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Many thanks to Sandy Berg and SkEye Stream for the photo below, drone assisted in Kingston ON. In the foreground is Group Ocean’s Escorte, a 1967 Jakobson of Oyster Bay product, first launched as Menasha (YTB-773/YTM-761) for the U.S. Navy. Off Escorte‘s stern it’s Sheri Lynn S, a Lake Ontario tug seen here.
Next, let’s go SW from Kingston to Picton, where CSL Assiniboine is discharging slag, a steel furnace byproduct with multiple uses. Now if you’ve never seen the inside of a self-unloading ship’s hold, here are photos of one such arrangement, thanks to Picton Terminals.
Since the photo above shows only a bit of deck and the boom, here’s a photo I took in winter 2019 of CSL Assiniboine,
and two more I took in September 2019 in
the South Shore Canal section of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Now let’s get back to Picton Terminals. Sometimes a land machine gets lifted into the hold to assist. Balder back in 2013 brought Atacama Desert salt to Staten Island as a “road safety product” and she carried such a machine permanently in her belly.
Whatever the angle of repose for slag, it was just not slumping here. Making it slump to feed into the self-unloading gates at the bottom of the hold
can be tricky.
Now to move to another continent, Weeks tug Thomas here heads out of Rotterdam last week for Ascension Island. Now THAT is a long voyage, about 4000 nautical miles, a two-week voyage at 10 knots.
Thomas is pulling barge NP 476 loaded with various pieces of equipment, including a Eurocarrier 2110, a multipurpose vessel.
Next down to Gulf coastal waters and some photos I received an embarrassingly long time ago . . . sorry, stuff gets lost in the shuffle . . . it’s Heide Moran with barge Carolina.
Heide is now Dann Ocean’s Helen, and I’ve not seen her in the sixth boro.
Also from eastriver, another tugboat I’ve not yet seen . . . the 10,000+ hp Ocean Wave.
Ocean Wave is one of four Crowley vessels of this class; the others are Ocean Sun, Sky, and Wind. If you look closely at the photo above, a crewman off the port side of the wheelhouse is providing an ocean–or at least–a waterway wave.
Many thanks to Sandy Berg, SkEye Stream, Picton Terminals, Jan vander Doe, Ruud Zegwaard, and eastriver. I have lots more photos that you’ve sent. If I don’t immediately post, it’s because I’m trying to best position them, and that’s what leads me sometimes to lose sight, aka forget.
If you’re looking for something LONG to read, today is August 2, and that was the date 31 years ago that Iraqi forces overran Kuwait, where I was working. This account is an attempt to document my late summer/fall of 1990, the strangest months of my life. I have a more refined version, a pandemic project of revision, that I can send you if you want the latest iteration.
Sleepboot . . .? it’s Dutch for tugboat. It’s pronounced more like “slape boat”
See the tricolor courtesy flag between the lower and upper wheelhouse? The photos were taken Monday (July 5) by Jan Oosterboer, in Het Scheur, aka “the rip”, a section of the Rhine-Maas-Scheldt delta near Rotterdam.
And those certainly are not buoys you’d see in the US.
Weeks tug Thomas recently arrived in Rotterdam area.
It’s just off the Nieuwe Maas in the Delfshaven section of Waalhaven. The Plymouth pilgrims ended their Dutch sojourn by departing from the port of Delfshaven. It’s not too far from all these kinds of sights.
Thomas towed barge Oslo and had an assist from Dutch telescoping-house tug Walvis.
Thomas may be doing crew change in Rotterdam; a few months back they were working off Ascension Island!
Many thanks to Jan and Jan for sending along these photos. Evidently, a US tugboat in the Netherlands draws attention! I’d love to hear more of the story.
January, once every four years, involves a formality that we mark today. Inaugurate has a strange derivation, you figure it out. With this post, I’m in no way intending to divine futures. Really it’s just sets of photos taken four years apart.
Ice and lightship yacht Nantucket floated in the harbor in mid January 2009. Do you remember what else was literally in the harbor?
Weeks tugs stood by ready to move a barge underneath the airplane when Weeks 533 lifted the Airbus 320 from harbor waters that had cushioned its fall . . . twelve years ago.
Next inauguration day, 2013, I watched fishermen drag clams from the bottom of Gravesend Bay.
Rebel, destined not to run much longer, pushed a barge across the Upper Bay with an incomplete WTC beyond. Many more details had not yet sprouted on the Manhattan skyline.
Mid January 2017 . . . CMA CGM Nerval headed for the port with Thomas J. Brown off its starboard. Here‘s what I wrote about this photo and others exactly four years ago.
Nerval still needed to make its way under the yet-to-be completed raising of the Bayonne Bridge, assisted by JRT Moran. This view was quite different in mid January 2017. As of today, this container ship in on the Mediterranean on a voyage between Turkey and Morocco.
All photos, WVD, taken in mid January at four-year intervals. Nothing should be read into the choice of photos. Sorry I have no photos from January 20, 2005, because back then I didn’t take as many photos, and four years before that, I was still using a film camera, took fewer photos in a year than now I do on certain days, and that skyline above was very different.
My inaugural event . . . cleaning my desk, my office, and my kitchen. If you’re looking for an activity, something might need cleaning. Laundry? Yup, work after work. All inaugurations call for clean ups.
And if you want to buy that lightship yacht above, here‘s the info.
In only ten years, a lot of changes have happened in the sixth boro. I wish I’d started this blog 30 years ago to document even more, but 1988 predated blogs, the internet, and digital photography. Wow . . . how did people relate back then?
Joking aside, let’s see some that have moved on. On January 11, 2009 Kristin Poling, the 1934 tanker, still operated.
January 12. Sun Right, built 1993 and already dead, moved westbound in the KVK escorted by Eileen McAllister. What’s remarkable to me is how large the tug looks in compared to the ship in contrast to tugs today looking miniature on the stern of a ULCV.
Five minutes later . . . Odin. Indeed I was smitten by this unusual vessel, which has since moved to the South and lost her ability to rise up as if on hind legs. I’ve no sense of what it was like to work on her.
January 15. Never did I imagine then that this Dean Reinauer would be replaced by this Dean.
January 18 The boro’s big story of January 2009, of course, was the plane crash in the Hudson. Here the efforts to lift the USAir Flight 1549 out of the water have just begun. Thomas stands by Weeks 533.
January 29 NYC DEP’s Red Hook had just arrived in the harbor, and it seemed she was escorted everywhere by James Turecamo. Sine then, NYC DEP has added a whole new generation of sludge tankers aka honey boats.
January 31 Taurus has become Joker, another intriguingly named tugboat operated not in NYC but Philadelphia area by Hays Tug and Launch, with fleet mate names like Purple Hays, High Roller, Grape Ape, and more.
Let’s leave it there. Happy new year’s greetings still ring in my ears, leaving me with an ongoing inexplicable smile and desire to treat all with respect. Go out of your way to smile at someone today.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose smile gets hidden by a respirator whenever he goes into the archives on Tugster Tower.
[Note: investigation of the Christmas pirate break-in is ongoing at Tugster Tower. Culprits once located and questioned may face a job offer. ]
Weeks 533, the one that lifted Sully’s plane out of the Hudson, was moving up to either Port Elizabeth or Newark, using a three-tug configuration.
What impressed me was the lean-in, seen here by Michael Miller and
relayed by Catherine.
Causing this huge box-in-the-water to turn to starboard takes a lot of persuasion.
Thomas Weeks, likely providing the bulk of the forward movement, stays largely even keeled.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose done more posts here featuring this crane.
Kirby Moran and James D Moran wait, like a team of horses, actually a team of 12,000 horses.
Here’s a different perspective on Kirby as she returns from a job.
CMT Otter and a salt barge lies alongside Nord Summit while along the other side, the venerable Twin Tube reprovisions from stern starboard.
Atlantic Salvor (or Enterprise??) . . . I’ll never catch up as she heads for one of the many skylines of Brooklyn. By the way, has anyone caught a photo of Hunter D in the sixth boro?
With Shooters Island and beyond that the cranes of Howland Hook in the background, it’s Discovery Coast, these days somewhat rare in the sixth boro.
Mister Jim is looking sharp these days, much better than her earlier livery.
Kodi is quite far away here, but she is a mere 42.6 footer.
Bering Dawn . . . she’s been on the East Coast some time now,
but all told, she’s spent more time on the West Coast.
The elusive Thomas stopped by the salt pile the other morning to retrieve a crane.
Margaret Moran . . . as always assisting ships into and out of the sixth boro. More Margaret soon.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I do not try to group tugboats in posts by company, but in the past week I’ve noticed an inordinate number of Weeks boats in the sixth boro. Let’s start with this shot of Trevor, which I caught yesterday. Here are some previous Trevor shots.
Earlier I’d caught Trevor tailing a tow pull by Alexandra. I might have to dig in the archives to 2009 and 2008 to find my previous photo of Alexandra.
Here was that tow, the Weeks 533, the flagship of the Weeks fleet. The 1965 crane also has tragedy associated with it now.
A few days ago I caught Thomas and
Shelby over on the KVK. Beyond Shelby here are Jill Reinauer and Brooke Chapman. This was a first to see Brooke Chapman in the sixth boro. Will she become a regular?
All photos in the past week by Will Van Dorp. And speaking of Weeks tugs, I’d be happy to see Candace again.
My favorite Shelby photos have her towing the Starship Enterprise. and tailing here.
I realize that snow days occur here every year, even though not as frequently as they might farther north, but the movement of a squall across the boros rewards with interesting photos in spite of the cold.
At 0925 the other day, Maersk Edgar was in the clear although a squall concealed the lower Manhattan skyline.
Here’s zoomed in closer because I hoped to confirm the unit to the left as Kirby’s Rebel, which I’ve not seen in ages. I hope I see her close up before she leaves town.
Corpus Christi was clear.
At 10:00 Weeks’ tugs Thomas and Shelby moved in to retrieve a crane as soon as they completed the salt pile job. That’s Dreggen in the background. Nearly eight years ago Thomas and a crane were involved in a job that involved fishing out a certain geese-ingesting aircraft from a forgiving North River.
Red Hook moves a barge past a snow-cloaked IMTT.
Emerald Coast heads out at 11:37.
Peking appears from the edge of space.
And here by noon, I was disappointed in my hopes to get a photo of Hyundai Pluto, entirely invisible beyond ACL Atlantic Cartier. The port may have been closed around this time because Hyundai Pluto had arrived inside the Upper Bay, then spun around–not a lightly undertaken feat–and headed out to the Long Beach anchorage. Atlantic Cartier anchored in Gravesend, and Atlantic Conveyer did the same off Stapleton, not a common occurrence for a containership. Or maybe I just misunderstood what what going on, my perception beshrouded from myself.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I considered calling this “random vessels,” since I haven’t used that title in a while, but here is a tighter focus for a few days: tugboats. Here I also randomize the backgrounds and seek out some vessels infrequently seen. Like the rare and exotic Shelby Rose and
Jay Michael and Vicki M and
Patricia with her racing stripes up against the gantry arms.
Wye River and James E. Brown here cross the south end of Newark Bay, where
Sandmaster has been tied up for (?) nearly a year now.
Sassafras did a circle in Erie Basin recently, and
Thomas, the Weeks tug, strode into town, picked up a barge and headed straight for Texas! The first time I saw Thomas was January 2009. Remember what memorable event splashed into the Hudson around the middle of that month?
Buchanan 12 here is light and seen from almost her prop wash. I hadn’t noticed the Boston registry before.
Quantico Creek stays local a lot, but Severn I don’t see much.
Here’s Tangier Island behind . . yes, Gerardi’s Farmers Market.
OK . . . that’s it for today. All photos by Will Van Dorp. More random tugs tomorrow.
A friend whose thoughts I value highly says she finds searching for a specific vessel daunting on this blog, partly because I post so often and also because I use titles that don’t always help, like “random such and so.” I grant those, but I’ve not found a better way to capture the myriad vessels that pass my various vantage points. Further, the search window functions well, and you can search by category if you click on the blue words that follow the date right under a title. Nonetheless, I welcome criticism even if I seem not to heed it and continue unrepentant in my ways.
Catherine Turecamo (built in Louisiana …1972, ex-Gulf Tempest) passes at Howland Hook,
appropriate to “Year of the Ox” Taurus, (Louisiana …1979) bunkering APL Virginia,
Chesapeake (Louisiana …2006) here northbound in North River,
she who sometimes speaks with an Old World accent, Megan McAllister (Louisiana …1985, ex-Arthur F. Zeman),
Gramma Lee T Moran, (Maine …2002)
Weeks’ Thomas (Louisiana …1976), involved in the salvage,
I’ll lay off a bit on the random collections, although all these fotos were taken last week by . . . Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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