From the Line Locker 32

I just happened to look at the August 2014 section of the archive, and this was the engine room at that time of the living, breathing tugboat Urger.

The top photo shows the Atlas-Imperial fore-to-aft along the portside, and below, it’s the opposite . . .  starboard side aft-to-fore.

Below is that same view as above, except with a tighter frame on the top of the engine.  On my YouTube channel here,   are several videos of this engine running and Urger underway. 

Below from early September 2015 are three NYS Canals boats, l to r, Tender #3, Gov. Cleveland, and Urger. . . .  all old and in jeopardy.

At that same 2015 Tugboat Roundup that precipitated the photo above, notice the juxtaposition of old and new:  passing in front of the 1914 Lehigh Valley 79 is

Solar Sal, which a month later would earn distinction as the first solar vessel to transit the canal from Buffalo to the Hudson with four tons of cargo, as a demonstration of its potential. Solar Sal‘s builder was David Borton, whose website has all the info on his designs for marine solar power.

A story I’d missed until looking something else up yesterday was David Borton’s 2021 adventure, sailing on solar in Alaskan waters.

And that brings this zig-zag post to another story linking the Canal and Alaska. 

Last August Pilgrim made its way through New York State to the Great Lakes and eventually overwintered in Duluth. I took photos above and below on August 1, 2020.

Earlier this summer, Pilgrim was loaded on a gooseneck trailer

so that it could transit the continent

along the Interstates to the Salish Sea.   As of last week they’d made Ketchikan, and their next stop will be Kodiak Island.  Eventually they clear customs and their next stop will be Russia.

All photos except the last three, WVD.  Pilgrim photos attributed to Sergey Sinelnik.

The Waterfront Museum in Lehigh Valley 79 is now home to a high-res livestream harbor cam aimed from Red Hook;  check it out here.

 

 

Canal Countdown T-13

Here was T-23 days.  Now, in less than two weeks, the canal will be open.  Some of the vessels operated by NYS Canals to perform maintenance were featured in the T-23 post;  more are in today’s post.

Let’s start with Tender 2, T2, in Utica, nose to nose with tug Erie.

Tender #3 is tied up here just west of the dry dock in Waterford.

Left to right here are a self-propelled scow (SPS 60 maybe? the number) and Lockport.  That land derrick marks this location as Fonda.

Port Jackson is one of the new boats operated by NYS Canals.  The location is just west of lock E-13, and Grande Caribe, as well as her younger sister Grande Mariner,  powering her way west to Chicago will likely never be seen in the Canal again.

Tied up here in the shade east of Utica is Governor Roosevelt.

At the Utica section yard, it’s Erie again.  Note the NYS Thruway maintenance vehicles in the background.

Just west of lock E-19, the Dragon dredge gets support from Tender #4.

And on another occasion, it’s the same dredge assisted by Tender #5.  I took the photo between locks E-6 and 7.

And closing this out, how about a shot above the culvert of the tugboat that turns 120 years afloat this year, Urger.

All photos, WVD.  If you’re planning to transit the canal beginning on day 1 of the season  . . .  May 21, these are some of the maintenance vessels you’ll see. But don’t postpone a trip along the Canal because some of these could disappear any year now.

WVD is solely responsible for any errors of fact.

Retro 2015 Waterford Tugboat Roundup

This is the last Roundup I’ve attended.  Here’s another shot from the swim platform, where I’m flat on my belly. That’s Mike Byrnes, last year’s “old man of the sea” at the portside of the wheelhouse.

Downbound in the Federal lock, it’s Waterford, Governor Cleveland, and Tender #3.

 

On the northbound trip, the two smaller tugs fell in alongside Grand Erie.  Grand Erie is a 1951 build that first worked for the USACE in the Mississippi system.

Tug Buffalo heads for its berth beyond Pennsy 399 and Lehigh Valley #79, where

David Sharps bugle greets each vessel as it passes.

 

Lisa Ann was a newcomer that year, I believe.  She was built at Marine Inland Fabricators, where the “new” canal tugs like Port Jackson have also been built.

Another newbie in 2015 was Solar Sal, a solar powered newbuild that actually transported cargo later in the season.  Like Ceres the year before, these are prototypes, and  like Ceres, Solar Sal transported this cargo.

Ever so salty, it’s Ben Grudinskas, captain and builder of Atlantic Hunter.

Here Atlantic Hunter faces off against the mighty Tender #3.  By the way, Tender #3 is 43′ x 10′ and came off the ways in 1926!!  1926 . . . . 94 years ago.

It’s currently powered by a 220 hp Detroit Diesel.

In closing, the land activities include line toss, open to all comers, but won by the pros. I failed at the 15′ mark.

And I’ve not attended the Roundup since 2015, but unless I’m employed and on duty, I hope to make the 2021.

 

CB 2019 C

Now in the Erie Canal, Tender #3 was above E3,

BB 109 encountered an unidentified SPS,

Dragon dredge worked over in Crescent Lake,

an unidentified tender worked with two barges, one was QB #14,

Tuulen Tupa intrigued and I’ll tell you my understanding of that name at the end of this post,

At Fonda on the wall stood an SPS and

tug Lockport.

Will Van Dorp took these photos, and this is the end of this post.

And Tuulen Tupa is an excellent name for a sail boat, since in Finnish–at least–it means “wind hut.”

And this was Waterford to Fonda, NY.

Freshwater Tugs 5

Unlike the sixth boro waters, freshwater New York changes state.  As illustration, here is a color photo I took yesterday, and

below is roughly the same view (looking down from E-5 in the Flight) taken in late September 2016, almost five months ago.   What’s departing lock 4 was reported here.

But I digress.  Here’s what tenders look like in February.

And the long-suffering Chancellor, after the pool level has been lowered.

Floating and working, it’s the art deco tug Syracuse.   She has been working since December 1933!

And can you identify the vessel in the foreground?

Indeed, it’s the 1912-launched Grouper sustaining yet another season in Niflheim.

 

All photos taken by Will Van Dorp this week except the first one.

GHP&W 29

or I can call this Port of Albany 2, or better still Ports of Albany and Rensselaer.  Albany’s fireboat Marine 1 has been on this blog here.  Anyone know where it was built?

The port has not one but . . .

but two large cranes.

And bulk cargo is transferred through the port in both directions, whether it be solid or

dusty.

Over on the Rensselaer side, scrap seems to be a huge mover.

 

North of Port Albany is USS Slater, about which lots of posts can be found here.  But it’s never occurred to me until now that the colors used by Slater camouflage and NYS Marine Highway are a very similar gray and blue!

Kathleen Turecamo (1968) has been in this port–135 miles inland–for as long as I’ve been paying attention, which is only a little over a decade.

This September, NYS Canal Corp’s Tender #3, which probably dates from the 1930s, traveled south to the ports of Albany and Rensselaer.

The port is also a vital petroleum center, both inbound and out.

 

With the container train traffic along the the Hudson and the Erie Canal, I’m only less surprised than otherwise that Albany-Rensselaer currently is not a container port.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s general info about the Port of Albany, although a lot of info there seems a bit out of date.  For a blog that visits visits the ports of Albany and Rensselaer more regularly, check here.   Here’s the port of Albany website.

And last but not least, check Mark Woody Woods’ broad sampling of ships heading to and from Albany-Rensselaer.

 

Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2015 b

It’s been a few years since Lehigh Valley 79 was there, but David Sharps added a new feature to the parade–a

brassy salute

to each vessel that passed for review.

And what a potpourri of vessels that was!

 

 

 

Folks who from Monday to Friday work on precision instruments indoors . . . on weekends go to the physics lab on the river and experiment with vectors.

 

 

Others compete shoreside commanding line to fly.

 

 

 

If you missed this one, make plans now for 2016.

Lehigh Valley #79 was last at the Roundup in 2010.  See it here and here.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.

Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2015 a

Click here for posts from lots of other years.  In today’s post, you’ll see almost all blue-and-gold before the parade, i.e., heading for the muster

entering the top of lock 2

It was great to have two covered barges for events.

Lehigh Valley 79, dry dock repairs complete, heads for the sixth boro this week. 

Urger exits the low side of lock 2 and  . . .

 

enters the Hudson.

Note the Waterford wall with the covered barges in the distance.

The federal lock at Troy leads into the rest of the Hudson . . .

 

 

 

After the dignitaries are picked up,

the flotilla heads back north into the Troy lock,

and

the parade has begun.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Many thanks to tug44 as host and photo boat.

For more photos, check these from the Daily Gazette.

 

Canal Corp Boats 11

Besides larger tugboats like Urger, the Canal has a fleet of nearly identical smaller ones called dredge tenders, or usually just “tenders” like the unidentified one to the left in the photo below.

Here’s a set:  Tender #1

Tender #3 stern and

bow and

at work moving Urger out of dry dock.

Tender #4 in February 2014, and

tender #4 after being electrified, and

at work in Utica this summer.

Tender #6.

Tender #7 summer and

bow in winter, with an unidentified tender (registry at MB 5900??) and tender 4 in the distance.

Tender #9 profile and

three fourths.

Tender #10 on the hard and

assisting a dredge.

Tender with identifier ending in 0209,

. ..  0308

. . . 0313 aka Dana?

Dana again.

Again, I need to dig into the history of this class of Canal vessel.  What number was this?

 

and why is it here?  How many others are there?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.