People on the Boro 22

It has suddenly gone from winter to limbo to spring, and that brings folks outside.

Out in small boats, meetings for dock plans,

surveying this strange place called NYC,

keeping bow watch,

racing geese,

or stowing wires . . .

 

 

 

it’s all easier on spring days like this.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Riverbanks 10

Here are previous installments focusing on background.

Sometimes the partial reveal and the juxtaposition highlight what’s on the shorelines, like those triple deckers in Bayonne that would blend in perfectly in many 19th century mill towns.

Or the hugely forgotten Singer plant in Elizabeth, hugely forgotten by most residents of Elizabeth, that is.  Imagine, if someone could turn the clock back on that one, 10,000 people would have manufacturing jobs . . . either sewing machines, or

weaponry of all sorts.

 

But one detail on the bank over by the NJ-side of the Bridge caught my attention.  So I thought these beams would be trucked from the disappearing bridge to a scrapping yard.  How surprised I was when the crane lifted the beam off the truck not 1000 feet from where they’d been on duty for decades and

lowered them

one after the other

to what might be a series of trucks below.  I can’t quite see what becomes of the beams on the ground at Bergen Point.  And I think that’s the Passaic small boat.  ??

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Keep your eyes open and stay safe.

Morning KVK 3

0r . . . from Creativity to a Barefoot Princess in the time some folks sleep in on Saturday mornings.

0826 . . . from my office near Snug Harbor, I see this parcel tanker pass inbound.

0828, from near to far . . . Morton S. Bouchard Jr. , Creativity, and UACC Falcon on intial prep for a local shift east ward.

0914 . . .  Atlantic Salvor drags a scow of bottom carving while Brian Nicholas (?)  hauls paper for recycling.  That’s Marion Moran lower left taking Falcon‘s stern.

0928 . . . Brasil-bound Orange Star meets inbound OSG 350 pushed by OSG Vision . . .

0932 . . . Orange Star meets Zim Texas . . .  with a cluster of tugs off her starboard side.

0938 . . . HOS Energy 11104 tails Orange Star.  Siberian Sea appears to be Orange Star’s escort, although really she’s not.

0953 . .  . Geese flee approaching Falcon and Gramma Lee T Moran.

1036 . . . looking along the flared bow of sea-bound NYK Joanna.

1037 Ellen McAllister trails Joanna outbound.

1055 . . . bulbous bow of Porto begs for paint, maybe the image of a ferocious eye would fend off all inattentive traffic.

1056 . . . Porto meets MSC Federica.

left to right . . . 1058 MSC Federica, Zim San Francisco, Porto.

1107 . . . under the flare of Zim San Francisco, last appeared on this blog here.  And that’s Vane’s Wicomico out between Robbins Reef Light and Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower (1929) in the distance.

1113 . . . San Fran, Bruce A., and Elizabeth.  San Fran last appeared in the blog inbound as seen from the Bayonne Bridge four months ago here.

1121 . . .  Atlantic Concert heads inbound escorted by Ellen.

1144 . . . what’s this crabby thing?

It’s my princess . . .

called either Barefoot Princess or Welcome to Patchogue.  Note . . . that “patchogue” is a two syllable word.  Twelve years ago, while going to that town to see a man about a boat, I made the error of asking if I was in “pa CHO gee” rhymes with “patchouli,”  sort of.

All fotos taken from my KVK offices this morning.

Afterthought:  Do you suppose Patchogue is unilaterally annexing NYC’s sixth boro?

Rounding Bergen Point 2

10:18  Note Shooters Island.  Charles D. McAllister is on port bow, out of sight.  An unidentified Vane unit (yellow front) stands off to allow the containership to round the bend.  Maurania III is on starboard near stern.

Bergen Point is more than a 90-degree turn.

10:21  With the Zim ship through the turn, the Vane unit moves through.  The tug upper right hurries toward the Arthur Kill for an assist there.

1036.  It took me less than 15 minutes to get to Faber Park aka “the swimming pool” for these.  In the meantime, a Bouchard unit rounded the point westbound after the Vane unit had passed eastbound.

African Spirit is next to round the bend.10:37.  Ellen (ex-YTB 793)  on the port bow.  That link takes you to Jed’s recent post about his YTB experience.

As it turns first to starboard and then to port around Shooters and into the Arthur Kill, here’s the surface governing a large part of the force.

10:39.  The tow passes Laura K. about midway through.

Less than 20 minutes after assisting the Zim ship, Charles D. is on the stern of African Spirit.

10:40

By now . . . a little over a week later, the Zim ship is in Jamaica*, and African Spirit is out of AIS range, somewhere southward.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

* Not surprisingly, as of midnight, March 7 into 8, Zim San Francisco awaits passage through the Panama Canal at Colon.

Rounding Bergen Point 1

That bit of land on the upper right of the foto is Bergen Point.  The shadow I hope you recognize as my favorite bridge, and the Sunday morning light plays with the water, bridge, and the pinkish

bulbous bow.

Here, at 10:14 the tug is 1967-built Charles D. McAllister, featured in countless posts in my archive.  Note the boxes on deck of fastening hardware

to keep the stacked containers securely lashed together.

Note Charles D. again, as it assists the 902′ loa x 105′ Zim San Francisco in rounding Bergen Point.   In the distance on this side of Shooter’s Island, a yellow-fronted Vane unit stands off.

Behold the nostril!

Complementing Charles D.’s effort, it’s Maurania III starboard stern quarter.

Zim San Francisco rounds safely despite the general gustiness.  Once a safe rounding is confirmed,

10:21 a.m.  Charles D. spins around, racing back to the west end of the KVK to assist the next vessel westbound under the Bayonne Bridge, while Brendan Turecamo heads over to the Arthur Kill for an assist there.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Footnote:  last Sunday I took fotos of APL Indonesia as it exited the east end of the KVK for sea.  Last night . . . i.e., seven days later, I took this “screen grab” of the same vessel standing off the Panamian port of Colon waiting to enter Manzanillo port!!

Meditations Z

Z . . . the end.   Of the alphabet but not the blog.  This A through Z set of meditations–with one medication slipped in on Q day–happened quite by chance.  If I am moved to repeat the series, Z could be ZULU time, z-drive or Zuider Zee.  Or Zachery Reinauer (Cohoes, NY-built and ex-Mobil 1 and Tioga)  . . .

or Zim San Francisco,

one of more than 40 vessels operated by Zim Integrated Services.  Again below is Zim San Francisco and McAllister Sisters.

Or Zhen Hua 10, one of many differing only in the number suffix.

Or Zim Qingdao or

Or Zim Shenzhen.

Or Zim Virginia . . . here following Mary Gellatly.

But actually I’m reflecting on something different . . .  non-tangible.  Zulu tango, my invented term for

“zero tolerance,” a term which is way overused.  Zulu tango (“zebra tango”  . ..  some striped equines doing a sultry dance snout à snout  . . . would be more fun to imagine) or ZT gets my complete support in some areas, like operating any large or lethal machine under “the influence.”  But then ZT gets overused . . . like in the case of the “end of the pocket knife.”  It reminds me of the time I was almost arrested as I entered the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian just after sailing:  when they ran my backpack through the scanner, they found my boat “tool” and spike, which I’d forgotten was there.

So here’s my list of  ZT acts:  no postponing projects, no assuming outcomes, no ducking disagreement, no enabling chaos, no hobbling myself, no losing sight of priorities . . . .and I guess I might as well say . . . no excessive zebra tango.    Thank you for bearing with me in this series of meditations.  Time to move on, although I’m happy to hear your association(s) with different letters of the alphabet in this vein.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Ships in the Day

Bowsprite put up an interesting post recently of shots made sans tripod showing ships passing in the night as some runny ooze (oozy run?), but it’s pretty and she herself makes comparisons with fruitcake, which I like.  But I wish to show here that ships do NOT always pass in the night, do NOT always approach and separate without making a difference or lasting impression.  They also pass in the day, in the effulgence of 10 am springtime warm sun.  Like Zim San Francisco,

Dynamic Express with its orange shimmer on the water that would give Monet inspiration,

Dynamic Express neither upwind nor upriver but surely uplight,

Zim San Francisco uplight,

Atlas Valor being muscled like a heifer on a halter and

struggling back against Rosemary‘s bollard pull,

Azov Sea offloading not unlike a nursing mammal (the young here being IMTT Bayonne,

with crew boat Matthew Scott passing above and Bismark Sea (I think this is a first appearance for Bismark Sea on this blog.) and Turecamo Boys passing below,

and Jo Ask of

somewhat web-secretive Jo Tankers.

Some interesting statistics on the decline in shipping demand and prices can be had in this article from a recent issue of the New York Times.

Remember . . . ships do NOT only pass in the night.  I prefer mine in daylight, if I might choose.

Photos, WVD.