Mercy Departs, Oh Mercy

As the sixth boro prepares to receive USNS Comfort,

on the other side of the continent earlier this week, USNS Mercy departed port of San Diego. No specific ETA is reported as yet for either vessel, as  . .  well . . . preps need to be made.

U.S.N.S. MERCY T-AH 19.
Seen leaving for the Port of Los Angeles to alleviate the burden on local hospitals there dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic by taking non-coronavirus afflicted patients.

► ONLY REPRODUCE WITH CREDIT GIVEN TO W. MICHAEL YOUNG ◄

 

Launched as SS Worth MA-299 on 1 July 1975 (in San Diego, California) and entered service as a hospital ship on 8 November 1986 (to US Navy).
Homeport in San Diego, California, she measures 894′ x 106.’
She is propelled by two boilers, two GE turbines, one shaft, 24,500hp (18.3MW) and can cruise at 17 knots.  Her complement is as follows:  12 civilian and 58 military during Reduced Operating Status, and 61 civilian and 1,214 military during Full Operating Status.  Her time to activate is 5 days
Photographed by W. Michael Young at San Diego, California on March 23, 2020.
© 2020 W. Michael Young
4629 Cass Street, PMB 78
San Diego CA 92109-2805
United States of America
► ONLY REPRODUCE WITH CREDIT GIVEN TO W. MICHAEL YOUNG ◄

As it turns out, Mercy went just outside the harbor and anchored, to complete preparations before deployment.  There are many closeup photos of the preps at the pier in the link in the previous sentence.

Also, click here to see a 1985 photo of USNS Mercy being created out of SS Worth, a San Clemente-class tanker.

Many thanks to W. Michael Young for the Mercy photos;  Comfort photo I took in Baltimore exactly 10 years ago this month.  Both vessels were built by NASSCO in the mid-1970s.

And entirely unrelated:  Has anyone ever seen El-Mahrousa, the 1865-launched Egyptian training ship?

GHP&W 22: Elizabeth River a

It’s still November 2015, so for me, it’s day 22 of this focus.

Let’s head south again from Hampton Roads, where a lineup of MSC vessels includes a supply vessel called Supply.

I guess this would be a small Navy yard tug.  Click here (and scroll) to see a variant with roll bars.   Here it closes the security gate after a Moran tug has come inside.

More security is provided by WPB-87329 Cochito.

In order from near to far on this foggy day are LSD-46 Tortuga, DDG-103 Truxton, and USNS T-AH-20 Comfort.

Emily Anne McAllister (2003) waits at the Norfolk International Terminals.

 

And there’s a long list of commercial tugboats, more than I want to squeeze into this post.  So let’s start with Ocean Endeavor (1966),

Night Hawk (1981),

 

Dauntless II (1953),

Choptank (2006),

Payton Grace Moran (2015),

Goose Creek (1981), and finally for now

Steven McAllister (1963).

All foggy/rainy photos above by Will Van Dorp.

One of these days we’ll meander farther south on the Elizabeth River aka ICW.  In the meantime, if you have photos of work vessels from any port huge or tiny, get in touch;  there are still a few days of November left.

And since we’re a week or so from December, my idea for next month’s collaboration is “antique/classic” workboats, functioning or wrecked.  Of course, a definition for that category is impossible.  For example, NewYorkBoater says this:  “The definition of an antique boat according to Antique and Classic Boating Society is a boat built between 1919 and 1942.  A classic was built between 1943 and 1975 and the term contemporary, are boats built from 1976 and on.”  Hmm . . . what do you call an old vessel built before 1919 . . . a restoration project?  antediluvian?

 

If you take another transportation sector–automobiles, you get another definition:  25 years old or more.    And for the great race, here were the rules for this year:  “Vehicle entries must have been manufactured in 1972 or before.”  Next year’s cut-off will likely be 1973.

So my flexible definition is  . . . photo should have been taken in 1999 or before, by you or of you or a family member, and in the case of a wreck, probably identifiable.  Exception . . .  it could be a boat built before  . . . say  . . . 1965.