MB 2019 G

Daybreak finds us entering the Welland Canal, taking a pilot from J. W. Cooper.

The past few weeks at MRC have brought the decapitation of Algorail.

Tecumseh is docked just below lock 8.

Algosea slips into the parallel lock chamber at lock 4, upbound.

We encounter NACC Argonaut as she heads upbound below lock 2.

Then we switch pilots at Lake Ontario level and

we pass Ojibway as we make a course for Toronto.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Late Season Lakers 2

Because of a cold brisk wind, I shot some of these through glass, which is never a good idea.   But looking at this set, taken between Belle Isle and Sarnia, illustrate the variety of lakers, all in a context of not a single recreational vessel, something you’d never see in summer.

Select info from the excellent boatnerd site says this:  launched in 1943! from American Shipbuilding in Lorain OH, Cuyahoga was sold to Canadian interests in 1995, cargo capacity of 15, 675 tons, 620′ x 60′ and converted from steam to diesel between the 1999 and 2000 seasons.  She’s the second oldest Canadian vessel on the Lakes, younger only by a month than Mississagi.

Note the house forward and boom pointing aft.

Tecumseh (641′ x 78′) is also a Lower Lakes Towing Ltd. boat, also built in the US . . . in Seattle at Lockheed Shipbuilding in 1972.  Because she has no self-unloader, she discharges her maximum 29,510 tons of cargo using shore gear.  For more info, click here at boatyard.   [Autocorrect always wants to replace my “boatnerd” with  “boatyard.”]

Robert S. Pierson is the last Lower Lakes boat in this post.  It too was built in Lorain OH, in 1973 and was sold and registered Canadian in 2008.  At 630′ x 68′ she has a capacity of 19,650 tons.  Of course,by now you’ve noticed her house is aft with her self-unloader pointing forward.   Much more detail can be found here.

Hon. James L. Oberstar was launched in 1959.  At 710′ loa, only a handful of boats on the Lakes were longer, including the Edmund Fitzgerald at 729.’  She was lengthened to 806′ between the 1970-71 seasons.  A self-unloader was added between the 1980-81 seasons. In 2008, she was repowered, replacing a steam turbine with a diesel.   Her cargo capacity is 31,000.  Again, much more info can be found here.   Notice that in contrast with  Cuyahoga above, Oberstar has house forward and self-unloader boom pointing forward.

The white steam is evidence of the emissions scrubbers pioneered on Oberstar in 2016, and now visible on other Interlake Steamship boats like Paul R. Tregurtha and James R. Barker.

CSL Tadoussac, already in winter layup and light here, has the same basic configuration as Oberstar, but is less curvaceous.  She was launched in 1969 in Collingwood ON but extensively rebuilt before the 2001 season.  Currently she is 730 x 77′ and has cargo capacity of 30,151 tons.  Her namesake is an early settlement dating from before Jaques Cartier on the St. Lawrence downstream from Quebec City.   Boatnerd has her complex her here.  Alice Oldendorff is part of the very diverse CSL fleet.

To round out this post, let me add a tanker.  Truth be told, I include this photo here partly because of the dramatic difference in scale between the ship and the tanker truck alongside.  I’m not sure what product the trailer tank is there to deliver or receive.

Algoma Hansa was built in Mobile AL in 1998.  She entered Canadian waters for the first time in 2013, and for the past few years has worked mainly in Algoma’s domestic fleet.  Is it  correct to assume the Canadian fleet relies more on tankers for what in the US is transported by large ATBs?

Let’s leave it here.  I hope you’ve enjoyed these comparisons as much as I have.

All photos and information interpretation by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for any errors.

Oh, and if the Tugster Tower internet wizards sent you a puzzling 404 error message in lieu of yesterday’s URL, try this:  https://tugster.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/late-season-lakers-1/

Thanks to Marc Piché 2

Thanks to Marc, I offer this post that could also be called Océan Blue 7.

Arranged chronologically, these photos nicely show the intrusion of ice on the Saint Lawrence.

Starting on October 12, 2017, it would be t-shirt weather on Ocean Duga

taken in port of Sorel-Tracy.  Duga (4000 hp from 2 Wichman 7-cylinder engines) was built in Lansten, Norway in 1977.  Notice laker Tecumseh at the grain dock;  I took photos from the river of Ojibway at that same dock less than a week earlier.

Hercule, taken on November 11, 2017, enjoys autumn warmth here.  Notice the Jamaican flag on her mast just below the conical roof of the silo?  She’s been sold out of the Ocean fleet, but here are all five of her former names, including a stint as a McAllister of Canada vessel.  Here’s more McAllister history.

Ocean Bravo was already scraping some ice on her hull on December 26, 2017.  Built in 1970 right across the river from Quebec City, the 110′ x 28′ tug is powered by 3900 hp.  I photographed her in Trois-Rivieres in October.

Ocean Bertrand Jeansonne is a 5000 hp tug built in PEI for Ocean in 2008.  This photo was

taken the day after Christmas.  Federal Tweed, as of this moment,  is anchored

off Sorel. This jetster photo nicely shows the Richelieu River, the outflow for Lake Champlain.

Ocean Delta is another vessel no longer in the Ocean fleet.  The 136′ 1973 tug is rated at 6464 hp, launched in Ulsteinvik, Norway.  Birk got a photo of her here in 2012.

taken the day after Christmas.  It appears that CCGS Tracy has been converted into a floating office for Ocean Group and renamed Ocean Tracy.  I got a photo of CCGS Tracy when she was for sale in October 2016 here.

On December 30, 2017 Ocean Tundra was heading upstream to help clear the last vessels out of the Seaway before it closed.  Recall the assistance Federal Biscay required to get out?   Note the sea smoke as the 8,046 hp vessel exposes the relatively warmer water to the seriously cooler air.

Imagine what all that ice does to the hull coatings, particularly at the bow.

And finally, we’re up to January 31, 2018, as La Prairie muscles through the ice.

I appreciate these “seasonal change” photos taken by Marc Piché, a glimpse of traffic in winter on the mighty Saint Lawrence.

Other People’s Fotos 15

I’m elated when folks tell me they’ve enjoyed visiting tugster over the years.  Well, I’m as thrilled when you send in fotos other places beyond the sixth boro, all accessible ultimately from the the sixth boro.  In fact, the whole world awaits once you’ve gone out the Narrows or through Hall Gate.

’twas a great pleasure to get these fotos from Maureen yesterday, taken yesterday.  I’ll identify the port a bit farther.  Any guesses?  A clue might be the name of the tug:  Emilio Panfido (1969),  and

Carlo (1980).  As to the four dozen classic racers . . . you’ll have to help me identify those.

The port is Venezia aka Venice.  And I’ll need help identifying the tow of the tug as well.  And if you click on not a single link in this post, then at least spend six minutes on this one . .  the veritable painted ship on a painted ocean where work seems like the pleasantest dance to the best music on the planet.  This one’s got an intriguing ambient sound as sound track too.   All Venezia and as they are called in Italian . . . rimorchiatori aka tugs.

And it’s a joy to post Colin Syndercombe’s tugster debut here . . . MV  Kovambo.  It’s a dredge vessel that brings up — are you ready for this —

diamonds!  As in the many carated type.  Click here for info on the vessel and here for info on the enterprise.  Here’s more on marine mining and subsea crawlers.  I have to admit I’ve never understood the appeal of diamonds, but my interest ratchets up a bit learning with this.

Colin’s second ever foto shows New Spirit foreground with a befogged Table Mountain behind.  Look for a detail on the mountain upper right side.

It’s the cable car peering from behind a rip in the “table cloth.”

And thanks to Isaac, does this look long?  How long?

It’s a 1000′ ITB aka integrated tug and barge.”  One thousand!  Here’s a foto of the tug out of the notch.  Technically the barge is 947′ and the tug is 153,’  and  in ITB math, that totals up to an even 1000.’  The gray vessel in the background is Tecumseh, 1973, ex-Sugar Islander, which appeared here in March.

And finally . . . it’s always a delight to share fotos John Watson takes from his perch high above the east end of the KVK.   First, it’s a shockingly container-light Iwaki . . .

and a thought-provoking CSAV Suape.  Just five weeks ago, I got fotos of this vessel Pacific-bound about to exit the Panama Canal.  So what are the ports of call NOT listed here . . .?

Many thanks Maureen, Colin, Isaac, and John.  Info on Emilio Panfido, Netherlands-built can be found here; Carlo, Italian-built here.

Partners in Preservation is a New York program, but there’s no need to live in NY or even North America to vote.  Click on the logo below, register, scroll thru to find “Tug Pegasus and Waterfront Museum Barge,”  and vote once a day through May 21.  Ask your friends to vote too.

Blues and Kenny Lofton

Call it a fusion of  foto #1 of “Seven Seas 2,”  scuttlebutt I’d heard about the previous lives of Lincoln Sea, colors of a certain animation extravaganza that  did NOT win the “best pic” award at a certain TV event the other night, and a Hindu deity called Vishnu.  What!  Well, they all involve the color blue.

Special thanks to Harold Tartell for all the fotos in this post.

Below, Lincoln Sea, way back when it was known as Mohawk, was a frightening blue, like Vishnu, “the color of the infinite space as well as the infinite ocean on which he resides”  and had flying horses on her stacks.

After a certain event in Alaska, the flying horses flew away and the name changed to S/R plus that of a town on Massachusetts, I believe.

Greenland Sea followed a similar shift of palette, starting out as Doc Candies and then becoming Tecumseh, before

becoming S/R Providence.

You may be wondering what the Kenny Lofton connection is . . . or maybe who Kenny Lofton is . . .  well, a friend who is a baseball fanatic tells me Kenny Lofton has the distinction in major league baseball of NEVER RARELY playing more than one season for the same major league baseball team.  It’s therefore a little unfair to cmpare Cheyenne to Kenny, but certain similarities exist.  Below . . . Cheyenne is DonJon uniform, then  (working backwards here)

Port Albany Ventures, then

Red Star, then

Spentonbush, then

SRS.

The name never changed, but ownership and colors have.  Cheyenne . . .  pushing to be the Kenny Lofton of the sixth boro.

And as Juliet said, “”What’s in a name? That which we call a rose        By any other name would smell as sweet.”  Or as I appropriate, “What’s in a color?  That which we see in white and orange (or green) In any color would move as well.”

Many thanks to Harold Tartell for these fotos.