You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Volunteer’ tag.
I have represented these “retro” posts as a slice of the sixth boro exactly a decade ago, but it more like . . . what in the boro caught my attention. So welcome back to December 2009, as seen from today, December 2019, taking advantage of 20/20 hindsight. And, to digress, I’ll bet the term 20/20 [2020?] hindsight will seen a bit strange in the next thirteen months.
Over at South Street Seaport, a group of vessels then is no longer there: Marion M, Peking, and Helen McAllister. Of those, Peking, though not the oldest, has the longest and most convoluted saga.
Sea Raven is no more, but with those high pipes, she always caught my attention.
Cable Queen seemed to have a future back a decade ago, but naught seems to have come of it, since last time I looked, she was still docked in Port Richmond. For context to this photo of the 1952 vessel, click here.
NY Central No. 13, scrapped in 2017 . . . also seemed to have a future back in 2009, although the owner was not in a rush to complete the job.
In 2009, the sixth boro was in the midst of a several-billion-dollar dredge project, as folks were talking about these ULCVs that would be arriving after the opening of the new Panama Canal locks. GLDD’s dredge New York was part of that effort.
I don’t know if Volunteer is still intact, but I’ve not seen her in years. Here she lighters Prisco Ekatarina while Mark Miller stands by. As of this writing, Prisco Ekatarina is in the Gulf of Finland.
Does anyone know if Horizon Challenger, built 1968 in Chester PA, still floats?
Patriot Service currently works as Genesis Patriot.
I believe Escort is laid up.
And let’s close with these two. Below it’s the now modest looking Ever Divine and Tasman Sea, and assembling photos for this post, for the first time I see the Taz’ devil sign on the stern of Tasman Sea . . . Maybe I’d seen it before and just forgotten. Ever Divine is currently crossing the Indian Ocean.
There it is . . .
All photos taken in December 2009 by Will Van Dorp.
Here for some context is a post with drawings bowsprite did exactly a decade ago … .
I took the photo below of the same setting.
Whole fleets that existed a decade ago are gone. For example, K-Sea has been subsumed. Some boats like Maryland are still in the boro,
others are still on the East Coast but in other fleets like this Falcon.
But still others like Coral Sea and
and Baltic Sea have gone to another continent.
Others might be scrapped . . . like Volunteer and
Bismarck Sea.
Others like Adriatic Sea have crossed over to the other side of North America….
Another fleet subsumed under Kirby–as is K-Sea–is Allied. Here in July 2009, Sea Raven–now scrapped–and another Falcon have rafted up. Here’s the link to read in this post: how Sea Raven was built!!
Hornbeck had a fleet in the sixth boro, with their base in Brooklyn at the current Vane base. I don’t know what Atlantic Service is currently doing, if anything.
Spartan Service has been sold to a Mexican company,
Sandmaster was still sand mining with this rig. She was since sold to the Caribbean, and according to AIS, now flies the flag of Niger, which to me says she may be scrapped.
Cheyenne was still red back then, and has since changed colors twice, and exchanged salt water for fresh. She’s also won the International Tugboat Race on the Detroit River for the past two years.
And this Kristin Poling, 1934 built, still plied her trade, always a treat to see.
All photos from 10 years ago by Will Van Dorp, who is amazed by the amount of equipment change in the sixth boro in the past decade.
My rules for this series: all photos need to have come from the month in focus but exactly 10 years earlier. It’s a good way to notice change.
Take Capt. Log. I used to love seeing that boat, now long scrapped. I have photos of her as a heap of scrap pieces and have never posted them. I’m guessing the Chandra B crew are happy to have that new boat, but Capt. Log was such a unique sight.
Baltic Sea . . . I’d love to see a current photo of her from Nigeria. See more of her departed K-Sea fleet mates here. Sunny Express is now Minerva Lydia, and still working, I think.
Taurus has moved to the Delaware River and has some splotches of purple a la Hays.
Volunteer has been scrapped.
The orange June K is now the blue Sarah Ann . . . . I still miss that color….
Charles Oxman is no longer in service . . . I last saw her here in 2016.
APL Egypt used to be a regular here, and of course John B. Caddell . . .had only a few years left at this point before getting cut up. For a “what’s left . . .” of John B., click here and scroll.
I’m not saying everything is gone or has changed. Walker and Salvor still work here and –to the untrained eye–look exactly as they did a decade ago, even though these days from any distance, I can’t tell the distance between Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise. And those crewing on these two vessels, I can’t tell if anyone working then on each boat still does. For Walker, it’s very likely it’s an entirely new crew.
I hope you enjoyed this glance back.
All photos in February 2009 by Will Van Dorp.
. . . and beyond. Let’s start with August 7, 2008 . . . up by the Iroquois lock of the Seaway. And Canadian Provider . . . well . . . in 2013 she was towed to Aliaga as OVI, and scrapped. Note that she’s a straight-decker . . . no self-unloading gear.
August 14 . . . reef-making consisted of sinking subway cars. These went off Atlantic City. To see their condition now, click here.
August 16 in the Arthur Kill, Volunteer was off to remake the tow. Built in 1982, she met the scrappers earlier this year.
August 20 . . . Laura K and Margaret–I believe –have just helped Glasgow Express to Howland Hook terminal. Glasgow (2002) is still at work, and so are Laura K (in Savannah) and Margaret in the sixth boro.
August 23 . . . Colleen McAllister and Dean Reinauer bring a barge through the Gate, reading for the Sound. Colleen is now owned by for Port City Tug Company of Grosse Point. Has anyone seen her in operation? Dean went to Nigeria aboard Blue Marlin.
Christine M McAllister stands by in Erie Basin on August 24. This 6000hp tug is currently working down south of here.
August 27 . . . the reclusive Susan E. Witte eastbound and Adriatic Sea westbound. Beyond Adriatic, that might be Aegean. Adriatic is currently on a tow on the 2000+ stretch of Ocean between Honolulu and Kwajalein! Can someone confirm this? Nine years ago, I caught Adriatic near the Bear Mountain Bridge here (scroll).
August 29 . . . Coral Sea westbound, while later in the same day,
the scarcely-seen up here Paul T Moran heads for the Bridge while Maryland approaches from that direction. Coral Sea has gone to West Africa, Maryland has become Liz Vinik, and Paul T stays mostly around the Gulf.
The Tugboat Races and other contests were on the 31st that year. Here Justin shows good style hitting that bollard.
HMS Liberty mixes it up with some real history. Edith went down to Trinidad and the venerable Dorothy Elizabeth (1951) was scrapped the next year. Liberty is still in the sixth boro.
And to close it out . . . the 1907 Pegasus made a showing at the races that year. She’s laid up on the morris Canal so far as I know.
I hope you enjoyed these walks through waters no longer here.
Now my big announcement: as this posts, I’m on board Grande Mariner for the next seven weeks, Chicago bound. I will post when I can with what photos I can. But I’ve done that before. GWA (Going west again) was my series title last year. You have to read this one about my role on the vessel. GW was the title I used in 2016.
Maybe this year it should TGWYA . . . thank god i’m going west again . . . Anyhow . . . this is my version of a “gone fishing’ sign.
Sometimes I like to start new categories so that the numbers don’t get so high, boats no longer extant or frequent get a second look, and we realize that time is passing pretty fast. So all the photos here I took more than seven years ago. Some have been on the blog before, but not together and not edited exactly as they are now.
Like Norwegian Sea, she used to be a wintertime staple running up the River, easily recognizable by her upper wheelhouse.
Juliet is still around but not very busy under her new name . . . it seems.
This boat, like her namesake, is gone too soon. Pegasus is still around but no longer looks this way.
Zeus was on the Great Lakes after working in the sixth boro, but I’ve lost track of her.
Volunteer, another unmistakable profile, now long time gone from here.
Zachery . . . still around and still working. High Peace is now registered Vietnamese and goes by Pvt Dolphin.
Just to break the pattern here, here’s a photo I took of Zachery a few days ago.
Take my word for this last photo . . . the distant unit I can’t identify although I’m guessing a Reinauer boat, but the closer vessel is outrageous. Actually I mean Outrageous. That’s the name. Click here (and scroll) for a previous photo of Outrageous, which I believe used to be based in the sixth boro.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
See it there, the modest red covered barge between Wavertree and Peking? The steel covered barge is called Progress today. Once it transported coffee from ship to shore. I’m making a note to myself: learn more about these.
And right across the East River to the right of the firehouse at Fulton Landing, that modified but still modest white barge used to be Erie Lackawanna 375. It too transported coffee. More on this later. I took this foto 6/16/2009.
Here’s another modified coffee barge, this one just south of Camden, NJ, now the floating office of McAllister in that waterway.
It’s a counterpart to this McAllister office on the KVK. So given all these repurposed coffee barges I knew about, why
did it take me a day short of seven years doing this blog to go to Bargemusic, the EL 375 barge in the foto above? Shame on me, posing in the “shadow selfie” below, for waiting so long to check out this extraordinary barge.
I trekked out there yesterday in spite of the gusty sub-freezing weather to hear some music and have a look.
It was warm inside and the smell of old wood . . . I felt immediately welcomed. Note the brick fireplace to the left. Some wood from American Legion lives on here.
Jung Lin was warming up on the Steinway, as
was Andy Simionescu.
I didn’t–and one shouldn’t–take fotos during the performance, but during intermission, I went out onto the pier to see the view from the “back” of the stage.
Here’s the obit of founder Olga Bloom–with more info on her barge project– from the NYTimes almost exactly two years ago. From this article, I learn this was her third barge, that it was built around 1900, and that Peter Stamford was instrumental in getting it permission to dock at Fulton Landing. Here’s a spring 1978 article on what may have been Bargemusic’s first season. Here’s a link that gets you an interview with the current president and calendar of upcoming events. By the way, at 2:48 in that interview, a Bouchard tug passes eastbound on the East River.
Credits to those who offered marine trade skills and others can be found here.
Request: the bargemusic site credits a Captain Hearnley as the one to tow the barge to this location. Can anyone say anything about him? Does anyone know the name of the tug or . . . have a foto of that tow? When was the former EL 375 last hauled?
Final shot for today, a foto from 8/27/2010 of Volunteer passing bargemusic.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. If you have never been to bargemusic, you’ll thank youself if you go there SOON.
For two more repurposed barges serving as cultural centers, click here and here. Pennsy 399 will deliver sinterklaas to Kingston this coming week.
As I hiked along the KVK today, it seemed for a while that half at least the boats were K-Sea white with red and mustard trim. Of course, I’m known for the gift of selective vision. Not all the fotos below were taken today, but the enjoy the fotos.
First sea: Greenland Sea.
Nathan E. Stewart (2) nearer and (I believe) Lincoln Sea (3) farther off at the dock.
Nathan E. passing aframax Eagle Beaumont escorted by Marjorie B. McAllister.
Volunteer (4) on the far side of panamax Sanko Venture.
at the dock in Bayonne last week, and
back on the far side of Sanko Venture today.
Check out the color-coded piping on the barge Columbia. What word do I fail to make out on the hull: looks like S – A – U . . . .
Slinging the barge around today was Baltic Sea (5) .
Sixth sea is Houma . . although it’s not Houma Sea.
And the seventh sea
is Ross Sea, definitely surfing a sloping KVK today. Might it have been camera operator inclination?
So I’ve stopped counting. Tasman Sea.
and in Philadelphia last week, moving The Recycler down the Delaware was Falcon. Recycling what?
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Related: Here’s a list of all the seas as well as which ones figured in what different people called the “seven seas.”
Final shot: a color-adjusted (but not Warholized) foto of Davis Sea.
Lil Rip !! I’d seen this unique tug twice before; both times were in the Rondout on rainy, dark days. To see Lil Rip yesterday in the euphoric October light . . . it has been worth the long wait. Long waits usually make outcomes more satisfying, eh? Lil Rip, the Empire State Building and even the Chrysler Building! I am
satisfied. Now I understand why my friend Jeff Anzevino chased it through 30 miles of the upriver portion of the Hudson to get pictures a few days ago. Go, Jeff! I’d like to do a whole post on Lil Rip: the three-exhaust configuration itself qualifies as unusual. Help me with some specs/genealogy and I’ll put up more fotos. Here she’s following bulker Florence Lily, delivered by Oshima Shipbuilding in Spring 2009. Lil Rip brings dynamic color (October leaf-red & yellow) to the otherwise gray cityscape;
It’s Miss Gill (ex-Samson, Karl Foss, Mister Mike) 1970 last week and smaller sibling
Captain D (ex-Dick Bollinger) 1974 from last summer.
Christine McAllister (ex-William L. Conlon) 1975 of Great Lakes Dock and Dredge, and Kimberly Turecamo (ex-Rebecca P) 1980.
Penn No. 4 (ex-Morania No. 4) 1973.
Co (ex-Draco) 1951 and based in New Bedford! Some rainy day I can imagine the fun to be had figuring out “re-namings” for vessels using this subtraction method. Like Falcon could become Fa . . . or DEP North River could re-enter as No River . . . you get the idea.
Take my word for this one: the tug dividing the shimmery water from the wintry sky is Volunteer (1982).
McAllister Brothers has an interesting stack/top of wheelhouse line. I can’t help notice the drab yellow & red foliage on the far bank.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Check out Jeff’s 2010 calendars, one of which is a fundraiser.
Bonus: two more Lil Rip closeups. Portside . . . with Goldman Sachs in background; safety buoy is Albany . . .?
and starboard. And to add here what I put in comment, if Lil Rip is little, I’m eager to see Rip or BIG RIP!
M . . . mast. I love the wikipedia disambiguation pages, where a range of contexts for words like mast or masthead defies expectation.
Cornell sports its mast toward the stern; running lights there convey information about vessel size, type, and activity.
Clearwater, a sloop, has a one mast topping out at about 110 feet.
On City of Water Day, USACE Drift Collection vessel Hayward sports code flags on its mast and a sampling of collected debris on its foredeck.
Pioneer, a schooner, has two masts, the mainmast topped out at just under 77 feet.
Sandy Hook Pilots vessel Yankee has units (besides the radar and GPS) on its mast I can’t identify.
Bunkering tanker Capt Log‘s foremast carries a red flag, signaling fuel.
So does barge DBL 76. Mast height on Adriatic Sea is 85 feet, if airdraft equals height of the highest mast or antenna. I fear I might be blurring a definition here.
Volunteer, air draft of 114 feet and pushing DBL 105, meets Turecamo Boys assisting Seven Express out to to sea.
USCG WPB67356 Sailfish, not surprisingly, carries mast gear not readily identified by a civilian like me.
Miriam Moran, assisting with docking, keeps the upper portion of its mast safely lowered where flaring bows cannot damage it.
Masts can signal information but of course sometimes signaling is optional or even undesired. Masts allow things to be seen, but one has to know what should remain unseen. An effective mast needs strength, and sometimes that means it is flexible.
Both submarines and whaling ships have masts. For some good fun, check out this six-minute video of a struggle between Captain Ahab and Moby Das Boot.
Also, just for fun: How might you complete this sentence:
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Send me your original sentence completions.
Volunteer waits on the hook in Gravesend Bay in late March 2009, and thanks to Harold Tartell,
the same steel as Energy Altair, pushing an ammonia barge in the Mississippi watershed in this undated foto. Now I hate to dwell on superficialities, but I will say K-Sea has a more attractive color scheme.
Last summer while traveling the Mississippi watershed, I learned that “in Donaldsonville Louisiana. Natural gas is converted into ammonia and fertilizer. This ammonia is anhydrous, meaning it has no water in it. Pure ammonia is inside two cylindrical tubes insulated and kept at negative 26 degrees by two very powerful compressors that run on diesel. The ammonia gas from the tanks is its own refrigerant.
According to Martin Pepper, if a barge loses power to the compressor, the liquid will begin to boil. The tank safety valves will pop and ammonia gas is nasty. The best remedy for a breach is to spray the gas with a water spray and stay upwind. Lots of spray. Check Martin’s website here.
Lead photo: WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
Recent Comments