . . new sights. Certainly this was true yesterday: let’s start with the orange vessel to your left. You’ve seen the colors before, but is that a “hole through the stern above deck”?
I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a bit more of Swan in the next few days. And I trust lessons have been learned from last spring’s Blue Marlin saga.
So Beaufort Sea has begun its Kirbyfication. As has Norwegian Sea, but I was too far off to get a good foto.
Resolute‘s foredeck seemed to be carrying a lot more than deckhands yesterday. And is that a movie camera? And what were they all looking at?
How about this unusual equipment on Ellen? Is MOL Earnest that tough a customer?
Iron Eagle is not new to the harbor, but the Conti name is . . . at least to me.
Rosemary Miller? New too. I wonder what has become of Sorenson Miller.
With spring comes the sailing season, and America 2.0 . . . I last saw closeup here last fall.
And one last “newby” I was lucky to catch yesterday was Mark Moran, headed south to . . who knows where? Mark‘s so new that even on Birk and Harold’s excellent site, there’s only a drawing of her.
Followup on lots of these soon. All fotos taken yesterday by Will Van Dorp.
For the news from the Narrows between Detroit (which means “the narrows” in French) and Windsor, click here for Isaac’s site and some great fotos from Wade. The surprise there for me was Zeus, who worked the sixth boro a bit a few years back. Also, there are more shots of DonJon’s huge Great Lakes ATB unit.
Also, of course please vote for tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley 79. The fact that they’re not in the top few places should NOT be a reason to give up; we have a daily vote until the 21st.
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