Retro Sixth Boro (and beyond) 33

2011 began in Charleston, a great place to welcome a new year.  Strolling around, I encounter the 1962 75′ buoy tender Anvil, 75301, here made up to CGB68013.  In the background, that’s cutter Cormorant or Chinook.

Heading farther north a day or two later, it’s Hoss, sister of Patricia, and now habitat for fish and other sea life.  Click here to see her sink if you do FB.

Still farther north, I see this T-boat, a 1952 Higgins named for a high point in Ireland.

Lucinda Smith, then based in Maine, is currently based on Cape Cod.

Bering Sea, like a lot of K-Sea boat, has become a Kirby boat;  it is currently in Philadelphia.  According to Birk’s invaluable site, this boat was Stacy Moran for a short time.  I never saw it in Moran red.

Thanks to my friend Paul Strubeck, this Kristin Poling needed an assist from Cornell to get through an ice jam.  This is one of my all-time favorite photos.  It looks to me like a submarine in the very deeps.

McCormack Boys was active in the sixth boro back in 2011, and although she’s still working, I’ve not seen her in years.

I glimpsed Stephen Scott in Boston a few months back, but since this photo was taken, she’s lost the upper wheelhouse.

There’s classic winter light beyond Torm Carina, provisioned here by Twin Tube.  Torm Carina is currently in the Taiwan Strait. 

Later Margaret and Joan Moran assist the tanker westbound in the KVK while Taurus passes.  Taurus has become Joker, wears Hays purple, and I’ve not even seen her yet.  I guess it’s high time I hang out in Philadelphia again.

A wintry photo shows McKinley Sea in the KVK eastbound.  In the distance,

notice the now foreign-based Scotty Patrick Sky.  If you want to see her, gallivant to St. Lucia.  McKinley Sea is currently laid up in Louisiana.

Erie Service, now Genesis Valiant, pushes her barge 6507 westbound. 

And on a personal note, it was in January 2011 that I stumbled into a locality that had been attracting me.  I suppose if ever I created a retreat, I’d have to call it Galivants Hideaway.   Here‘s another Galivants Ferry set of photos.

Thanks to Paul for use of his photo.  All other photos, a decade back, WVD.

 

Leaving Bayonne

D … as in departure …  moment 00:00 for me, the observer with a camera over on the other side of the Kill, fascinated.    This foto is an arbitrary starting point for this series.  I love it about digital fotos that snap-time is recorded in the file.  By this instant, crew on Torm Carina have Margaret Moran‘s towline on.

00:03   Three seconds later, the same crew makes their way forward to stand by at Torm Carina‘s forward docklines.

00:45  45 seconds later, crew is standing by.

01:07   Just over a minute later, shore crew stands by to release the line on command.

15:40  Note that 15 minutes in, bow lines have been released and taken aboard the tanker. Margaret Moran throttles up to take slack out of the tow line.

17:21  A little later Joan Moran throttles up to move tanker stern away from the the dock.

19:16  Pilot and tanker crew monitor from the starboard bridge wing.

19:25  Margaret’s crew maintains a slow steady pressure.

21:38  I’ve no clue why this member of crew is stationed here, maybe he’s just taking a break, standing by.  My attention gets drawn to people, though.

26:40  Tanker has left the dock area and is proceeding westbound on the KVK.

30:22  Tanker passes R. H. Tugs with Margaret and Joan as escorts.

These fotos were taken on 1/27/2011 by Will Van Dorp.  As of this writing on 2/11/2011, Torm Carina is off Galveston, where … at sunrise today, Friday, the air temperature is not that much different than it is in NYC.

Realizing my role as outsider here, I know there’s a lot I don’t see, which reminds me of Mark Twain’s brilliant observations in “Two Views of the River.”   (…) mean I’ve taken liberties and edited Twain, for which I hope to get some forgiveness from Mr. Clemens.

“…when I had mastered the language of this water … every trifling feature that bordered the great river… , I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too … which could never be restored to me …. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone …! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as a opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.

But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight … upon the river’s face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have … should have commented upon it in … this fashion: ‘This sun means that we are going to have wind tomorrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling ‘boils’ show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the ‘break’ from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?’

… the romance and beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a … boat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor but a “break” that ripples above some deadly disease? … Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn’t he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?”     (1883)

And I will content myself to see this from the other side . . . .

Unrelated but reminiscent:  See a C tractor close up on Mage’s Postcards.  Thanks, Mage.

Jan Snow 1

In November the winds brewed up a season that has given people of all boros enough snow to raise the stock value of shovel manufacturers:  a crewman shoveling yesterday at the ferry fuel barges.  Doubleclick enlarges.

It covered everything like the  deck of small tanker Patrick Sky,

glazing surfaces on tormented Carina here taking on supplies from the deck of Twin Tube.

McKinley Sea still carried her

snowy trim, and

as did Laurie Ann Reinauer.

Even crew on tanker Lian An Hu cleared sixth boro snow.

And this ferry captain scraped clear the cowl after Newhouse was secured in Whitehall.

More NYC sixth boro snow fotos tomorrow.  For now, the final foto below comes thanks to Kyran Clune.  Guess the ferry and the location?  Answer tomorrow along with another foto of the same vessel.

All other fotos by Will Van Dorp, the morning after a storm that dropped 19′ on Central Park.   Uhhh . . . make that 19″   or it might be enough fell that a 19′ snow creature could be built beside Cleopatra’s needle.  (Nice catch, John!!)

According to NYTimes, January 2011 has already seen 36″ fall;  the previous high was 1925 with 27.4.