Retro Sixth Boro 48B

Let’s go back a decade.  Then MSC Emma was on the west coast of Bayonne leaving town; now she’s on the west coast of Central America, leaving Lazaro Cardenas for Panama.

Above she was assisted by Gramma Lee T [now in Norfolk] and Margaret and setting up for the turn from Newark Bay into the KVK;  here we had almost gotten ahead of the trio of vessels.

A strange trio was in the sky

over the sixth boro. The piggyback rider is still in town, albeit likely to never fly again. More here.

Meanwhile, over in the Arthur Kill, a boring machine was placing charges in holes below the bottom of the waterway and connecting them to the stringy orange signal cord to blast when the time was right for them all to detonate at the same millisecond.  That day I touched some hefty but perfectly safe explosives, inert until the right signal is applied, which sounds like some folks I know.

More on “kraken” the bottom here.

Back then, I was spending a lot of early mornings near Howland Hook waiting for my work to begin, and I caught a Double Skin 37 moving bunkers

and maneuvered by Coral Coast.  Was that mechanical dredge Captain A. J. Fournier in the distance above?

The Joker was then a more sedate Taurus, before joining the hilariously-named over at Hays.

Put Tasman Sea into the picture too.  Is the Tasmanian still laid up in Louisiana?

And it was a great April 2012 day I caught the seldom-seen Patty Nolan

moving a houseboat into the sixth boro.  Patty seems to be preparing for a comeback.

And the 1972 2325 teu Horizon Navigator, here with Samantha Miller alongside,  was still working.  Is the 1972 container ship still intact?

And let’s wind this up with Ellen and Maurania III returning to base after a job.  Ellen is still in the sixth boro, and Maurania III is in the Delaware.

All photos, WVD, April 2012.

Entirely unrelated, check out these Smithsonian photo winners.

 

 

Random Tugs 349 and More

Some of these photos are from late August 2021, and others are from August 2011, and many of you can tell the difference.

Above that’s Meredith C. Reinauer,  and below . . . Tasman Sea.

 

 

 

And this is Teresa with her hot oil barge Acadia.

 

 

Following Tasman Sea, that’s Jane A. Bouchard.

 

 

And that’s it.  All photos, WVD.

The photos with Tasman Sea and Jane A. Bouchard are from a decade ago.  The last I knew, Tasman is tied up at a dock in Houma, LA.   Jane A. is part of the Bouchard fleet tied up in Staten Island, awaiting sale.  Seeing the skyline of lower Manhattan might have been a clue.  More on that in posts in the next week  or so . . .

Teresa has been one of my unicorns . . . and this is the first time this 1999 tug and barge have appeared on this blog, to the best of my memory.   And Meredith C. is, IMHO, a beautiful tugboat.

 

Retro Sixth Boro NYC Tugboat Races 3

Let’s do 2013 and 2014, or redo them, same conditions as I stated yesterday. But first let’s look at the 2013 crowd, packing in like you wouldn’t with covid.  Here was the crowd at 1010 and

by 1035 they had grown significantly.

The compulsory muster takes place, irrigated by fireboat John J. Harvey.

Once the race begins, a front-runner like Decker

might soon get left in the wake.

The fire boat slices up from behind and

propels itself between two Miller boats.

Pushoffs happen next, sometimes quite equally matched like here, with 3900 hp countering 4200.

Let’s jump ahead to 2014, with the arrivals on the watery carpet,

the processing to the starting line,

and get straight to racing without all the preening and posturing.

Someone seems a bit oversize in that gray livery.

This is a fairly mis-matched pair:  Wayne at 5100 hp, and Ellen at 4000.  Maybe a re-match is in order Wayne v. Ava.

Thanks to Jeff Anzevino for this shot, the Media Boat has military background in common with Wayne.

After Wayne has strutted its stuff in the push-offs, some of the boats lined up for the roping the bollard.

Let’s hold it up here.  All photos, WVD.

 

Other Peoples Photos 81

From Capt Nemo, a few years ago, the 2000 Mary Gellatly high and dry and before she was Mackenzie Rose.  Also, I see Tasman Sea, Dace, an unidentified Bouchard, and Yemitzis.

From KP, Dace getting her upper wheelhouse . . . over 10 years ago.

From a Great Lakes Mariner, the oldest working ship on the Lakes . . . Alpena, a survivor launched in 1942, as she backs out of a Wisconsin city.

From Tony Acabono, it’s Kodi, among the smallest, hard-workingest tugs of the sixth boro.

From Bob Stopper a few years back, when Grouper was facing another no-starter season.

Another one from Bob, it’s tug Syracuse with a comatose Governor Roosevelt alongside.

From back in March 2020, thanks to Jan Oosterboer, via Jan van der Doe, it’s the world’s largest vessel by displacement . . .  Pioneering Spirit.  Here are tech specs and lots of images from her operator, AllSeas.

Here she enters port without an assist. Jan writes:  “Moves complete oil rigs, drilling platforms, can work as pipe layer.
Has a working crew of about 400 people including sailing crew.”

If I read this correctly, she has eight 20-cylinder engines that generate 127,000 hp and can cruise at 14 kts!

 

And finally one of my own from almost 15 years ago, it’s tug Hackensack.  As I understand it she’s now in South America somewhere.

Thanks to Nemo, KP, Mariner, Acabono, Stopper, and the Jans . . .  for use of these photos.

I hope to “see” you tomorrow for my Turnstile Tours on zoom doing “Exploring the Erie Canal.”  Tomorrow’s tugster post will be up early so that you can get interesting info for the zoom meeting.

 

 

Retro Sixth Boro 21

I have represented these “retro” posts as a slice of the sixth boro exactly a decade ago, but it more like  . . . what in the boro caught my attention.  So welcome back to December 2009, as seen from today, December 2019, taking advantage of 20/20 hindsight.  And, to digress, I’ll bet the term 20/20 [2020?] hindsight will seen a bit strange in the next thirteen months.

Over at South Street Seaport, a group of vessels then is no longer there: Marion M, Peking, and Helen McAllister.  Of those, Peking, though not the oldest, has the longest and most convoluted saga.

Sea Raven is no more, but with those high pipes, she always caught my attention.

Cable Queen seemed to have a future back a decade ago, but naught seems to have come of it, since last time I looked, she was still docked in Port Richmond.  For context to this photo of the 1952 vessel, click here.

NY Central No. 13, scrapped in 2017 . . . also seemed to have a future back in 2009, although the owner was not in a rush to complete the job.

In 2009, the sixth boro was in the midst of a several-billion-dollar dredge project, as folks were talking about these ULCVs that would be arriving after the opening of the new Panama Canal locks. GLDD’s dredge New York was part of that effort.

I don’t know if Volunteer is still intact, but I’ve not seen her in years.   Here she lighters Prisco Ekatarina while Mark Miller stands by.  As of this writing, Prisco Ekatarina is in the Gulf of Finland.

Does anyone know if Horizon Challenger, built 1968 in Chester PA,  still floats?

Patriot Service currently works as Genesis Patriot.

I believe Escort is laid up.

And let’s close with these two.  Below it’s the now modest looking Ever Divine and Tasman Sea, and assembling photos for this post, for the first time I see the Taz’ devil sign on the stern of Tasman Sea . . .   Maybe I’d seen it before and just forgotten.   Ever Divine is currently crossing the Indian Ocean.

There it is . . .

All photos taken in December 2009 by Will Van Dorp.

 

Random Tugs 239

I love the morning, and I’ve never gotten a better photo of Tasman Sea.  She’s a product of Main Iron Works, class of 1976.

Kirby Moran heads out on a job.   There’s no angle from which these Washburn & Doughty 6000s look anything but stunning.

Ernest Campbell, from Southern Shipbuilding’s class of 1969, comes by to pick up a barge.

James E. Brown, a recent product of Rodriguez Shipbuilding, leaves the dock and heads to the railroad, rail float that is. Daisy Mae came out of the same yard two years later.

As Robert Burton makes her run with a less than loaded barge, I hope commuters appreciate that this stuff is not traveling by road.

Lucy Reinauer is a powerful local 1973 product;  she came out of Jakobson Shipyard in Oyster Bay.

I’m planning a post on nothing but Brown boats, but I put Thomas J. in here because she’s bathed in that same rich morning light.   She’s a 1962 product of Gladding Hearn and is rated at 1000 hp, same as James E.

Elizabeth McAllister has a dramatic and rich history, which you can read here.  To summarize, in May 1988 as Elizabeth Moran, she was t-boned in the fog in Lower New York Bay.

And finally, two of Brewster Marine‘s workhorses . . .  Helen Parker (2005) and Ava Jude (2013).  In the distance is Neptune, built 1992 and sailing for Dann Ocean since 1996.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

12 Tugboats b

As tugster continues its CYPHER series,  this is the 3633nd post, and almost 2.1 million hits.  Thanks for staying with me.

On the other hand, if I were selling calendars, the number 12 would be significant.    So for the next few days, let me offer some diverse dozens chosen quite subjectively, although what the photos have in common–besides subject–is that I like them.

Here’s a November 2016 photo along the Gowanus under the BQE.  This tug looks good in blue, but I’ll never forget her in orange.

Here’s a November 2015 when the upper deck of Bayonne had yet to be assembled, and the lower disassembled.  Amy C last appeared here as she nudged Empire State into her Fort Schuyler dock.

Here’s 2014.  She’s recently worked in the Keys.

Here’s ’13.  Where is Houma today?

’12.  Ellen‘s a regular on this blog.

’11.  Tasman has been doing this work since 1976!

’10.  Is ex-Little Bear in Erie along with Bear?

’09.  She now makes her way around the lower Caribbean .  . . and currently anchored in Trinidad.

’08.  And I’m adding another photo right after Linda (launched in ’08) of

Scott Turecamo (below) launched in 1998 but radically retrofitted in 2005, originally quite similar to Greenland Sea, here see the photos by Robert J. Smith.  How many of these ATBs does Moran now operate?  .

’07.  This was the only time I ever saw Penobscot.  Anyone know where foreign she went?

’06.  Note the size of the yard workers around the wheels on Ralph E. Bouchard.

Again, some of these photos show what has changed in the sixth boro, spawning ground for this blog.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Moving Fuel 5

As daylight shortens and temperatures plummet, the sixth boro comes to life…

as shown by Lucy Reinuer and RTC 83,

Pinuccia and

New York 30,

and Tasman Sea and DBL 102.

In fact you see a parade of three units in the distance.

All photos by Will Van Dorp. It’s heating season….

 

Random Tugs 164

I suppose I could call this RT 163b, since the photos in both were taken the same day, same conditions of light and moisture.

Let’s start with Charles D. McAllister with Lettie G. Howard bare poles in the distance.

Evelyn Cutler with Noelle Cutler is tied up alongside a barge with Wavertree‘s still horizontal poles. Click here to see Evelyn as I first saw her.

Viking is high and dry, post the winter work.

Timothy L. Reinauer is back in town after a very long hiatus, at least from my POV.  This may have been the last time I saw her.

Mary Gellatly gets some TLC as well;  click here for the previous time she was in a “random” post.

Beyond Mister Jim, a pile of sand is growing in the yard just west of the Bayonne Bridge on the Staten Island side.

Elizabeth and Marjorie B. McAllister head out for a job.

Tasman Sea heads for the yard as

Amberjack departs.

 

And for closure, it’s Marjorie B passing in front of a relatively ship-free Port Elizabeth.  Click here for a photo of Marjorie B high and dry a few years ago.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And in contrast to all that, in Niigata earlier today, here’s some great vessel christening photos from Maasmondmaritime.

NYC Tugboat Race 2013 a

Uh . . . what’s this?

It’s Buddy, living breathing braying hoof-beglittered mascot of Debora Miller.  If you’ve never been to the New York’s race, there’s a best mascot category.  In the past there’ve been  . . . dogs, hermit crabs, even a chicken . . . but Buddy redefines the contest.

With the threat of rain, someone made a wise decision and advanced the start of the race.  Here Resolute, Catherine Miller, Tasman Sea, and Red Hook move toward the starting line . . . feted by now-retired 1931 fireboat John J. Harvey.

Foto thanks to William Hyman . . . the line up.

And at 10:29:30 . . . they’re off . . . with 1930 wooden tug W. O. Decker taking an early and easy lead!!

45 seconds later . . . W. O. Decker has dropped back.

Here’s they are 15 seconds later.

John J. Harvey is not a tug, but to see the speed out of this octogenarian . . . was humbling.   An engineer toiling away in the engine room later told me all four engines were driving propulsion.

The red tug–Resolute–went on to win, although I don’t yet have the official times.  I could have written them down, but I was far too busy applauding and taking fotos.

And here’s the crowd at the finish line.

Part B tomorrow.  Thanks to William Hyman for foto 4.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Many thanks to Glen Miller of Miller’s Launch for my ride this year.

Unrelated and almost forgot:  Here’s a query from Jeff S, a frequent commenter on this blog:  he saw a “very weather beaten wooden sailing vessel (hull) at the Jersey end of the Goethels Bridge, about 65-70 foot long , two deck cabins and a bowsprit.”  It was parked in the oversize lot waiting to cross the Bridge when traffic gets light.  Anyone have an idea what this may be?