You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Tug44’ tag.
In part 1, Treasure Coast slowly made her way to mid KVK, and I thought it was to get fuel, but it was soon apparent that she was there for an assist, to help ATB Galveston and Petrochem Producer to get off the dock.
The scale of Galveston is apparent from the workboat; the tug is 144′ x 46′.
She’s slightly larger than Lynne M. Rose, and works with a total of 12,000 hp.
My vantage point has not changed here, so the movement here derives from the ATB powering astern.
Notice just to the left to the mooring line spools . . .
Normandy is the second assist tug.
Once the ATB is pointed east, the assist tugs back off.
Treasure Coast follows the ATB toward the Upper Bay.
As of posting, ATB Galveston/Petrochem Producer are off Palm Beach on their way to western Louisiana.
All photos, WVD, who has just confirmed a return to the bayous of western LA myself next week.
Unrelated: If you’ve always dreamed of owning a tugboat yacht, here‘s one that popped into my feed just before post time. Below are two photos I took of the same tugboat, Shenandoah, in Waterford on September 13, 2009.
Tug44 was a friend of the Buffalo-based owners at that time, Baltimore registry notwithstanding.
Fred left us yesterday, and he will be missed. Click on the photo below to see the source of this photo and read the context. Fred was a hilarious and complicated guy: born in Germany, raised in Canada and in the north country of New York State. I first met him on the Hackensack River in Secaucus, over by Snake Rock. After he retired and moved back to the north county of “Fort Ed’ard,” I would see him each year at the Tugboat Roundup. In fact, I alway had a berth on his boat at the Roundup.
From my perspective, Fred’s opus really was his website, the travels of Tug 44, named for his trawler, and accessible by clicking on the image below. In this screenshot below, you see only a partial list of his categories. Drill down to each of the categories, each of which contain almost infinite subsets of information.
Fred contributed to a number of tugster posts here. I know there are even more, but I’ve not always been consistent with my tags and categories. When I thought I knew the canal, Fred showed me there was so much more to learn, leading me to return again and again.
My first email contact with Fred came here in 2007, and our exchanges about the Dutch boat Livet led eventually to my meeting him in Secaucus.
In recent years, Fred had turned to wildlife photography and took many stupendously beautiful photos of “critters” in the north country here. If this is the only link you look at today from Fred’s site, you’ll be a big part of the afternoon admiring these.
Blogposts I did with photos I took from tug44 over the years are too many to post, but here are a few:
2014 and before I knew I would crew on Urger.
A favorite is this one from 2009, when I first learned firsthand what craziness ensues when you have a potato gun primed with hairspray and an armory of 50-calibre radishes . . . .
Hilarious, complicated, generous . . . Fred, you leave a hole in the universe.
Here in a milder season was the previous post by this name. And here and here are earlier posts with tenders.
But yesterday, along with a partner in crime to be identified later, we discovered not just one,
not just two,
but THREE tenders, hauled out like seals.
Wanna see that again?
How about a third count, just to make sure.
oh . . . partner in crime . . . is this a clue? Here’s the other tug44.
And motivation? Well, it WAS presidents‘ day. I hope this summer to find time to research the construction of these tenders, all of which I believe happened at Inner Harbor in Syracuse.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose fingers lasted in the cold long enough to take more, too, soon.
Inquiring minds have demanded more context . . . to Whatzit 16. It’s called Harvest Dome, SLO Architecture‘s fun art project, which is intended to float in the Gowanus near 3rd and 3rd til late Spring 2014 on the watery side of this place. Here are some fotos of the trip from Governors Island to the Gowanus Canal.
Note the Times photographer lower left here at the foot of the bridge and
lower right seen through the frame and recycled umbrellas. Unrelated: Check out this informative article on recycling in Taiwan.
R/V Blue Sea passes in front of Pier 5 BBP.
And since we’re on the topic of water and recreation and/or art . . . it’s Beacon NY and this sloop.
Woody. . .
as well as these arts panels. The next few fotos I took in August 2013.
The idea of these “line locker” posts is that they allow me to catch up and throw in even the kitchen sink if it relates in even the slightest way, check out this “river tug” byulit in St. Louis, MO by the same shipyard that built the Stephen L. Colby, which sank in the Upper Mississippi earlier this week. Check out the 1966 as well as the 1967 work on hull#2326. Now travel back on this shipyard list to the icebreaking tugs built in 1944 and ’45. Click on the foto below for more pics of these unusual looking US-produced tugboats. Does anyone have updates on this class of vessel?
Some random things I stumbled upon yesterday include these old fotos of NYC harbor aka sixth boro; a Canadian self-unloading bulker that was weather-bound off the mid-Jersey coast about a week ago was actually Algoma Equinox, a newbuild on its way to Canada from a Chinese shipyard; a Christmas train from Canada visits northern NY state and captured by Fred of tug44. (No, the train wasn’t captured per se. I just meant in fotos, although I’m sure Fred could always have surprises in store.)
Five (can it really have been that long ago!!?) years ago I did a series of posts counting down the days til the tugboat race: three . . . two . . . one. In these I speculated which boats might show. My goal had not been accuracy of prediction, and as it turned out, I was mostly wrong.
This post strives to accurately predict which vessels–some of which have appeared in previous races–will not appear.
Crow will be a no-show.
Juliet . . . disengaged.
Scott C and Dorothy Elizabeth . . . nope.
Ross Sea . . . you won’t see it.
Barney Turecamo . . . are you kidding?
Black Hawk . . . in the shop on the other coast. This foto and the one above come thanks to Seth Tane.
Bloxom . . . ? All she needs is some good slippery bottom paint and a tuneup . . . bet you could buy her cheap and still enter her in the race? Otherwise, she’s sidelined for now.
Handy Three came through the sixth boro just over a year ago . . . but she has other engagements this weekend.
Dean Reinauer . . . don’t expect this one, foto taken in a snowstorm the likes of which she’ll never see again . . in Nigeria.
Rosemary McAllister? She won’t race, I’d bet on it.
Labrador Sea? Reconfigured and reassigned.
Baltic . . . somewhere near the Equator.
Crow again . . . no. Sorry. Vernon C . . . no longer in the registry.
Urger? As a workboat, on Labor Day weekend, she’s laboring.
Rosemary . . . I reiterate . . she ain’t coming.
Shenandoah? No. Tug44 . . . is that really a tugboat? Would they actually allow her in the race?
To find out who will be there and to learn how you could even watch the race from a non-racing vessel, click here.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except the two provided by Seth Tane.
Related: I know from my analytics that this blog has readers in Nigeria. I’d LOVE to hear from you, specifically related to the tugboats formerly of New York USA and currently working in the Nigerian marine industries.
What’s this? Where? Answer follows. It’s not really sepia per se, just an approximation.
I took this foto a week ago, then stripped out the color. It’s Yemitzis, the former
PRR Philadelphia, launched 1954. Major modifications have happened between the two incarnations.
Here’s another foto I took last week, Resolute. With its ample pudding, it’s a perfect candidate to be sepia-fied.
The top foto was taken by Fred Wehner a few days ago; that’s not Rosie the riveter but Capt. Wendy Marble, working to prep her vessel Urger, for the 2013 season. Here, here, and here are some full color fotos previously featuring Urger, who initially looked like this over a century ago.
Thanks to Paul Strubeck for the foto of PRR Philadelphia.
My library for the time period January 1, 2012 until today contains 11,244 fotos. Starting from tomorrow, any 2012 fotos will be taken along the road. So I decided to choose ONE foto per month, quite subjectively and without regard for this foto having previously been featured here. I don’t claim these are the best of the month. Only 12 fotos, one per month.
January, Sandmaster . . . waiting to refuel. Today, Dec 22 . . . Sandmaster was out there doing what it usually does, mining sand.
February . . . Eagle Beaumont escorted in the Arthur Kill by Charles D. McAllister.
March . . . side by side, CSAV Suape and bulker Honesty, Pacific bound through the Miraflores locks, demonstrating graphically what panamax means.
April . . . red-trimmed Taurus west bound on the KVK, cutting past Advance Victoria. And just today, I saw Taurus, now blue-trimmed, heading north between Manhattan and Jersey City.
Choosing just one foto per month is tough, but for May, here’s Swan packed and almost ready to go hulldown toward Africa with these specimens of the Crowley, Reinauer, and Allied fleets.
June . . . Weeks Shelby tows shuttle Enterprise from JFK toward Manhattan.
July and an unforgettable 4th using Pegasus as subject under the rocket’s glare
August . . . and coal-fired Badger heads into the sunset . . . and Wisconsin.
September, and a parade of vessels including Urger and Buffalo leave the Federal Lock bound for Waterford. My inimitable platform here is Fred’s Tug44.
At the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner race, crew is setting sail on the unique tugantine Norfolk Rebel. In the distance, it’s Pride of Baltimore 2.
Coming into the home stretch from Montreal, it’s Atlantic Salvor delivering segments of the WTC1 antenna.
And December . . . it’s Stena Primorsk looming over the USCG vessels. At this time, Stena Primorsk was impatient to load that first hold with “north dakota crude,” only to experience the malfunction that has left her temporarily disabled upriver, its outer hull gashed open.
Tomorrow I hit the road . . . gallivanting and visiting season. I thank all of you for reading, many of you for helping me get these fotos, lots of you for correcting my errors and supplying missing info. Happy New Year and let’s pray for much-needed Peace on Earth . . . .
Canals are like bridges . . . points of connections, although “bridge” gets used much more as the verb for “crossing the otherwise uncrossable.” As with bridges, canals create clusters . . . centers of
communication and cooperation.
Archways can easily be created.
Within canals you find vessels passing through with connections from many different places, like White Horse and
Telluride?!!
and
Norfolk by way of Montreal . . .
and Florida . . . nearing its highest point of navigation…
Vermont, and
and Albany by way of Owen Sound, Halifax, and the Potomac . . .
Roundup tales to be continued . . . . Will Van Dorp’s fotos.
A truckable tug named Mame Faye and her tow anchor outside the current near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Idyllic . . . serene, sleepy upstate river banks . . . eh? She’ll be back.
Here tugs Empire and Shenandoah tie up on the opposite bank of Mame Faye and along the bulkhead.
Farther east is The Chancellor, with twin stacks arranged longitudinally.
Still farther east inside LehighValley Barge 79, speakers like Jessica DuLong and Don Sutherland mesmerize with their tales and chronicles of the river.
Captains Bill and Pam park their powerful machines to rest and enjoy the quiet of oars moving in and out of the fresh water.
Rain showers come and go and no one cares. Lined up behind Empire are Little Bitt, Gowanus Bay, Benjamin Elliott, and Margot. It’s another lazy day at the Roundup.
What’s this on the foredeck of Bill’s Eighth Sea? Looks like PVC, hairspray, and . . . radishes?
And Captain Fred has gotten involved. This looks . . .
ominous, especially after he went to the supermarket for 50-calibre radishes, the most lethal kind.
As dusk falls, that same Captain Bill boards Mame Faye to maneuver the barge into the middle of the stream, which is now closed to traffic, for it will soon be time to
see the scene change and
How to describe that: part night harbor scene, rock concert, traffic jam, railroad crossing, cacophony, simulated war zone, kaleidoscope, popcorn popper, video game, confetti, aquatic bioluminescence gone wild, volcano, apocalypse . . . Oh, and I’ve always preferred seeing the flashes reflect in water to seeing them in air.
Now who do you suppose Mame Faye was? Elizabeth toots Mame‘s horn here.
All fotos and video by Will Van Dorp.
Unrelated . . . the Dutch barge flotilla probably moves through the Hudson Highlands and northward today; if you get good fotos and want to share, email me.
Fred is one of many fine folks I’d never have met if I hadn’t started this blog. And this weekend, I learned that Fred’s inspired some friends from one of my other networks, who read this article, to lust for their own pleasure tug. I took this foto from Rhinecliff last spring; Fred’s at the helm.
Fred took this foto of tug44 a few weeks ago, just before haul-out. By now the drain plug has been pulled on his part of the canal.
Now how do you suppose he manages to fit this powerplant into his American Tug?
Uh . . . well, actually this is the 16-cylinder diesel of Cornell.
If you’ve never visited Fred’s site, check it out.
Photos, WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments