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As of this morning, USS Slater is back to Albany again, after its latest shipyard visit.
Below, thanks to Tim Rizzuto, are some photos from exactly 27 years ago, showing two McAllister tugboats assisting the large Russian, now Ukrainian, tugboat Gepard, which successfully delivered Slater from the Mediterranean to the sixth boro. I know this is a digression, but Gepard has an “exciting” history. It’s still working, currently in the Black Sea.
Maybe someone can assist in identifying the two McAllister tugs. This photo shows the significant difference in beam: Gepard 66′ and Slater 37’…
From 1993, let’s jump to 1997. Jeff Anzevino got the following photos as the destroyer escort made its initial trip up the Hudson to Albany. Jeff has contributed many photos to this blog, going back almost to the beginning. The tug pictured her is Rainbow, currently called Patriotic, which has been in the Morris Canal for quite a long time. Patriotic is a 1937 Bushey build.
Also assisting in the 1997 tow were Benjamin Elliot and Mame Faye!
Jeff also caught the tow back in 2014. And . . . is that Margot on starboard? That IS Benjamin Elliot on port.
Many thanks to Tim Rizzuto and Jeff Anzevino for use of these photos. If you’re interested in donating to USS Slater.org to help defray expenses, click here.
I’d really appreciate identification of the McAllister tugs above.
My previous Slater posts can be found here.
Yes, I missed doing this in July, so today I play catch-up.
Three vessels were on the July page. First, it’s Louis C, a small tanker reborn as a small crane ship. I was last aboard her on a very cold morning in January 2020. The enclosed workshop forward of the wheelhouse features a wood burning stove that has no appeal in August but was very welcome in January.
Fugro Enterprise, now as then, is working off Atlantic City, making bathymetric charts of the area where the 99 turbines of Ocean Wind will soon sprout above the surface of the waves.
The third and more prominent boat on the July calendar page is Nathan G, and rather than use a photo from July 2019, let me put up this one from July 2020, where Nathan G is one of the tugs escorting USS Slater to the dry dock. That dry docking will soon be finished, and Nathan G will possibly accompany the destroyer escort back to Albany. For more info on Slater and memberships, click here.
For August, on 17 August 2019 at 0615 and we were at the western end of Lake Ontario approaching Port Weller. You’re looking over the after deck of Grande Caribe. In case you’ve not heard, Blount Small Ships Adventures made a shocking announcement this Monday that their BSSA vessels are for sale.
Welland Canal pilot vessel Mrs C approached ready to deliver a pilot, having just
retrieved one from the down bound Federal Yukina.
A few days later in August at 0722 and at the northern end of Crystal Island in the Detroit River, about 50 miles north of Toledo OH and 25 south of Detroit MI, we passed
Edgar B. Speer as she was about to enter the down bound lane between Crystal Island and Stony Island.
Speer is one of the 1000-footer, aka “footers” who ply the Upper Lakes unable to get beyond Lake Erie because they greatly exceed the dimensions of the Welland Canal. Speer‘s cargo capacity is 73,700 tons. That would be a lot of trucks.
All photos, WVD.
The whole trip, dock to dock, lasted almost exactly 24 hours, although given some delays, it could have been a few hours shorter. Call this post “day and night,” or more accurately, “day, night, and day.” Here was part a.
Let’s start some hours later on day 1. Most river traffic does not draw spectators like this did.
Even the family dog came out.
Twelve or so hours after that, a blistering summer sun had given way to the Thunder moon, here lighting a path northeastward from Staten Island. I took this photo before 0500.
After biding time for a few hours here,
Nathan G let go lines and Slater began the final leg of the trip to the yard; Sarah D is over there, but the illusion is almost that Slater is underway on her own power,
watchman mimicking deck gun, pointing the way.
Once in the KVK, a blazing summer sun returned, replacing the Thunder moon.
Pier assignment received, the tugs eased the destroyer escort into the dock.
Many thanks to Bill Stolfi and Steve Munoz for the first three photos; the sixth boro harbor photos by WVD.
Here , here, and here were posts from the 2014 dry-docking.
In July 2020, she heads down to Staten Island for another dry-docking, partly to address issues other than in 2014. The photo below captures an 0600 view. Today’s post covers the first three hours of the next 24, as it makes its way down to the Staten Island shipyard. Tug Sarah D (roughly 90′ x 29′ and rated at 2000hp) arrives. It’s a spectacular morning.
The ship and museum are located near the “U-Haul truck on building” which you may see driving through Albany NY, and have no idea what lies below on the river.
By 0730, Nathan G (roughly 73′ x 24′ and 1200hp) has arrived, and both tugs and all three crews are ready to move; a series of unheard commands, a burst of power, a foamy wake, a tensing of the towlines, a hint of expended fuel . . . and
away they go. The wealth of spectators reported farther downriver is already evident here. Does anyone have photos showing the crowds on the shore? Please get in touch if you are willing to share photos showing this.
Sarah D rotates Slater 180 degrees to point her downstream toward the tank farms and grain silos of Port of Albany. The dimensions on Slater are 306′ x 37.’ Her engines are “cosmetically maintained” and she has an operating generator.
By the time the tow passes the very Dutch place name of “Paarda Hook,” or Horse Point, it is already 0830, and we, aboard the warm and elegant Dutch Apple II, turn back.
More tomorrow. Here’s Slater‘s history. Her namesake is Frank O. Slater, a USN seaman who died near the Solomon Islands during an attack on USS San Francisco in November 1942. Here’s an extensive history.
A bit more detail I learned, and hopefully noted accurately, aboard Dutch Apple II: Slater is one of 479 destroyer escorts built that remained in the USN, 44 of which were named for seamen from New York state. She’s the only one preserved in the US. Her mission, with her 216 sailors, was to accompany the North Atlantic convoys, of which she performed five; no vessels were lost to U-boats during those five crossings. After four years in the USN, she was sold to the Greek Navy, where she served forty (!) years; hence many more Greek seamen served aboard her than US seamen.
The dazzle paint reproduces her appearance during WW2; it was intended to confuse U-boats of her type and direction so that any torpedoes fired would more likely miss their targets. After the U-boats were equipped with acoustic (sound homing) torpedoes, she and other DEs would tow foxer (or FXR) cables [aka Kreissäge (circular saw) or Rattelboje (rattle buoy)] to lead the torpedoes off course.
For more info on the museum, click here. If you use Facebook, they are here.
To repeat, I’m interested in photos of the crowds along the river Sunday to greet the ship; I’m also interested in photos of Slater alongside Intrepid from 1993 until 1997 and the initial tow upriver in 1997.
Legs 2 and 3 are West Point to Kingston, and then Kingston to Troy to lower the boat for clear passage through the Erie Canal.
Starting below, leaving West Point,
passing Buchanan 12,
HR Otter,
looking back toward Catskill,
meeting
Craig Eric Reinauer,
in awe in Coeymans seeing Eli (which I first misread as ELF) and
Ocean Tower,
passing port of Albany and BBC Vela,
seeing Slater in the morning light, and finally
after tying up at Troy, reconfiguring the boat for the Erie Canal.
Leg 4 starts at noon today as we head for a night in Amsterdam.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
or I can call this Port of Albany 2, or better still Ports of Albany and Rensselaer. Albany’s fireboat Marine 1 has been on this blog here. Anyone know where it was built?
The port has not one but . . .
but two large cranes.
And bulk cargo is transferred through the port in both directions, whether it be solid or
dusty.
Over on the Rensselaer side, scrap seems to be a huge mover.
North of Port Albany is USS Slater, about which lots of posts can be found here. But it’s never occurred to me until now that the colors used by Slater camouflage and NYS Marine Highway are a very similar gray and blue!
Kathleen Turecamo (1968) has been in this port–135 miles inland–for as long as I’ve been paying attention, which is only a little over a decade.
This September, NYS Canal Corp’s Tender #3, which probably dates from the 1930s, traveled south to the ports of Albany and Rensselaer.
The port is also a vital petroleum center, both inbound and out.
With the container train traffic along the the Hudson and the Erie Canal, I’m only less surprised than otherwise that Albany-Rensselaer currently is not a container port.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s general info about the Port of Albany, although a lot of info there seems a bit out of date. For a blog that visits visits the ports of Albany and Rensselaer more regularly, check here. Here’s the port of Albany website.
And last but not least, check Mark Woody Woods’ broad sampling of ships heading to and from Albany-Rensselaer.
In reverse commentary on the photos above, photo #9 just above was the heron that checked me back into Waterford after seven days on the Canal. Photo #1 way above is the heron that stood guard in Oswego. In between . . . Margot and Cheyenne headed west and then east. Enjoy these photos sent along on this inflexible old laptop. As of this writing, I’m guessing Margot is approaching the sixth boro for the dazzled Slater move tomorrow. I hope my sixth boro friends get good pics of the move from KVK to albany.
More photos soon.
Last May I traveled willingly into around a corner in time . . . enjoyed it, and posted the “fifth dimension” series that ended with this post. So I toying with the idea of strolling into another. Sadly, about all I know about these photos –other than that they show the sixth boro as it was more than half century ago–is the dates and some names. I hope someone can add some information.
NYPD, 1949. Launch is named for Patrolman/Boatswain’s Mate 2nd class Robert Steinberg, who died in March 1945 while serving in the Navy.
1951 departing (for where?) troopship City of Keansburg. Tug is unidentified.
1952. Lehigh Valley Victor. Notice the Woolworth Building near the left margin of the photo and the Singer Building –demolished 1968– near the center. Is Victor considered a tug?
July 1952 . . . Carol Moran and two other tugs, near Haverstraw.
1953. East River . . . tugboat is Manhattan, floating property of the Department of Docks but I’ve found nothing else. The building partially shown along the left is 70 Pine–I think, and the building in the center of the photo is 120 Wall.
Photo taken by Allen Baker in April 2014 . . . last week . . . of a USS Slater, launched and patrolling the oceans before the photos in this post were taken. Obviously, I’d love to know more about all these vessels.
All these photos can be found in the NYC Municipal Collections.
Oh . . if you recognize the “corner in time”reference in the first line . . . here’s the music, one of my all time favorites.
Here was Day 1, and here was a time before that.
Compared with this photo of Aetos, ex-USS Slater‘s looking good. Here’s their newsletter, although they do a lot on Facebook.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Call this hull up for action. Slater is back in the sixth boro for the first time in 17 years. Anyone have photos of her in New York waters from 1994 until 1997?
Here’s the platform where a vessel who served two nations will get “hull work” for the next nine weeks or so.
Compare this stern shot of Slater with this one of Kidd.
And so the work starts . . . with no time lost from day 1.
All photos byWill Van Dorp.
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