Sixth Boro Traffic 3

This title goes back more than 10 years.  But I got some congested photos recently, so I dredge up an old title.  Count the boats of all sizes here.  Of course, foreshortening makes them seem much closer to each other than they really are.  I count at least 12 vessels on the photo below, including some I had not noticed when I took it.

There are five here, and maybe two miles of separation between the two container ships.

Three operations were happening simultaneously in this stretch of the channel, and all were either stemming or moving very slowly.

Again, there’s lots of foreshortening here.

It may be exhilarating to get this close to a large ship, but if your engine stalls . . .  stuff’ll happen really fast.

Here’s a different sort of “traffic” photo from august 31, 2008 . . . exactly 12 years ago.  And it gives me an idea for a post.  By the way, left to right, can you name at least half of the 12 boats at least partly visible here?

All photos, WVD.

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Government Boats 12

When tugs race on Sunday, government boats will officiate.  Here are a few players.

When Liberty IV splashed into her element in 1989 at the Washburn & Doughty yard in East Boothbay, ME, she began a career that she still occupies:  to ferry Park Service employees and supplies from the “mainland” to several stops in the sixth boro archipelago, i.e.,  Liberty Island and Ellis Island.  Besides bearing a heritage relationship with such diverse vessels as Pati T. Moran, Shearwater, and Black Knight, she also carries a unique escutcheon on her stern.

Does anyone have fotos of Liberty I or II or III?  Would Liberty I be sail or steam?

John D. McKean, foto taken one sunset a few weeks back, started service in 1954, first splashing into the waters in Camden at John H. Mathis, the same yard that built Mary Whalen!

A Perth Amboy Fire boat zipped eastward in the KVK last month.  That’s K-Sea Baltic Sea in the background.

USACE Moritz, in  hurry toward Newark Bay last week. Moritz comes from Kvichak Industries, soon

disappeared round the bend at Bergen Point.

Other recent fotos of government boats include this ones entrusted to  Union County (New Jersey)  Police,

and New Jersey State Police.

Finally, certainly NOT a government boat, but a German ship that has vessels that experiment with alternative propulsion.  Foto was taken by bowsprite from her cliff last week.  Did anyone catch the name?

Finally, as of Wednesday morning writing, Flinterduin will approach the Narrows near dusk tonight and start offloading tomorrow at dawn.  And I have to be at work . . . from dusk today until dawn Friday . . .  maybe I can sneak away to do tugster’s bidding.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.