Retro Sixth Boro 23

Coastline Girls and many other names including Gage Paul Thornton and  ST-497, the 1944-build now sleeps deep in Davy Jones locker,  and was not an intentional reefing.

It’s been a while since I last saw Mcallister Sisters, shown here passing the Esopus Meadows light.  If I’m not mistaken, she’s currently based in Baltimore.

Ten years ago, this boat had already been painted blue over orange, but she still carried the June K name board.

Socrates, classic lines and a classic name, has since gone off to Nigeria, riding over in mid-2012 on a heavy lift ship called Swan.

Urger on blocks in Lyons . . . one would have thought then that she’d run forever.  These days she’s back on blocks at the eastern end of the Canal.

And February 2010 was the time of prime iceboating, and that’s Bonnie of frogma.

James Turecamo, with its wheelhouse down as I rarely saw it, works these days upriver as far north as Albany.  Photo by Allen Baker.

Brandywine and Odin these days spend most of their time on Gulf of Mexico waters.

Gramma Lee T Moran straining here as she pulled the tanker off the dock.  She now works in Baltimore.

In the foreground, East Coast departs the Kills;  I can’t say I recall seeing her recently,but AIS says she’s currently northbound north of the GW.    In the distance and approaching, June K, now Sarah Ann, and she regularly works in the sixth boro.

All photos, except Allen’s, WVD, from February 2010.

I have to share back story about getting that top photo.  I was on foot on Richmond Terrace walking east toward Jersey Street when I saw the Coastline tug and Hughes barge.  I didn’t recognize the profile and realized I could get the photo ONLY if I ran.  At the same time, I noticed an NYPD car had pulled over another car, and you know, it’s never a good idea to run for no apparent reason when the police are nearby.  But . . . you understand my dilemma:  walk and miss the shot, or run and maybe attract the curiosity of the police officer.  I ran, got the shot, and sure enough, the police called me over and wanted to know what I was doing.  Since I knew I’d done nothing wrong except appear suspicious, I gave him my business card and launched full tilt into my “new yorkers are so lucky because they are witness to so much marine business traffic, and why didn’t he too have a camera and join me watching and taking photos of the variety of vessels . . . .”  You can imagine the stare I got.  My enthusiasm failed to move him.  No handcuffs, no taser, not even a ticket, but an impassive gaze from a weary officer of the law possibly wondering  if I’d escaped from an institution or a time warp.  He wrote up a report and left me with this advice:  don’t run when you see a police officer nearby.  “Yessir,” I said, thinking . . . well sure, but I’d likely do it again if I again noticed something unusual transiting the waterway.  Since then, though, I’ve not had any further encounters with the LEOs, at least not on the banks of the sixth boro.

Gazela Returns to Philly

To see an excellent Flickr foto of Gazela by Gregg M, click here.  And for an account plus video of Gazela‘s trip to New Bedford earlier this summer, click here. For my earlier pics of Gazela in Atlantic Basin Red Hook, click here.

As Gazela sailed back to Philly between daybreak last Wednesday and late afternoon Thursday, I was fortunate to be a very “green” member of the crew, my first time sailing on a barquentine.  Other vessels passed and overtook us, and I’m including those fotos here in hopes that anyone aboard these other vessels who photographed us might be willing to share those shots of Gazela.  Please do.

Gazela departs through the Narrows under a drizzle;  precipitation had been off and on for three days, delaying departure by 48 hours.  (For pics, doubleclick enlarges.)

From midships, looking aft . . . notice the crew wearing foulies.

Tanker British Serenity overtakes us outside the Narrows.  By sunset, 10 hours later, we’d motorsailed off Atlantic City, surfing swells and getting soaked with on & off drizzle.

Skies clear overnight, giving us a just-past-full moon.   I stand a midnight–6 am watch from Cape May and up Delaware Bay.  This is sunrise.

After breakfast, I nap for an hour until a lurch awakens me.  “Must be someone’s wake,” I imagine, grab my camera, and go on deck.  I believe it was Amberjack, also headed up the Bay.

Astern, two vessels are catching up to us:  broad on the port beam were EPA-Bold and Vane Brothers Brandywine.

For info on what Bold is doing in Delaware Bay and its schedule for the rest of 2010, click here.

If you have Thursday morning fotos of Gazela, please get in touch.  I have additional Bold shots.

Doubleskin 141 looks formidable as it passes and

soon leaves us astern just

southeast of the PSEG power plants.  By the way, light was unfavorable to get fotos of the five wind turbines in Atlantic City.

Amsterdam-registered Suomigracht passes us.  For more Suomigracht shots, click here and here.

Austin Reinauer was anchored just south of the C & D Canal.

Near the Delaware Pennsylvania line, we cross paths with Aframax tanker Amalthea, which may or may not

have delivered Venezuelan crude.

Gazela was built in Setubal, Portugal;  as such, which language might you expect here?  A primary wood used is angelique.

A trip that begins in rain might end like this:  honey colored sunshine after a trip well done, this member of the crew a little less green.

If you were on any of the vessels above and have pics of Gazela, please get in touch.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

Many thanks to the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild and wonderful crew for the opportunity to sail.  If you are interested in volunteering, click here.  Gazela expects to be back up through the sixth boro once more this fall.

Random Tugs 23

Countdown begins. Five days left. As training perhaps, Cheyenne pushes gravel,

Joan Turecamo froths up the KVK,

Labrador Sea and Taurus diverge off Mariners Harbor (foto thanks to Jed),

Marie J McAllister, Pati R Moran, and the sweet Brandywine converse in Bayonne,

Might those above raft up at Pier 84 in five days as these did last year?

Might they churn up the Hudson as Urger and Hackensack did two years ago?

Unrelated update on a delivery–not of pizza—but of cranes. Below is Zhen Hua 10 in Port Elizabeth as of mid-day Tuesday, August 26.

Photos, WVD.